Blog
In 2017, CPD launched the María Fund (MF) to provide emergency funding to Puerto Ricans devastated by Hurricane María and raised over $7 million to help community-based groups. Earlier this year, the MF Advisory Committee, MF staff, Puerto Rico affiliate Taller Salud, and CPD leadership met to celebrate the accomplishments of the fund and to discuss its future. There, a decision was made to transform the fund from a short-term project housed at CPD to a stand-alone, Puerto Rico-based, permanent organization—a long-term resource mobilization vehicle for the Puerto Rican people.
The fund was launched in partnership with, and at the request of Puerto Rico CPD affiliate Taller Salud, and allies on the ground in Puerto Rico on the anniversary of the day that Hurricane María hit Puerto Rico. Their vision was to build the kind of fund that’s desperately needed in moments such as these, and based on extensive climate disaster experience throughout the years in the CPD family of organizations.
The María Fund was created intentionally knowing that Hurricane María would most impact communities of color and low-income communities. Furthermore, those communities would likely have been excluded from immediate relief and long-term recovery efforts, and corporate powers and corrupt elected officials would aim to orchestrate a large-scale disaster capitalism plan after the storm. The CPD Network knew that local organizing groups would need to massively step in as the main providers of short-term relief and as the resistance to longer-term power grabs. We wanted to make sure that decisions about Puerto Rico were made by Puerto Ricans, with nearly 100% of the funding dedicated to organizing groups to transform the root causes of racial capitalism, colonialism, the climate crisis, and more.
Since its founding, the María Fund has moved resources to grassroots efforts that show a strong commitment to organizing historically marginalized people at the intersections of the deepest inequalities in Puerto Rico. To date, it has moved more than $4 million in funding to 49 initiatives and organizations working on crucial short- and long-term projects. See the newly released María Fund impact report for more. The María Fund has also activated major and grassroots funders. Over half of the $7 million raised came from 36,000 individual donors.
Going forward, the María Fund will focus on strengthening a powerful and aligned ecosystem of power-building movement leaders, organizations, and initiatives in Puerto Rico—vital work anywhere and especially in Puerto Rico at this critical juncture. As a first step, the María Fund will be moving from CPD to Tides Foundation and will create the infrastructure necessary for an independent entity with a long-term vision for intentional and responsible resource distribution. Continue to follow the María Fund by signing up for its mailing list here.
CPD is thrilled to support the future of the fund and excited for how it can continue to support the beautiful and incredible organizing of the Puerto Rican people.
Earlier this month, CPD, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), and Hedge Clippers released a report which showed how corporate landlords are contributing to and profiting from California’s housing crisis. Titled Billionaire Corporate Landlords: Exacerbating California’s Housing Crisis, the report focuses on two of the largest and wealthiest corporate landlords in California: Invitation Homes, which is controlled by The Blackstone Group, one of the largest private equity and asset management firms in the world, and Equity Residential, which is also the third largest apartment owner in the United States. Millions of Californians are rent burdened, or paying over 30% of their income on rent, which often means not having enough money for food or health care and can put people at risk of housing instability, eviction, and homelessness.
This crisis is particularly acute in low-income communities, which overwhelmingly pay a large portion of their already-small income on housing, and communities of color, who have faced decades of legal and extra-legal residential segregation, housing discrimination, predatory lending, and exclusionary lending practices, such as redlining. Meanwhile, Invitation Homes and Equity Residential report hundreds of millions of dollars in profits while also benefiting from tax loopholes, allowing them to pay less than their fair share of taxes. The report outlines what these tax loopholes look like and also how corporate landlords, like Invitation Homes and Equity Residential, spend millions on lobbying and campaign contributions in order to maintain a rigged system that permits ever-increasing rents, burdening renters and leaving them with few protections.
The report supported ACCE’s successful organizing efforts to pass the Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which caps yearly rent increases to no more than 5% plus inflation and expands protections to 7 million renters. The bill passed the California State Assembly on September 11 and is waiting for Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature, which he has pledged. Read the report here.
Leadership from CPD are connecting with allies from the community, labor, and movement organizing sectors to launch a new, online journal for organizers. The Forge: Organizing Strategy and Practice went live September 27 and features articles, videos, and interviews from an array of organizers from across the country.
To get connected, you can follow The Forge on Twitter at @ForgeOrganizing or click here to be added to our list. Built by a committee of organizers, The Forge will tackle questions of strategy, methodology, movement history, and more. But in the digital age, publishing is no longer a one-way street. To foster interaction, The Forge also aims to help organizers build community, share ideas, and strengthen their practice.
The founding issue includes seventeen pieces of content, including:
-
Lead essays from some of the key organizers of the Kavanaugh fight a year ago, including CPD’s own Ana Maria Archila and Jennifer Flynn Walker, Shaunna Thomas from Ultraviolet, Kelley Robinson from Planned Parenthood, Ilyse Hogue from National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), and Fatima Goss Graves from the National Women’s Law Center
-
An article by Kate Hess Pace from Hoosier Action (Indiana) on building rural and small town organization in the Trump era
-
Book reviews by organizers on Naomi Klein’s new book on the Green New Deal, Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist, and Ady Barkan’s Eyes to the Wind; more than just reviews, these pieces will ask organizing questions raised by the books in question.
-
Interviews with two up-and-coming organizers about their work, as well as with University of California, Santa Barbara Anton Vonk Professor Hahrie Han about the new Center on Democracy and Organizing
Read more on The Forge’s website! The editors invite all organizers and interested folks to sign up HERE to be added to the list for The Forge.
During the first week of September, CPD’S Canvass for Power program worked with Colorado affiliate United for a New Economy (UNE) to organize and expand their base through several intensive days of door-to-door meetings in Denver. As part of the Canvass for Power program, four Make the Road Nevada staff members traveled to Denver to support UNE’s efforts to build campaigns and chapters in Westminster and Commerce City, and help increase the number of community members reached through door-knocking.
UNE members are focused on holding landlords accountable for affordable housing, as well as fighting for paid family leave. This work is key in Westminster, which is represented by a moderate who needs to hear the progressive voices that UNE's hard work amplifies. CPD's Canvass for Power staff supported the training and organizing blitz. The team set outreach goals and scheduled follow-up calls according to a rigorous set of metrics.
In total, the group knocked on 1,744 doors, had 416 conversations, received 223 petition signatures, canvassed 49 small businesses and spoke with 36 small business owners. Organizers from UNE will follow up with their contacts in the hopes of bringing in new supporters with dues-paying memberships. This is one of more than a dozen organizing blitzes that CPD has held across the country since 2016 to build critical power in key states.
CPD affiliate Rights & Democracy Institute (New Hampshire and Vermont) hosted the launch of the New Social Contract national tour with local and national movement leaders on September 15, 2019. National speakers at the event included Linda Sarsour and Jennifer Epps-Addison, CPD Network President and Co-Executive Director, both of whom will be speaking at New Social Contract tour events throughout the country. Learn more about the tour by visiting newsocialcontract.org.
At the event, RAD released a new national report, The New Social Contract for Workers, calling on elected leaders and candidates to embrace a slate of new public policies to promote workplace democracy and human rights for America’s workers. The New Social Contract for Workers calls for re-envisioning our system of labor protections to empower workers and address the extreme racial inequality that characterizes our jobs and workplaces.
In addition to the Rights & Democracy Institute and the Center for Popular Democracy, the coalition releasing the report included the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, the National Employment Law Project Action Fund, the People’s Action Institute, Jobs With Justice, and Caring Across Generations.
“A New Social Contract is central to our long-term vision to create a future that puts us on a path to creating just, healthy, and thriving communities for everyone. How do we do that? By focusing on bold, community-led solutions that reshape our economy and public policies to put our people and our planet before everything else. Along with Medicare for All and a Green New Deal, a New Social Contract for Workers is the type of bold solution we need to start moving immediately at the local, state, and federal levels.”—James Haslam, Executive Director of the Rights & Democracy Institute
“The people most marginalized by racial capitalism and corporate exploitation should have the biggest role in dreaming up and enacting the structural changes needed to build an economy that works for all of us. When those targeted by injustice are stakeholders and decision makers in public policy, we come up with solutions that are bold. We address the root cause of inequality, instead of patching over its effects. The New Social Contract is unapologetic in its ambition to address the root causes of racial and economic inequality. Put simply, the New Social Contract is a model for the future of policymaking,”—Jennifer Epps-Addison, CPD Network President and Co-Executive Director.
Please join us in congratulating RAD and the successful launch of its New Social Contract tour and campaign!
On Oct 4-5, 2019, Center for Popular Democracy, Law for Black Lives and PolicyLink held the first-ever Freedom Lab, a two-day divest/invest community workshop focused on redefining the way our society defines public safety.
Alongside local partners in Milwaukee -- including BLOC, LIT and the Liberate MKE campaign (which is calling for a $20 million divestment from the Police Department and investment into community priorities) -- the Lab had more than 25 organizers from Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, and Detroit -- including a solid delegation from Detroit Action.
Over the two days, the group discussed challenges, opportunities, and lessons from ongoing and anticipated campaigns to demand we shift resources away from policing and prisons towards community investments in health and well-being.
There was a session on budget analysis 101 and a fishbowl conversation around campaign experiences -- in which LIT staff masterfully presented their recent victory at the Milwaukee school board redirecting money from school policing to trauma care.
There were also deeper dives into communications strategies, engaging with electoral politics/elected officials, and breakout sessions on lobbying and storytelling, and participatory democracy and power mapping.
The Freedom Lab developed a range of budgetary, campaign, narrative, organizing resources and tools, which the group anticipates converting into a more robust divest/invest toolkit for affiliates and the broader movement ecosystem.
The group is planning another Freedom Lab in Nashville in mid-November, where we will be inviting folks from around Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia.
STAY TUNED!
One of the most grievous problems facing people in this country is inadequate healthcare and skyrocketing costs. In the United States today, 30 million people are uninsured while another 40 million are underinsured. CPD Network affiliates and allies have been on the frontlines of the fight for affordable healthcare – first to pass the Affordable Care Act and now to champion Medicare for All Act. Medicare for All, the only truly single-payer, universal healthcare system, guarantees that healthcare is a right and enables every person living in the United States to receive the healthcare they need to survive and thrive.
Ady Barkan, a Senior Organizer at CPD, has spent the last three years advocating for Medicare for All after he was diagnosed with ALS, a disease that slowly takes away nearly every physical function while keeping the mind intact. Since his diagnosis, Ady has become arguably the most influential activist in America. Many first heard about him after he confronted then Senator Jeff Flake on an airplane in December 2017. Barkan has now been arrested at the Capitol in Washington more than half a dozen times, showing by example how to fight injustice, and most recently spoke with a number of presidential nominees about supporting Medicare for All. Ady’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, TIME, The Nation and many other major media outlets.
Ady just released Eyes to the Wind: A Memoir of Love and Death, Hope and Resistance, where he shares how living with ALS reaffirmed his commitment to activism and looks back at his early days working in social justice. Ady also speaks about the highs and lows of starting a family while dealing with terminal illness.
The moral clarity of Ady’s message—and the power of his example, a dying man standing up for millions of others—has had a lasting impact on this country. Even as his illness has progressed and he has become unable to speak, his voice has boomed loudly in the struggle to protect immigrants under siege, to try to stop Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, and now to make sure that in our country, healthcare is a human right.
There is only one form of universal health care that covers everybody, without exception, and lowers overall health care expenditures. It is time for Medicare for All. Interested in joining the fight for Medicare for All? Share your healthcare story here and one of our organizers will reach out!
Today is International Overdose Awareness Day. As we acknowledge the grief felt by families and friends remembering those who have died from a drug overdose, it’s also time to acknowledge and address the opioid epidemic as a public health issue, not a criminal justice problem.
One such effort is #ReframetheBlame, a collaboration with Drug Policy Alliance and the Women’s Urgent Action Fund that seeks to combat drug-induced homicide laws that punish people selling drugs that lead to accidental overdoses. People sentenced under these laws often do as much time as those sentenced to manslaughter or murder. The harsh laws are aimed at deterring drug distribution, but as our partners at Drug Policy Alliance explain, “research consistently shows that neither increased arrests nor increased severity of criminal punishment for drug law violations result in less use (demand) or sales (supply). In other words, punitive sentences for drug offenses have no deterrent effect.” Instead, these policies are drawing more and more people into the criminal justice system for non-violent offenses, and brown and black communities are being disproportionately affected. #ReframetheBlame is a call to action to amend these practices.
Our country’s overdose epidemic is exacerbated by our continuous failure to pioneer courageous policy that prioritizes life and health over punishment and retribution. We are fighting against the continued incarceration of nonviolent drug users and reactionary policies. We cannot incarcerate our way out of a public health crisis., We say no more to deadly drug policy which has never shown any effectiveness. We call for our leaders to act responsibly using science and proven policies.
More people are going to die if we continue business as usual. We demand our government adopt drug policies based in science and grounded in harm reduction principles, not tough-on-crime policing. One such evidence-based approach to the opioid crisis is the Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency (CARE) Act. Introduced by Senator Warren and Congressman Cummings, the bill would invest $100 billion over the next ten years in prevention, treatment, and recovery, setting up planning councils at the local level comprised of people directly affected by the epidemic. Every Democratic Senator running for President has come out in support of the bill. Republicans in Congress should do the same. This is a bipartisan problem that needs bipartisan solutions, and the CARE Act is a necessary, common-sense approach to ending this crisis.
This International Overdose Awareness Day, let’s continue to destigmatize drug use, invest in harm reduction, and shift our focus from policing and incarceration to common-sense public health solutions.
---
Robert and Louise are members of the Urban Survivors Union, a national drug user union that provides strategies and technical assistance to organizations who are struggling to truly center the voices of the people most directly impacted by drug overdose. It is the only national union of drug users in the country.
CPD’s People’s Convention brought over 1,500 leaders and members of our affiliate network to Detroit for three days of action, planning, and joint mobilizing for the fight ahead. We invited members from Churches United for Fair Housing (CUFFH) and SPACEs to reflect on their experiences, gathering with the largest progressive organizing network in the country.
CUFFH Member Jameal Starks Asks ‘What’s An Activist?’
What’s an activist? That was the question on my mind before I went to the Center for Popular Democracy’s 2019 People’s Convention. Is it someone with a master’s degree in Political Science?
I know now: it’s anyone willing to stand up to unfairness. This is just one of the many things I learned and experienced at the convention.
The whole Churches United for Fair Housing (CUFFH) team, CUFFH Youth, and members of our community took a bus to Detroit, Michigan for the People’s Convention. We heard from speakers such as Linda Sarsour and U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib, took it to the streets with a march, and exchanged ideas through workshops with like-minded leaders from communities all around the country.
I found the People’s Convention to be very empowering and uplifting, especially if you’ve ever felt alone in your personal struggles. It was amazing to come to an event with people just like me who were experiencing victories over unfairness in their community. All of the activities, from the march to show that “Detroit’s Fight Are All of Our Fights,” the guest speakers and direct questions to conversations all made the People’s Convention a very empowering event.
SPACEs Member Chioma Oruh Feels She ‘Found Her Tribe’
I’ve had some time now to digest the many great lessons learned at the Center for Popular Democracy’s (CPD) Our Vision, Our Future: People’s Convention held in Detroit, MI from July 25-27th. In the time since coming home, and post watching the Democratic primary debates that also took place in Detroit shortly after the convention, I’ve had some time to reflect on the significance of this convention both personally and politically.
Personally, I feel like I’ve found my tribe. It was such an empowering opportunity to bring so much of what I personally identify with and give it a platform. I had joined SPACES a few months back, when I was introduced to the Executive Director, LaDon Love. And I simply fell in love with the mission and vision of this organization. In working together on the Birth to Three Campaign, I also learned the unique value of SPACES, as an affiliate organization of CPD.
CPD carries out its mission of building organizing power to transform the local and state policy landscape through deep, long-term partnerships with leading community-based organizing groups nationwide like SPACES in Action, which is the affiliate organization in Washington, DC. At the Detroit convention, I really ingested the power of their vision and how truly transformative this approach to organizing is. Read more of Chioma’s reflection here.
Recently, CPD worked with Make the Road Connecticut (MRCT) to launch a gallery walk that showcased the photography of members of MRCT's youth committee. The photographs were part of a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by CPD Senior Research Analyst, Michele Kilpatrick, CPD Co-director of Community Dignity Campaigns, Julio Lopez (then executive director at MRCT), and Professor Julie Henly at the University of Chicago. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is a form of research that recognizes the expertise and centrality of the lived experiences of communities. In such projects, members of the community are active participants in the development of research questions, research design, and implementation.
The main component of the project was a research method called photovoice, in which participants took pictures that illustrated their experiences, then joined group-discussion sessions focused on those experiences. After a few rounds of pictures and discussion sessions, participants chose the pictures they wanted to showcase, then decided how to showcase them. The youth selected three photos to be a part of a gallery walk and drafted sentences describing the meaning of those photos. The final project highlighted the challenges of immigrant families in a community facing disinvestment and white supremacist persecution as well as labor abuses.
The title, brochures, and format of the gallery were designed by the young people, working with local artist, Lindaluz Carrillo. On July 19, MRCT staff, members, family, and friends came together to see these pictures and learn from these young photographers. Congratulations to MRCT for a successful and fascinating project!
