Building Power
To achieve our vision of transformational change, we must dramatically rebalance power in the United States. Community Change Action builds power through organizing, voting, and visionary ideas that bring people together in movements that bridge differences across race, gender, and national origin.
Narrative Power
Community Change Action seeks to build support for our policy priorities and our communities by shifting deeply ingrained narratives–the collection of stories that help us understand the world. We do this through our Communications Fellows program, a visionary approach to building the power of directly impacted people to be the ones to tell their truths and be heard. We also conduct empirical research that informs the messages we use to move public opinion on our issues.
COMING SOON – Our latest research on shifting the housing justice narrative.
Leadership Development
Leadership development is one core aspect of our investment in building an electoral powerhouse.
Power 2020, launched in April 2019, is a national peer-learning group consisting of over 25 high-level civic engagement staff from partner groups in states across the country. We work with each participant to develop their individual growth as transformative organizers and elevate their leadership on a national stage, providing space to influence our national strategy and research agenda. The leaders in Power 2020 are integral to our year-round work to grow the base and membership of key state organizations; increase the sophistication of their data, analysis, and programs; and build in-state power to impact policies, narratives, and election outcomes.
Learn more about Leadership Development on our sister website
Innovations in Organizing
Even before COVID-19 imposed physical distancing, Community Change Action and our partners were experimenting with new approaches to vibrant organizing at scale in low-income communities and communities of color. Organizing in geographically dispersed communities has always been a challenge to traditional organizing. We are now expanding programs that incorporate the quality of two-way communications and relationship-building tactics rather than the quantity of one-way information flow.
Community Change Power
Partnerships with local organizations and relationships with voters and community leaders are integral to our electoral organizing, and in 2019, Community Change Action launched the largest-ever relational voter turnout program in the country. Our goal is to enroll and train thousands of volunteers and activists, equipping them to reach out as trusted messengers to their friends, families, and neighbors, and creating a “multiplier effect” at the heart of our strategy to turn out millions of voters on November 3, 2020. Community Change Action is using this tool to drive voter participation along with dozens of partner organizations.
Digital Organizing
Digital channels and technology add valuable tools to the practice of community organizing. Whether in person or at a distance, organizers will continue to build a sense of community and solidarity, mobilize new people, and help directly affected people see the political within their personal experience.
For example, in 2019, Community Change launched a project to test a different approach to reach the people most directly affected by the child care crisis: parents of young children and child care providers. We build digital communities on Facebook by identifying people who share our values, engaging them in a group with regular updates about our issues, and moving them to take direct action in grassroots campaigns.
The program creates a ladder of engagement online that translates the principles of community organizing to new platforms and media. We believe this approach can greatly increase the base of people who are informed about policy issues on child and family well-being, and equip them with the tools they need to participate in public debates.
Find resources in our Digital Organizing Toolkit
