As you begin to move forward in your process, it will be important, encouraging and helpful to know about the work others are doing around the country. It is never recommended that one reinvents the wheel, and often someone has dealt with a similar issue somewhere, and has insight to share. If nothing else, there is value in the sense that “we are all in this together.” Below are groups who have been working in the advocacy arena on significant issues and have years of experience.
The Center for Media Justice- a national media strategy and action center with a unique approach to movement building for racial justice and youth rights.
Miami Workers Center- helps working class people build grassroots organizations and develop their leadership capacity through aggressive community organizing campaigns and education programs.
Padres Unidos- a multi-generational organization led by people of color who work for equality and justice in education, racial justice for youth, immigrant rights and the right to quality healthcare for all.
Jobs With Justice- a national campaign for workers’ rights.
Labor and Community Strategy Center- A multiracial anticorporate "think tank/act tank" and national school for organizers, committed to building democratic internationalist social movements.
Youth Education Alliance- brings youth together to identify the problems in schools and solve them collectively. Through direct action and community education, they work to hold city leaders and school officials accountable to young people in Washington, DC.
Inner City Struggle- promotes safe, healthy and non-violent communities by organizing youth and families in Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles to work toward economic and social justice.
Asian Pacific Environmental Network- empowers low-income Asian Pacific Islander (API) communities to achieve environmental and social justice.
Center for Community Change Helping low-income people, especially people of color, build powerful, effective organizations through which they can change their communities and public policies for the better.
Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED)- expands economic opportunity by helping Americans start and grow businesses, go to college, own a home, and save for their children’s and own economic futures.
Highlander Research and Education Center- provide education and support to poor and working people fighting economic injustice, poverty, prejudice, and environmental destruction
Poverty & Race Research Action Council- help connect social scientists with advocates working on race and poverty issues, and to promote a research-based advocacy strategy on issues of structural racial inequality.
United for a Fair Economy- raises awareness that concentrated wealth and power undermine the economy, corrupt democracy, deepen the racial divide, and tear communities apart.
Center for Health, Environment and Justice has compiled a database of local environmental health policies that have passed from Coppenhagen to Oakland, and increase monitoring and transparency on the transport and dumping of toxics.
