People's Action Institute (NPA)

See schedule oprogramsresearch and policy supports the organization's analyses of various public policy issues for the organization's campaigns and programs. We provide training and technical assistance to advance our capacity to cut issues with a race analysis, build multiracial organizations, develop the leadership of staff of color, and organize external campaigns that advance racial justice. In may 2023, People's Action Institute launched a new training department as part of a strategic investment into building the organizing revival. We now have four full-time staff dedicated to building out our training programs and are becoming more deeply aligned with the newly formed network power building program to build out multi-layered training programs. Over the course of the year, we trained and coached 40 organizers through our base building & campaigns boot camp, an intensive twelve-week organizing and leadership training program to support new organizers in key communities. At our june 2023 convention, thirty-eight organizations committed to building and expanding local leadership training programs in 30 states over 18 months. We set an ambitious goal of training 750 organizers and 75,000 leaders in the fundamentals of organizing over the next decade. We held five major national training events, including two 'training for trainers' sessions attended by more than 60 organizers who we supported in creating local training programs, and held three weeklong transformative leadership training sessions for over 120 participants. Additionally, we have relaunched our 'fundamentals of organizing' series and are offering it on a quarterly basis. Over 150 people completed the training series in 2023.in june 2023, People's Action Institute held our convention, called 'coming home', in Washington, d.c. It was the first in-person gathering of all of our member groups since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic and the 2022 elections. It was during our convention that we officially launched the organizing revival. The organizing revival is People's Action Institute's long-term commitment to deepening the craft of organizing by training thousands of organizers to apply the best practices of community organizing. By tapping into the power of people all across this country, we can build a base of leaders who bring hope, inspiration and the ingenuity of our communities forward to shape the democracy we need.another significant milestone in 2023 was the successful launch of the first phase of the regional power building program. Through this structure we moved a majority of our network to develop a two-year strategy to achieve the goals of the organizing revival at the local level. Our regional directors have been working with member organizations to help ensure the success of these plans. We also laid the foundation to build a power analysis of each region in order to prepare for the scale of organizing, alignment, and strategy that is necessary to defeat authoritarianism and defend victories. This has enabled us to begin building out ten-year plans in a set of states across the network, including Iowa and Pennsylvania. With this intensive infrastructure support, alongside regrants to the field and investment in our training team, we have seen an impactful resurgence of local training across the network. We are scaling up our training for local leaders in order to move the power building, issue cutting, and campaigning work more deeply into the hands of empowered community members. We are also innovating our training modules for local leaders to combine political and popular education that grounds our communities in how we got to this particular moment in history.

See schedule ocenter for health, environment & justicethis project supports a nationwide network of more than 300 local community groups to achieve critical impacts at the local, regional, statewide and national levels on issues relating to toxic chemicals, polluting facilities, and other environmental dangers.

See schedule ocampaignssupports the organization's national campaign work which focuses on supporting the economic security of low and moderate-income families including health care coverage; food security for children and families; women's economic agenda; climate justice, with a focus on clean energy investments that benefit communities of color; reversing the trends of mass incarceration and bringing a racial and gender justice analysis to criminal justice reform work; and housing justice, which focuses on ensuring access to quality, safe and truly affordable housing for all.healthcare: healthcare for all:in june 2023, when more than 1,000 People's Action Institute members came to Washington, d.c. for our national convention, we brought the entire convention to the offices of america's health insurance plans (ahip), one of the largest lobbying groups for private insurers, to demand that the for-profit health corporations they represent overturn outstanding claim denials and cease to extract money from our communities while leaving people without care when they really need it. This peaceful protest, which took over the block around ahip's headquarters, included powerful testimony from 17 people from 11 states who have been denied care by their private insurance. We have spoken with vice presidents and other senior staff, and are in a negotiation process for a more in-depth meeting.on october 11, 2023, the care over cost campaign held a public protest in hartford, Connecticut, as one of 15 that took place on the same day across the nation. These protests targeted health insurance corporations and networks, including blue cross blue shield (bcbs), unitedhealthcare, cigna, humana and aetna. Sixteen People's Action Institute member groups in 13 states participated in these actions: Maine People's alliance, rights and democracy new hampshire, Connecticut citizen Action group, citizen Action of new york, northwest bronx community and clergy coalition, progressive Maryland, west Virginia citizen Action group, Michigan united, the People's lobby, one northside, jane addams senior caucus, citizen Action of Wisconsin, Iowa citizens for community improvement, Missouri jobs with justice and allies including be a hero, center for health progress in Colorado, physicians for a national health care plan and kentuckians for single payer health care.overdose prevention:in spring 2023, the dci worked with the new jersey organizing project, a People's Action Institute member group, to train staff and volunteers on the deep canvass methodology. This project was designed to reduce stigma toward residents impacted by the opioid crisis and bring needed resources to their communities. Specifically, the dci trained eight people directly impacted by substance abuse disorder to deep canvass. Our deep canvassers talked to more than 4,500 residents and shifted the attitudes of 46% of those canvassed, regardless of political affiliation. The canvassers made emotional connections with 46% of those spoken with and were able to add them to the new jersey organizing project's membership roll. From there, the new jersey organizing project was able to distribute harm reduction supplies and educate folks about the need for directly impacted people to have a say in how new jersey's $641+ million in opioid settlement funds should be spent to save lives.people and planet first:people's Action Institute worked with member organizations on a range of activities to mitigate harmful environmental and economic impacts in their communities, while calling out the bad actors contributing to them. The people and planet first team helped to design the "winter of discontent" canvass, during which member groups canvassed neighborhoods to discuss rising utility bills. This helped lay the groundwork for campaigns, like Michigan united's advocacy to reduce dte energy's request for a rate hike, and evolved into a multi-year state legislative campaign to curb the political influence of monopoly utilities. We also supported citizen Action Wisconsin organizers and leaders during their campaign to reduce the rate hike that we energies received, as well as mandate that the company establish an affordability (percentage of income payment plan) program. In june 2023, as part of the People's Action Institute convention, people and planet first organized a direct Action at the home and workplace of john dugan, the board chair of citibank. Citibank is one of the largest funders of fossil fuel projects. This Action significantly built the organizing muscle of a dozen affiliates, both training and inspiring groups to organize more direct actions in their own backyards. We also organized a three-state delegation from west Virginia, Iowa and Illinois to speak directly with department of transportation staff from the pipeline hazardous materials safety administration, to urge stricter regulation on carbon dioxide pipelines and storage. Later in the year, Iowa citizens for community Action and Illinois People's Action successfully slowed down these carbon capture and storage projects in their state through denial of municipal permits. In november, People's Action Institute hosted a climate justice strategy retreat for the people and planet first cohort. Fifty-six leaders and organizers from 17 member organizations, across 14 states, came together in milwaukee, Wisconsin. Everyone participated in an interactive popular education workshop on utilities 101 where does our electricity come from, who profits, who decides, and what can regular people do to ensure healthy, affordable and reliable energy. Leveraging federal funds:we helped educate member organizations on critical grant opportunities, including drafting a memo on the epa's environmental & climate justice grants. This helped Maine People's alliance win half a million dollars in income reduction act (ira) funding to support getting bipoc job seekers into unionized clean energy jobs. We also began working with member organizations in four geographies (Wisconsin, Texas, Michigan, Pennsylvania) who are actively running campaigns to draw down ira funds, while lowering energy bills, upgrading public housing and public schools, and putting workers of color in green jobs to build solar. In Massachusetts, we supported our member organization, neighbor to neighbor, in their fight to win 11 million dollars in arpa funding for affordable housing. In 2022, we provided infrastructure support for Pennsylvania stands up (pasu) to get a historic $125 million through arpa for the whole homes repair program, an initiative that would ensure resources reach homeowners and small landlords with the most need, providing grants to low- and moderate-income homeowners and smaller landlords who agree to fair rental practices. In 2023, we were able to help pasu secure an additional $50 million for the whole homes repair program. Housing justice, homes guarantee:in january 2023, People's Action Institute homes guarantee campaign, with the support of 281 national and local tenant-led organizations and community groups, released a set of essential actions the white house must take to regulate rent, protect tenants, and address the consolidation of the rental market by corporate landlords. Responding to the mounting pressure, the white house rolled out actions to protect tenants, including a call for the federal housing finance agency (fhfa) to investigate its authority to regulate outrageous rent hikes. In a huge win, the fhfa announced in april 2023 that it would start the process of collecting public input on tenant protections. The homes guarantee team worked closely with the director of the fhfa to help shape the agency's process for collecting public input; the aim of which, for pai and allied organizations, was to allow tenants to organize together, share their stories, and help secure federal tenant protections as a condition of federal financing. In may 2023, in response to fhfa's opening the door to public input, People's Action Institute and allied organizations launched a website to collect input for the fhfa process. In june 2023, the homes guarantee campaign and african communities together hosted the fhfa director, sandra thompson, for a tour of southern towers apartments in alexandria, Virginia. Owned by a major private equity landlord, who financed their acquisition of the property through a $346.7 million loan from freddie mac, tenants endured uninhabitable conditions and rent hikes. The tour highlighted the inhumane conditions the corporate landlord had placed on tenants, including evicting hundreds during the height of the pandemic. The homes guarantee team spent the remainder of the summer conducting a massive door-knocking effort and organizing tenants in federally-backed properties, as well as organizing building-level unions in these properties.