People's Action Institute

*Protect People, Planet, and the Rules of Democratic Society, particularly those targeting people of color, low-income communities, immigrants, women, and children.
*Deliver improvements in people’s lives and continue to move progressive policies in cities/states.
*Increase civic participation in low-income communities and communities of color significantly.

Our core strategies include:

*Resistance: Mass organizing, including broad and targeted opposition to agenda's harmful to working-class and low-income people, turning defense into offense.
*Alternative: Project and build support for a racial, economic, and climate justice agenda that brings solutions and hope to urban and small-town America.
*Offense: Go on offense in cities and some states pushing for policy change to improve people’s lives and point the way forward.
*Worldview: Targeted worldview strategy (including communications, community engagement, political education) designed to reach people in both urban and small-town America.
Place-based Investments: Invest in geographies critical to advancing our other strategies, including specific regions and urban and small-town communities.

We use a range of tactics including:

*Educating Members of Congress on issues
*Bringing targeted pressure and public education to decision-makers.
*Organizing grassroots and grasstops to build resistance to damaging policy decisions through nonviolent direct action, attendance at town- hall and other public forums, education/advocacy through calls, and meetings with policymakers.
*Securing earned media in targeted markets that will inform decision-makers.
*Release research report showing the damage many proposals will cause among the constituents of policymakers.
*Developing and place spokespeople in local and national media.
*Championioning alternative proposals that improve the lives of working-class and low-income families.
*Demonstrate the popularity of specific government programs nationwide and in targeted geographies.

Our impact is deep within our national network but also expands beyond into the movement field and the world at large. We are a builder of powerful, effective, and sustainable multiracial people’s organizations that anchor economic justice infrastructure in states. We push the field towards embracing a new strategic framework that improves people’s lives now while also creating a window for longer-term, structural shifts that are deeper and over time will move people’s worldview.

We practice what we preach. Because the needs, interests, and aspirations of people of color and low-income people are not centered in the national conversation and the public debate around social issues and potential policy solutions we hold ourselves accountable to the communities we represent – poor and working-class Black, Latinx, Asian, white and Native people – because they are the people who can and must lead the process of building a strong progressive majority in this country.

We are the vehicle that allows our member organizations to organize with the force of a million people across the country and to move power and resources to those who have been traditionally denied both. As such, we are committed to being accountable to our membership in three primary areas: developing a strategy that reflects the needs and values of our members, leveraging our resources in ways that empower our network to accomplish its goals, and deepening the capacity of our member organizations to be more powerful.

Finally, our work complements other organizational allies by bringing broad and deep grassroots capacity and leadership to national coalitions for expanded impact. For example, we've strengthened the efforts of allies working inside the Beltway through coalitions and networks like HCAN, Americans for Financial Reform, FACT Coalition, Americans for Tax Fairness, FIRM, Center for Popular Democracy and others through a coordinated strategy that successfully combines their insider work with our organizing, public education, base-building activities, and direct action in frontline communities.

Since forming, we have spearheaded organizing campaigns that led to landmark laws benefiting millions of people in low-income communities and communities of color, such as the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (1975), the Community Reinvestment Act (1977), and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (1997). We were also instrumental in securing passage of critical financial reform initiatives such as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010) and the $26 billion Attorneys General Mortgage Fraud Settlement (2012), and expanding quality, affordable health coverage through the passage of the Affordable Care Act (2010) and subsequent state Medicaid expansions. More recently, we:

*Defended Affordable Care Act (ACA): In 2017, we prevented the loss of health care coverage by successfully blocking multiple attempts to repeal the ACA with no alternative replacement. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the repeal of ACA would lead to the loss of health coverage by 22 million Americans by 2026. Our partners included the HCAN Coalition, labor, and other grassroots organizations like the Center for Popular Democracy, Community Change, Indivisible, and Faith in Action.

*Moving Towards A Racially and Economically Just Green Economy: Our member organizations in Illinois and New York have spearheaded the fight for securing statewide energy policy that is racially and economically just by mobilizing their grassroots bases and amplifying their voices. Their efforts have led to the strongest state climate legislation in the country. In late 2016, Illinois passed the Future Energy Jobs Act, securing $750 million for low-income solar jobs, and stopping a historic price hike for utility customers and a massive bailout for coal. In 2019, New York State passed​ ​Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CCPA) which establishes a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions all the way down to 1990 levels by 2050 and mandates investment in energy efficiency and clean energy in frontline communities. These pieces of legislation are imperfect but we continue to work for their implementation to ensure equitable outcomes and deep investment in the communities most impacted by climate change.