The Center for Community Change was founded in 1968 following the deaths of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., convening labor leaders, campaign staffers, and activists in the civil rights movement. The organization initially focused on the unfinished business of civil rights and the war on poverty, pursuing its goals by launching new initiatives and groups throughout the country, while providing financial and technical assistance to others. In the half-century since its founding, Community Change (the group shortened its name in 2018) has grown into one of the premier national groups for community organizing, with current leaders now pursuing an ambitious and detailed plan for the future.
Community Change seeks to enact state and federal policy changes that will be transformative for poor and working-class people, aiming to achieve that change by organizing low-income Black and brown voters. That theory of political change is not particularly novel on its face, but Community Change has a longer-term vision for progress in mind, with a commitment to building enough engagement and political power in working-class communities of color to transform America’s electorate.
The following brief will answer questions for prospective donors about Community Change’s vision, strategy, and organizational health. The answers below are drawn from independent research and reporting, including conversations with Community Change’s leadership and staff, as well as discussions with other progressive leaders and outside experts focused on community organizing.
As we explain below, Community Change has laid out a thorough and extremely ambitious plan for achieving what they deem “transformational” change by the year 2033. While we’re skeptical of some of the details in this plan, we recognize the importance of Community Change’s work and consider the organization to be essential for many progressive goals. For these reasons and others explained in this brief, Blue Tent strongly recommends donors give to Community Change and view giving to this organization as a high priority. (Explore our methodology.)
Is it a top leader in its space—or have the potential to be?
Yes. Community Change has been a major player in the overlapping worlds of grassroots organizing, civil rights, economic justice, and immigration since its founding in 1968. The organization supports and works with dozens of partners across the country, and is a leader or member of coalitions focused on immigration, racial justice, housing, and other issues. Community Change also works with blue-chip progressive organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities on national electoral strategies and federal and state policy advocacy.
Does it have a persuasive theory of change and realistic strategy?
Yes. As mentioned above, Community Change is driven by a relatively simple theory of change, which focuses on organizing communities with a low propensity to vote, but who could have a vested interest in progressive politics, namely poor and working-class people of color. Organizing these voters will build their political power, which can be used to elect progressive politicians and pressure lawmakers for their preferred policies. In the organization’s own words, its goal is “to build the power and capacity of low-income people, especially low-income people of color, to change the policies and institutions that impact their lives.”
For Community Change, this doesn’t just mean turning out Black and brown voters every two or four years to vote for whichever Democrats happen to be running for office. Community Change is investing in long-term infrastructure to keep working-class voters engaged and active, prioritizing the ideas and issues that people at the grassroots care about. The organization’s long-term goal is to erase the gaps in turnout between white and non-white voters and wealthier and low-income voters. Closing those gaps would build new centers of political power, and could transform America’s electorate. From there, progressive policy goals would be in much closer reach at all levels of government.
Community Change pursues this strategy through a variety of different methods. The national organization provides technical and financial support to a wide range of grassroots groups, many of which were in part incubated by Community Change itself. Community Change also coordinates among these groups at the state and national level, and helps like-minded organizations and leaders pursue their goals together. A large part of Community Change’s work going forward revolves around strengthening organizational infrastructure, which includes helping local groups build for the long term and training leaders in key communities. Community Change Action, the (c)(4) arm, engages in more overtly political work, such as voter outreach, lobbying, and digital media.
A key part of Community Change’s strategy and mission is building voter engagement for the long term. As an example, in 2020 Community Change Action partnered with dozens of local and national organizations to turnout voters in a handful of key states. After Democrats took back the White House and Congress, Community Change and CCA have worked to bring their electoral volunteers into their advocacy work, including bringing community members to Washington, DC for meetings with members of Congress and their staff. As we’ll explain further below, Community Change’s mission going forward will also include testing and implementing new strategies and models that are more sustainable in the long term.
As with any highly ambitious plan for political change, defining a strategy as “realistic” is a complicated matter. Engaging poor and working-class voters is a challenging task even in the short term, let alone over a number of years. The Democrats’ disappointing performance among non-white voters in 2020 also raises serious doubts about the progressive movement’s ability to connect with communities of color. Conversely, Community Change’s goals of grander, structural reforms—goals shared by the progressive movement more broadly—are simply impossible under current political reality. Outside of convincing a huge majority of more likely voters to join the progressive cause–including a significant number of Republicans—changing the electorate with working-class power is the only plausible path forward.
Is there strong evidence of its impact?
During its more than five decades of existence, Community Change claims to have incubated some 165 new projects and organizations across the country. Community Change has helped build state, regional, and nationwide coalitions focused on issues like housing, immigration, and civil rights. Until 2002, the group’s primary focus was providing technical and financial assistance to grassroots groups. That year, Community Change shifted its goals to building social movements, and a few years later, the organization launched Community Change Action as an advocacy and electoral arm.
During the 2020 elections, Community Change Action contacted millions of voters in key states. CCA and its partners, which included SEIU, Planned Parenthood, Color of Change, and numerous state and local groups, connected with voters via phone calls, text messages, door knocking, and digital media. Their efforts focused on voters in important electoral states like Michigan, Arizona, Florida, and Wisconsin. Nearly every progressive group under the sun will seek to claim credit for electoral victories in 2020, but Community Change was a major force behind turning out vital Democratic constituencies in a number of swing states.
It’s worth noting that measuring “impact” for groups engaged in long-term political organizing is an especially tricky endeavor. Community Change has obviously not achieved most of its own stated goals as of yet, but as we explain in the next section, the organization has written and published a detailed strategy for the future, including target dates for achieving big picture goals. During Blue Tent’s evaluation process, Community Change was similarly forthcoming and cooperative in sharing information and discussing their own methods for measuring success, pointing to specific quantitative and qualitative metrics for their programming. Just as importantly, however, Community Change has consistently framed its evaluation methods as a way for the organization and its partners to learn, grow, and improve, and not purely an exercise in cutting out less successful programs or tactics. Embracing this approach can complicate an organization’s ability to identify more straightforward “impact” or short-term results, but it’s a vital perspective for achieving long-term change.
Does it have a plan to achieve future impact?
Yes. Community Change published a 15-year plan in 2019 titled “Path to Power.” Outlining the group’s goals and expectations from 2018 to 2033, the plan consists of four major strategies:
- Building Black and brown political power
- Shrinking the turnout gap and building electoral strength
- “Reinventing” community organizing with stronger organizations and better technology
- Advancing a governing agenda
The plan details how Community Change and CCA will seek to tackle each of the different strategies, with a strong emphasis on finding a new direction for organizing. The plan also sets a goal for enacting “bold, structural changes at the federal level that advance economic justice, racial justice, and immigrant rights” by 2025. Given current political reality, that goal seems highly unlikely. That being said, it takes courage for an organization’s leaders to set ambitious goals in public, meaning that more than just its own board members and staff will know if it fails.
Indeed, one of Community Change’s great strengths as an organization is its willingness to learn from both success and failure. The “Path to Power” document includes detailed assessments of the current organizing landscape, with the acknowledgment that current strategies will require serious changes to address the tasks at hand. Part of Community Change’s future work includes trying to make their organizing more sustainable, with plans to experiment with a variety of models.
At the core of Community Change’s critique of current organizing models is an overreliance on paid staff and a narrow set of funders, both of which limit scalability. Community Change is committed to building new models of organizing that are driven by volunteer leaders and collectively funded by the community members they serve. Thanks to the organization’s wide reach and strong financial position, the group’s leaders will be well-positioned to experiment with a variety of different approaches and adopt those that are most successful.
Does it have strong leadership and governance?
Yes. Dorian Warren and Lorella Praeli are Community Change’s co-presidents, and also serve as co-presidents of Community Change Action. Warren previously served in the organization as vice president at Community Change and as chair of the board. Before that, Warren spent his career as a scholar and organizer focused on racial justice and labor. He took leadership of the organization from Deepak Bhargava, who served as president from 2002 to 2018. Praeli was named co-president in 2021, having previously worked as the ACLU’s deputy national political director and as Hillary Clinton’s National Latino Vote Director in 2016.
In announcing Praeli as co-president, Community Change stated that the shared leadership model “provides more depth and ability to move and align complex relationships in the ever-changing landscapes of politics, media, technology, philanthropy and organizing.”
Is it diverse and culturally competent?
Yes. Community Change focuses specifically on empowering poor and working-class voters of color, and the organization’s top leadership reflects that. The organization convenes coalitions focused on racial and economic justice issues, as well as immigration. In their “Path to Power” document, Community Change also emphasizes placing a racial justice lens on all of its work, as well as the importance of empowering and cultivating women of color leadership. Community Change’s staff is organized under IFPTE Local 70, part of the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union.
Is its financial house in order?
Yes. In 2020, Community Change had total revenues of more than $54 million, while Community Change Action had revenues of more than $9.2 million. The $54 million in 2020 is a massive jump for Community Change, which previously posted yearly revenues and budgets below $20 million. Of the organization’s $64 million of total assets in 2020, approximately two-thirds, or a little more than $40 million, are restricted funds from donors, while the other third, about $20 million, are unrestricted, which gives Community Change flexibility in its financial decisions. Given its huge infusion of cash in 2020, Community Change is in a strong financial position. The group also receives money from a wide array of institutional and individual funders, which means they are unlikely to be particularly beholden to any single donor.
Does it collaborate well with other organizations and have strong partnerships?
Yes. Collaboration and partnerships are a cornerstone of Community Change’s work, much of which entails building up and supporting grassroots groups around the country. Its partners at the state and local level include vital groups like the New Georgia Project, LUCHA, Michigan People’s Campaign, and Ohio Organizing Collaborative. At the national level, Community Change has worked with a wide variety of unions, civil rights groups, and advocacy organizations, including Planned Parenthood and the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. In 2020, Community Change partnered with SEIU, Planned Parenthood, Color of Change, and several local partners on voter contact. As mentioned previously, Community Change also leads and/or belongs to coalitions on issues like immigration, housing, and racial justice, and founded the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM).
Does it have the support of key funders?
Yes. Community Change receives or has received funding from numerous major foundations, including the Gates Foundation, Libra Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Kresge Foundation, and others. The group’s benefactors also include several wealthy individuals, the biggest names being Mackenzie Scott and Chris Hughes.
Conclusion
Community Change is an organization with a long history, and in political nonprofits, that isn’t always a good thing. While some institutions evolve and succeed with the times, others can become stuck thanks to complacent leaders committed to outdated strategies. We were pleased to discover that Community Change is the former, growing and adapting with changing political realities and staying open to new ways of doing things. The organization has had periods in its recent history where its impact has waned, but its Path to Power plan, strong partnerships, and promising leaders form a persuasive case that Community Change will be a force to reckon with moving forward.
Community Change will undoubtedly face serious challenges given the ambition of its goals and the short timeline the organization has set for itself. That being said, progressive politics may be entering a period where the most “realistic” plans and goals are also the most audacious, whether that means abolishing the filibuster, packing the Supreme Court, or vastly expanding the American electorate. If that’s the case, then donors need to be putting their money behind competent and ambitious leaders and organizations like Community Change. We’ve written extensively at Blue Tent that long-term grassroots organizing is one of the most important investments donors can make, which is why we strongly recommend giving to Community Change and see supporting its work as a high priority.