Our Challenge and Opportunity

#buildingpowertoempower

Our Challenge

Historically marginalized residents and communities in Ward 7 & 8 have a lack of political and electoral power, as well as lack of access to a high-quality education.

Ward 7 & 8 Leadership Pipeline

Leadership Pipeline

We found broad alignment among stakeholders regarding need for deeper relationship building, a robust leadership pipeline at the local level, and robust mechanisms for lasting community organizing and empowerment.

Public Safety

There is an urgent need to prioritize the issue of public safety and to push our leaders to work together to find solutions to the senseless violence in the community.

Public Education

Our community must prioritize life-sustaining outcomes through a holistic approach  for public education that engages the local business community in meaningful ways and builds lasting political power.

Our Opportunities and Organizational Strategies

Identify issues that impact student outcomes

Cultivate community through ongoing engagement

Support and develop advocates who can advance policy and push elected officials

Create pipeline of leaders who represent Ward 7 & 8 and win elections

Anticipated Changes

  • Elected officials enact and advance policies that are responsive to needs of Ward 7 & 8 communities

  • Pipeline of diverse leaders exist who seek greater good for student and families

  • Community is engaged in collective action

  • Increased Ward 7 & 8 representation on elected boards, ANCs and the DC Council

Key Outcomes

  • Lasting economic stability/wealth creation for the broader Ward 7 & 8 community

  • Greater student and family satisfaction

  • Increased access to quality schools

  • Improved high school graduation rates, college and career readiness

Our Engagement will be Organized Around

  • Supporting and partnering with organizations and community leaders who are committed to building power and advocating for better outcomes for our students from early childhood to beyond graduation.

  • Listening, learning, and adapting our agenda based on feedback and input from community members.

  • Cultivating a sense of community and collective action to promote deep, lasting participation.

  • Identifying, recruiting, training, and empowering leaders to shift the narrative around improving school outcomes and electing aligned leaders to the school board and other leadership positions within DC Government.

We are intentionally prioritizing Wards 7&8 and the surrounding area because residents of these communities have been traditionally underrepresented in the decision making process, whether in the DC government or elsewhere.

We have a clear opportunity to build a sustainable, scalable grassroots and grasstops movement that transforms the area without gentrifying it, and that enables residents to age in place, live in place, and not be subject to social isolation.