Stories of Impact 2024

JUBILEE 2025 LAUNCH

West/Southwest IAF launched its 50th year (Jubilee) celebration with fanfare as leaders and organizers shared stirring stories about extraordinary achievements and reflected, with academics, on lessons for the coming years.  While the launch took place in San Antonio, Jubilee year events will be celebrated across the West/Southwest IAF region through 2025.        

  • COPS/Metro Alliance commemorated 50 years of shaking up the San Antonio power structure alongside 1,150 leaders, their US Congressperson and local officials.  
  • Capital IDEA in Austin, Texas celebrated 25 years of success in moving people out of poverty through long-term job training.
  • Coloradans for the Common Good (CCG) marked 5 years of standing with workers and bridging longstanding divides in Denver, Colorado.

PUBLIC COST, PUBLIC BENEFIT

Together West Michigan (TWM) leveraged $20 Million in expanded public benefits from a proposed luxury development in Grand Rapids. After TWM demanded transparency and community benefits from a public investment in the Fulton Market Three Towers project, City Commissioners almost doubled the money dedicated toward hiring women, minority, and micro-local contractors.        

  • COPS/Metro Alliance leveraged $34 Million in up-front infrastructure investments in a tax-funded downtown Missions Stadium project.   

STANDING WITH WORKERS

On International Worker's Day, Coloradans for the Common Good (CCG) labor leaders secured the extension of City subpoena power to the Denver Auditor in matters of wage investigations.  This marks a major step forward in the protection of low-earning and immigrant workers. 

  • In Marin Co., California, Marin Organizing Committee (MOC) moved the needle on wages for In-Home Support Services workers to $18 per hour, pledging to keep fighting for more.
  • In San Antonio, Texas, Project Quest's "remarkable gains" in expanding the earning capacity of low-income adults was fully documented by Economic Mobility.
  • In the fight over public investments in the downtown Missions stadium, COPS/Metro secured living wage assurances for workers in the stadium complex.

IN DEFENSE OF MOTHER EARTH

Together New Orleans and Sisters of the Holy Family made their community solar strategy viable in New Orleans after engaging their energy provider and persuading their City Council to vote in a more sustainable rate of reimbursement that would benefit the sisters and their neighbors.  In other news,  


CREATING SAFER COMMUNITIES

COPS/Metro Alliance, in partnership with the City of San Antonio and the Police Department, facilitated the distribution of 4,000 gun lock boxes in order to promote gun safety.  This is part of a larger strategy to identify concrete, local initiatives to stem the tide of gun violence in Texas, including a Vidas Robadas (Lives Lost) march and the City's first gun buy-back program.


HOUSING & INFRASTRUCTURE

EPISO/Border Interfaith leaders in Canutillo (outside El Paso, Texas) scored a major victory for housing infrastructure, working with county commissioners and El Paso Water to dedicate $2 Million in ARPA funds for a sewerage project in their colonia


NEW GROWTH

'Silicon Valley Allied for the Common Good' (SVACG) launched in California as the newest affiliate of the West/Southwest IAF with 600 leaders from 17 founding institutions.  Said one leader: "We call ourselves Silicon Valley Allied for the Common Good because we choose to work together...supporting one another and showing up for one another."

  • AMOS is bridging the rural-urban divide in Iowa, with its most recent seminar convening 120 leaders from 40 communities across the state.
  • Central Valley IAF marked 1,000 conversations with Fresno, California residents, building power to confront water shortage and traffic challenges. 
  • West/Southwest IAF's third visit with Pope Francis was filled with humor and hope.  The delegation of organizers and leaders emerged with his support to engage with the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

IDENTIFYING IMMIGRATION ALLIES

400 leaders of Omaha Together One Community (OTOC) leveraged support from candidates for federal and Nebraska legislative office in support OTOC initiatives around immigration, childcare access and humanitarian reform.  The assembly follows a state Capitol action with 60 organizations calling for positive reforms.   

  • 500 ACTION Tulsa leaders in Oklahoma proposed a local "Institutional ID" program, leveraging unanimous support from mayoral candidates. 
  • Following a spring press conference decrying proposed anti-immigrant legislation, VOICE-OKC grilled Oklahoma legislative candidates around mental healthcare, housing and licenses for ITIN holders in their standing-room-only accountability assembly

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

91 trainees from across the nation gathered at Denver University in Colorado for eight days of IAF National Training.  The training concluded with an observation of CCG's 5-Year Celebration in which leaders told stories about their achievements and pledged to continue working together.  Similar sessions were held, including: