photo/Jason Cato
– adopted by Board of Directors
November 13, 2010
Grassroots Leadership fights to end for-profit incarceration and reduce reliance on criminalization and detention through direct action, organizing, research, and public education.
Grassroots Leadership builds bridges between communities to increase the capacity of local leaders and coalitions, mobilize opposition to privatization, and transform the immigration and justice systems.
Grassroots Leadership is a multi-racial team of organizers who help Southern and Southwest community, labor, faith, and campus organizations think critically, work strategically and take direct action to end social and economic oppression, gain power, and achieve justice and equity.
Sustainable social change requires both a grassroots movement and change in the power structure. Grassroots Leadership employs three strategies to achieve sustainable social change:
• We believe that sustainable social change must have as its base a strong grassroots movement. Grassroots Leadership designs organizing campaigns that invite people to participate and be involved. Without broad based support, changes can be undone with the stroke of a pen.
• We must be informed and ready to educate. Becoming experts on the prison and detention privatization and its impact on individuals and communities gives us the standing to speak to media, and decision makers, and allows us to effectively educate the grassroots.
• We understand the power of the media to shape a narrative and the how pressure can be place on decision makers. We use traditional and social media to mount campaigns. These campaigns reinforce the grassroots and influence decision makers.