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History of Strategic
Concepts in Organizing & Policy Education
| Action for Grassroots Empowerment and Neighborhood Development Alternatives (AGENDA) was established after the 1992 civil unrest in Los Angeles to address problems of poverty and underdevelopment in the inner city communities of South Los Angeles. After organizing South LA neighborhood residents around issues of police accountability, youth education, and economic development, AGENDA initiated the Los Angeles Metropolitan Alliance, recognizing that a regional strategy and structural change is critical to changing the conditions in South Los Angeles and addressing the root causes of poverty. Over the years, AGENDA has evolved into Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE), a multi-dimensional community organization with a mission to build the power of communities most impacted by poverty, racism and discrimination in order to achieve social and economic justice. |
SCOPE pursues this mission by:
- Building grassroots organization, leadership, alliances and power in communities most affected by social and economic justice
- Developing movement and power FROM THE BOTTOM UP through organizing, alliance building, and collaborations in expanding arenas of struggle (local, regional, statewide and national)
- Winning systemic social change from the bottom up.
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Over the past 14 years SCOPE’s accomplishments include:
- Developed a powerful, nationally recognized, multi-dimensional institution that combines community organizing, strategic alliance-building, community-based research/analysis, and training/capacity-building to build effective movements for social change.
- Developed effective models of community organizing, grassroots leadership development, and civic participation that has individually contacted and documented 97,000 residents in low-income communities of Los Angeles, identified over 60,000 supporters, and mobilized several thousand community activists in public policy campaigns.
- Developed and implemented several successful public policy campaigns targeting the regional economy to address conditions of poverty, unemployment, and low-wages in inner city neighborhoods. Policy victories include:
- Creation of a $10 million workforce development program (Workplace Hollywood) in partnership with the Dreamworks entertainment corporation, eight other major entertainment studios, entertainment industry unions, and community-based organizations that trains and places low-income inner city residents in the regional growth industry of entertainment.
- A Los Angeles City Jobs Program that trains and places welfare recipients in living wage public sector jobs with career paths, and is a national model.
- A regional Healthcare Careers job training/placement program funded and overseen by a public/private partnership of the Los Angeles Workforce Investment Board, Los Angeles City, regional healthcare unions, healthcare employers, and community organizations. The City of Los Angeles has embraced the Health Care Careers Ladder Training Program as the model to shape future sectoral workforce development strategies.
- Facilitated the formation of the California State Alliance, an alliance of 20 organizations from four key regions of the state, working to develop and implement progressive state public policy agenda.
- Convened the Pushback Network- a national collaboration of community organizations in 6 states developing coordinated strategies to build state and national electoral power.
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