CPD’s network of affiliates are proof that strong movement organizations can win transformational change. Creating a strong base is key to our work and CPD’s national base-building program, staffed by skilled trainers, coaches, organizers, field outreach experts, and campaigners, dedicate themselves to supporting and strengthening each and every affiliate.

Recently, we have been working closely with affiliates to cultivate and co-create training opportunities that cater to the communities they are working with. This includes building leadership pipelines through a Member Leadership Academy (MLA), offering community members of CPD’s affiliates the opportunity for training and development in community organizing. This project includes building a tailored curriculum for CPD affiliates' local communities. For example, CPD collaborated with Rights and Democracy (RAD) in creating a fellowship program where organizers from RAD and CPD adapted curriculum from the MLA and co-facilitated workshops for over a dozen participants every week for ten weeks. RAD members graduated from this training with a deeper understanding of power, racial capitalism, mass incarceration, and built foundational organizing skills on outreach, recruitment, mobilization, action planning, and more. 

The majority of MLA graduates have maintained or increased their participation with their affiliates and their campaigns. Strengthening participants’ analysis and organizing skills created a pivotal change in the way participants view the world and how they organize in their communities. For example, Shannon, from Unemployed Action, shared with us that she will always use one for the tool in our organizing curriculum, “The Root Cause Tree of Racial Capitalism,”  when she talks with others about the issues her community is facing. Training and opportunities like the MLA help our affiliates to deepen their bench and allow organizers to improve their performance with new skills, strategies, systems, and practices. We are excited to build out and expand these programs!