Base-Building & Affiliates

In the financial world, savvy investors know that patient, long-term investing reliably yields greater returns than jumping from one investment to the next. The same principle applies to the social justice arena. We must not only engage short-term campaigns to defend against the erosion of rights, but also invest in social justice infrastructure for the long haul. For too long, progressives have taken the stance that winning a policy or an elected office would be enough to shift the balance of justice, and over the last few years we’ve seen that this approach is simply insufficient. Our current political reality is a wake-up call. A new level of rigor and impact is required in the community organizing sector, with a focus on building leadership—now and for the future—that is strong and networked, resilient in the face of challenge, innovative, and able to seize opportunities as they arise.

CPD’s sizable Base-Building Department, made up of a team of 20 skilled trainers, coaches, organizers, field outreach experts, and campaigners, dedicate themselves meeting this need by

• Providing technical support and training to our affiliates; 

• Cohering our network around our shared vision and enhancing our collective power to achieve it; and 

• Developing the infrastructure, tools, and strategies necessary to engage new individuals at our base and the base of our affiliate organizations.

Building Our Affiliates
We help strengthen our affiliates through customized coaching and training interventions with supervisors, development, and executive-level staff; the design and dissemination of grassroots political education and skill-building tools; and direct support in strategic visioning, goal-setting, and organizing staff. These interventions help our affiliates to deepen their bench and allow staff to improve their performance through the deployment of new skills, strategies, systems, and practices. We also launch new organizing groups in partnership with local leaders. Over the past five years, we have launched nine new community organizations, all of which have established themselves as key players in the progressive landscape in their home states. Finally, we collaborate with our affiliates and other national allies to convene multiple progressive institutions in key states with the aim of fostering place-based collaborations that transform the local policy landscape and yield powerful electoral outcomes. 

Cohering Our Network
Alongside our sister organization, CPD Action, CPD leadership and other staff, our Base-Building Department works with our affiliates to design and execute meaningful network experiences that allow affiliates to learn from one another and set the direction of network as a whole. Our network-wide People’s Convention draws 1400 participants from across the country every three years with the common goal of taking direct action, elevating our issues, deepening our ideological and programmatic alignment, learning together, and celebrating our victories.

Building Our Base
Finally, the Base-Building Department provides direct field capacity to our affiliates and, more broadly, to build membership and leadership in communities most impacted by structural racism and capitalism. Team members build robust door- and street-canvass programs, and provide both train-the-trainers experiences and direct training to grassroots leaders. This training helps leaders to deepen their analysis of the root causes of the problems facing our communities, and to develop their skills for base-building, taking action, and winning campaigns.