CPD’s newest initiative, the State Power Project (SPP), is designed to build the grassroots organizational strength of nine state affiliates by engaging and recruiting the public to join as members and engage in individual and collective action. The program launched in LA last month, working with our Sustainability Initiative to train these CPD affiliates to build field membership and canvass programs that will recruit new members and raise essential funding. Organizers came to LA from New Florida Majority, Good Jobs Now, Organize Florida, LUCHA, Make the Road Nevada and Make the Road PA, One PA, New Virginia Majority, Maryland Communities United, Action NC, and CASA (MD, VA, PA).

In it’s next phase, SPP partnered with our Organizing & Capacity Building team to train affiliate staff in essential organizing skills from March 21-23. Twenty organizers and nine supervisors from Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina participated in the three-day training in Phoenix, AZ, home of CPD partner and SPP participant - LUCHA.

Trainees developed essential organizing skills, including how to follow up with leads and how to conduct one-on-one meetings to deepen their activism and turn them into leaders. The training, led by CPD national staff, also focused on the use of a new organizing database created specifically to support CPDs SPP program.