Strategic research, policy, and legal expertise are critical components to advancing national and local campaigns in communities across the country. From highlighting the experiences of our communities to identifying policy solutions to reverse historic inequities, strategic research can help facilitate the organizing and action needed to win real change.

At CPD, we’re always thinking about how to make our democracy stronger and more accessible. In the last several months, we’ve worked with a coalition to launch Democracy Beyond Elections, a participatory policy making model that focuses explicitly on ways that community members can inform and decide on policy. More specifically, it creates a process that invites community members to identify, develop, and decide directly on policy proposals. Participatory policy making helps build mutual trust between communities and government, and expand public power over decisions. You can learn more about this initiative here. 

Most recently at the local level, we partnered with the Connecticut Recovery For All Coalition which includes CPD affiliate Make the Road CT, to release the case for robust public investment in Connecticut after billionaires amassed $12.6 Billion in new wealth during the pandemic. At the national level, we released a policy memo about transforming America’s unemployment insurance system, followed by a larger report on reforming unemployment insurance to lay the foundation for equity, and a position paper on how the Biden administration can challenge the Federal Reserve’s leadership to embrace growth and equity. This month, we published a brief on key progressive revenue-generating policies for states to ensure corporations and the ultra wealthy pay their fair share, and an analysis of diversity in Federal Reserve leadership, the most powerful economic policy institution in our country.

To say we’ve been busy is an understatement. You can read more about each of these issues and many others here.