If passed in 2020, the initiative will raise an estimated $11 Billion annually for schools and community services like public health clinics by closing a 40-year-old tax loophole that corporations have been exploiting at the expense of our communities.

This year we entered our 10th year of building community power and winning big. Over the last decade, we have built a base of over 62,000 supportive voters – that’s over 25% of all Oakland voters!

We are very excited to announce the launch of our new Movement Technology Fellowship (MTF). In partnership with the socially-oriented tech firm Devlabs, this 9-month long program is training organizers from two of our collaborative partners who understand their communities, but want to learn how to leverage technology to increase their organization’s impact. The program begins this month and will train fellows in developing their technical capacity with a focus on:

This June, we have the chance to pass Measure A – Alameda County’s Initiative for Child Care and Early Education – which would bring $140 Million annually to help more families access affordable childcare and stabilize early educators by increasing their pay to $15/hour.

Imagine having access to medical care despite your income level or employment status. Imagine our youth thriving by having California schools rise up from near last (41st!) in the country back to the top 5 in student investment. Imagine the potholes of our streets filled in, our libraries open 7 days a week, our parks clean and safe, and affordable housing development properly funded.

As a movie fanatic, I finally encountered a movie — Black Panther — that validates some of my thoughts as a Black individual in the U.S.

The Schools and Local Communities Funding Act of 2018 – a November 2018 ballot initiative will restore over $11 Billion annually to California’s schools, community colleges and local services. “As California leads the resistance, we must also fight proactively for the future we deserve – the best schools, health care for all, safe neighborhoods, justice and opportunity for all Californians.”

The cannabis industry is estimated to reach $20 Billion annually by 2020 — let’s make sure that our Black and Brown communities that were attacked by the war on drugs are the first to benefit from the policy change.

As we turn ten years old in 2018, our staff is expanding. With excitement, we hired a well-seasoned Oakland organizer and relationship builder as our first ever Political Director, Reverend Damita Davis-Howard. Additionally, this past fall we hired Nemo Curiel as Movement Technology Manager and Elly Rhee as Operations and Executive Manager.

Proving that our youth are game changers for a revolution, it was a young Martin Luther King Jr. who started to tackle inequality and demand change. Building on that legacy as Youth Organizer, I’ve been working on expanding the political involvement of millennials of color here in Oakland by registering young voters and educating them on the history of the struggle of our people to gain voting rights and in the importance of exercising this right.