THE ROOTS INITIATIVE 2005

Launched in 2003, the Roots Initiative is a three-year capacity building initiative focused on organizational development, network development, and the creation of field building, standard practices and tools. Roots engages a cadre of 10 youth organizing groups from across the country, each of which receives multi-year general support grants.

2005 Roots Initiative Grants Awarded:

TOTAL: $350,000

Boston-Area Youth Organizing Project Boston, MA
To support and expand training and campaign work, including the creation of an Institute for Youth Leadership & Organizing to formalize training and share best practices with other groups, and the creation of a Young Organizing Fellow Program to work with members as they graduate.
$35,000

Californians for Justice California (Statewide)
To support intergenerational youth organizing in CFJ's statewide Campaign for Quality Education, involving local education reform efforts in San Diego, Long Beach, Fresno, San Jose and the East Bay; and to build youth power to stop the high school exit exam and advance a proactive state-level change in the areas of teacher quality and school funding.
$35,000

Carolina Alliance for Fair Employment Greenville, SC
To support a two-year project to reduce racial disparities in public schools; strengthen key program components, especially youth leadership development; incorporate youth organizing more fully in CAFÉ; and build relationships between African American and Latino youth.
$35,000

One Nation Enlightened/Students for Justice Denver, CO
To support youth organizing staff for Students 4 Justice, a youth-led, direct action organization that trains youth organizers and identifies youth leaders in Denver's African-American, Mexican/Chicano/Latino, American Indian, and Asian/Pacific Islander community to fight for racial justice in public education in their inner city high schools and neighborhoods
$35,000

Kids First! Oakland, CA
To strengthen Kids First!’s ability to achieve lasting systems changes in Oakland’s public schools by empowering high school aged youth to build an active student membership base; increase student and parent decision-making power in schools; and work in partnership with adult allies to advance community-defined education reforms.
$35,000

Northwest Bronx Community Clergy Coalition Bronx, NY
To support the work of Sistas and Brothas United for issue organizing on education, land use and quality of life campaigns to secure tangible community improvements; develop the leadership skills of its members; build the civic participation of several hundred neighborhood teenagers; and contribute to larger movements for a more just society.
$35,000

Philadelphia Student Union Philadelphia, PA
To support the work of empowering young people to transform Philadelphia’s public schools into places that ensure all young people a quality education, and especially in playing a lead role in the fight for equitable funding and in the restructuring of Philadelphia’s high schools.
$35,000

Sisters In Action for Power Portland, OR
To support the development of the leadership and organizing skills of low-income women and girls of color through a three pronged organizing model, involving: Issue Campaigns; Leadership Development; and Modeling the Vision, a philosophy for self and community transformation.
$35,000

Southwest Youth Collaborative Chicago, IL
To support the Generation Y project, a youth organizing initiative currently working on its Higher Learning Campaign, focused on racial justice issues in Chicago’s public schools.
$35,000

Youth Organizing Communities Los Angeles, CA
To support building a power base through youth organizing and leadership development in East Los Angeles schools and to strengthen the development of its media activism and training component to popularize the message of educational justice.
$35,000

NATIONAL GRANTMAKING

TOTAL: 211,000

2005 Grants Awarded:

Emerging Grants

Action Communications and Education Reform Duck Hill, MS
To support the Youth Innovation Movement, a youth led leadership development program that aims to increase the involvement of youth ages 6 thru 26 by engaging them in organizing efforts focused on issues such as prison and education reform.
$10,000

Baltimore Algebra Project Baltimore, MD
For stipends and technical communications assistance to support their continuing efforts to organize and advocate for equal funding of the Baltimore City Public Schools, stimulate citywide youth organizing efforts, and deepen coalition building work.
$10,000

Bronx Pryde Bronx, NY
To hire a Campaign Director to identify and implement a strategic campaign that builds their youth organizing work in "School to Prison Pipeline" issues.
$10,000

Community IMPACT! Nashville, TN
To support the youth-led economics team working in three main areas: community financial education; policy research on predatory lending; and direct action to protect neighborhood residents from predatory lenders.
$10,000

Community Youth Organizing Campaign, Philadelphia, PA
To develop the capacity of indigenous youth leadership to fight for social change in immigrant working class sectors of Chinatown.
$10,000

Escuelas Si! Pintas No! Youth Organizing for Equal Justice and Education (ESPINO)
Central Valley, CA
To support the “No Child Left Behind…Bars” campaign which focuses on organizing around the intersection of education and incarceration issues.
$10,000

Idaho Community Action Network (ICAN) Boise, ID
To support ICAN’s youth organizing work ¡Adelante!, including the implementation of a youth-to-youth outreach process, a leadership development training component and a youth-led issue campaign.
$10,000

Lakota Action Network, Porcupine, SD
To support the Lakota Action Network's youth organizing campaigns: "Wind Powering the Lakota Nation" and "Stop the Legalization of Alcohol Sales".
$10,000

Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM), Providence, RI
To contribute to salary for the Campaign Director, Community Organizing stipends and transportation costs in support of PrYSM's campaign to end the forced deportation of Cambodian Americans.
$10,000

Urban Underground, Milwaukee, WI
To support expenses related to the planning and execution of the Youth Empowerment Project.
$10,000

Youth Education Alliance (YEA) Washington, DC
To support YEA’s organizing campaigns that improve the quality of public education in the District of Columbia using a 9-point platform for school reform.
$10,000

Youth Justice Coalition Los Angeles, CA
To support their youth-led work to challenge County Probation and the California Youth Authority around conditions of confinement, reductions in the use of detention and incarceration, and confining youth in adult facilities.
$10,000

Renewal Grants

Concerned Citizens for a Better Tunica County Tunica, MS
To support the Tunica Teens in Action Program to develop a student handbook, host a youth summit in the Delta, and develop more youth leaders in the region.
$17,000

Desis Rising Up and Moving Jackson Heights, NY
To support the Youth Power! program, including sustaining staffing as well as campaigns.
$10,000

Padres Unidos Denver, CO
To support Padres Unidos' youth initiative, Jovenes Unidos, and its efforts to reform North High School as a replicable model for other inner-city schools of color; working to pass legislation that will allow undocumented students to go to college at in-state tuition rates; and to build a campaign to end the School to Jail track.
$10,000

Sistas on the Rise New York, NY
To support the efforts of young mothers and women of color in the Bronx to raise consciousness, build sisterhood and take action for social change.
$10,000

Southwest Organizing Project Albuquerque, NM
To support SWOP’s Youth Rights Campaign, which engages youth in cultural work, organizing, and leadership development.
$17,000

Youth United for Community Action East Palo Alto, CA
To support YUCA's Higher Learning program, a program which provides East Palo Alto youth with a space and vehicle to work on environmental and economic justice issues.
$17,000