$933K in expenses

Alliance for a just society - the national campaign for transit justice continued outreach & education around the need for investment in transit infrastructure. This included a weekly meeting with 60 community-based organizations. We continued to educate the public about the importance of federal funding for transit operations. We worked with local, state, and national groups to identify shared policy goals that will improve transit, biking, and walking. These include: 1. Great transit service requires federal operating funds. 2. Communities should be transit-ready. Frequent transit requires roads to incorporate transit lanes, traffic signal priority, and safe access for all road users between transit stops and key destinations, among other features. Road design must prioritize safety over speed to protect transit riders and reduce roadway deaths and injuries. Any reauthorization needs to update roadway design standards to require transit-supportive elements, fund transit-supportive activities, and support updating planning and zoning codes. Small and rural communities deserve great transit. Remove barriers and improve the federal transit program to increase access to quality transit in small towns and rural areas. This means: authorizing additional funding for rural transit programs. Raising the federal share of rural transit operating funding from 50% to 80%. Incentivizing coordination across jurisdictional boundaries and multiple funding sources. To enable long-term planning, states must provide multi-year funding estimates to rural transit agencies. Incentivizing innovative solutions with competitive grant funding. Create a federal procurement clearinghouse to help small and rural transit agencies right-size their purchases, increase efficiency, and facilitate lower capital costs. 4. Fix it first: the federal transportation program should prioritize maintenance on existing roads, bridges, and highways ahead of roadway capacity expansion that requires decades of additional repair costs. 5. Transit should have a level playing field with highways. We released 5 reports including: "earth day: it's time to make better transportation decisions", " 3 ways to make bus driving a better job", "good transit requires well paid union workers", "investing in the transit workforce for stronger communities and "state by state: impact of the stronger communities through better transportation ACT" we developed and shared five toolkits geared to helping groups organize constituencies, build effective townhalls, and other events. Working with the network organizations to build online lists, write effective emails, do non-partisan voter education, and strengthen the involvement of transit riders, disability groups, and labor unions.expanded the public dialog about the importance of transit and particularly the need for operations funding- by publishing op-eds and speaking to the press. We published two national and over 35 op-eds in 15 states to urge greater federal action to fund transit. In addition, AJS, plus partner organizations, were quoted in national outlets like politico, street smarts, the hill and the streets.AJS invested in training college students and community leaders. Weekly training sessions to educate 60 partner organizations about transit policy and best practices. A summer training series on organizing and strategy for the coalition of transit groups. The series included an introduction to organizing, racial justice for organizers (parts 1 and 2), and three workshops on campaign development and strategy. Hosted 12 meetings of rural community and transit groups to learn about transit best practices in small towns and rural communities. Hosted 28 student fellows who learned receiving training & field experience to explore organizing as a career. AJS staff conducted year-round coaching of organizers with 3 community organizations, amounting to 20 staff. AJS also conducted dozens of remote & in-person educational sessions & workshops for partner organizations. The content of these sessions varied from basic organizing skills training to racial justice principles & analysis, to strategy sessions for community & labor organizations & community advocates. Communities for our colleges (c4c) works to promote direct investments, financial support, counseling, childcare & other wrap-around services, to improve both access & completion rates for students of wa's 34 community & technical colleges (CTCS). CTCS, attended by over 273,000 students, are key to racial & social equity, educating students of color at higher rates than other institutions. In 2024, c4c continued to work with labor, community, and local non-profit organizations. Outreach efforts built a team of 80 community college student leaders, continued to work with local committees at 4 local colleges, a story bank of 140 stories & 20 earned media stories. C4c researched & published 3 reports: "the road to equity -- washington's community & technical colleges" which evaluates how CTCS are progressing on the path to equity; "pathways to the future -- professional licenses for washington's immigrants" which addresses barriers in accessing professional licenses for immigrants; "building and equity action plan -- a toolkit for students, faculty, staff in washington's community & technical colleges" which provides a toolkit for faculty and staff at our 34 CTCS on how to implement the historic racial equity legislation that shifted the landscape for higher education & community & technical colleges, making progress on racial equity a requirement for wa CTCS.

$3.2M in expenses

Native organizers alliance: noa advocates & supports grassroots-driven social change rooted in native traditional practices & values to advance sovereignty & the health & well-being of rural & urban native communities & reservations across indian country.in 2024, noa supported tribes and community groups in a number of campaigns to protect sacred places, including oak flat, grand canyon, bears ears, lower snake, thacker pass, missouri river, and yukon-kuskokwim delta. We supported efforts by tracking and analyzing legislation, providing comments to agencies, and amplifying the collective voices of affected communities through letter campaigns, petition drives, and educational initiatives on policy issues that affect indian country.in 2024, noa worked with a number of tribes across the country, including the standing rock sioux tribe in their ongoing battle against the dakota access pipeline.noa engages 43,837 followers on facebook, instagram, and linkedin as a way to garner support and disseminate information on current issues and campaign initiatives led by and for native people. Noa's email list includes 220,975 total subscribers (a 70% increase over 2022) who received information on petitions, letter-writing campaigns, and 26 public education webinars.the 2024 noa training program conducted 1 national and 7 state-based or regional training with 245 total participants.

$483K in expenses

Eastside for all (efa) expanded its base-building within bipoc communities in east king county, including outreach, education, and mobilization for affordable housing in bellevue, redmond, and kirkland as well as supported statewide mobilization for rent stabilization in wa for the upcoming legislative session. We completed a major community engagement process with the city of redmond for their comprehensive plan update, and had an additional 250 participants for that effort, totaling over 950 people from bipoc and immigrant communities who provided input to cities from 2023-2024. We continued to do voter education and registration at multiple tabling events and we hosted two candidate forums for state representative elections. In our equitable development work, formalized our coalition with 10 other bipoc led organizations in visioning and planning to operate a community hub in redmond at an affordable housing development that will open in 2027. Overall, we increased our capacity for equitable development and affordable housing advocacy with the hiring of a new full-time staff person in october of 2024. To increase communications and connection with more community members, efa started recording episodes for a new podcast called reimagining community: eastside voices for change that will be launching in early 2025. In total across all our programs in 2024, we had 56 events with 2,681 participants.

$1.0M in expenses

There are seven organizing other program services, one of which is battle creek. In 2024, the battle creek coalition for truth, racial healing, and transformation (bctrht) deepened its impact through over 20 community events and initiatives, engaging more than 1,200 participants across battle creek. We hosted our eighth annual national day of racial healing, a powerful envisioning dinner attended by 150 community members, and led a youth summit with 70 students from five high schools exploring racial healing and mental health. Our six community envisioning sessions uplifted diverse voices to imagine a battle creek free from racism. We launched the battle creek did not burn oral history project, producing a documentary and archival interviews capturing local civil rights history. Our "building equity" housing justice series featured national authors, panel discussions, and book clubs with over 150 attendees. We also supported two legal rights workshops in partnership with the naacp and the michigan department of civil rights. Throughout the year, our programming wove together community visioning, healing practices, policy advocacy, and intergenerational dialogueall in service of a more equitable battle creek where all can flourish.