Pushback Network

Community Voices Heard

Mission | Work | Steering Committee Members | Contact

Community Voices Heard was one of the founding members of the Pushback Network. Sondra Youdelman, our Executive Director, currently serves on the Steering Committee of Pushback. CVH, together with New York Jobs with Justice, co-anchors the work of Pushback in New York State.

Mission

The Pushback Network is a national collaboration of indigenous, grassroots organizations and networks committed to building bottom-up, state-based alliances that change both the composition and levels of participation of the electorate. We emphasize strategies to empower underrepresented constituencies: people of color, poor and working class communities, and young people.

We envision building an authentic participatory democracy that works to achieve social justice. We seek a democracy that creates opportunities for ordinary people to make real contributions to the political decision that affect their lives. It's a democracy powered by a diversity of people, not just by the wealthy and privileged. It's a democracy where grassroots communities ha that have been historically pushed to the political margins lead social change rooted in progressive values.

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Work

Decades of community organizing and electoral experience have enabled Pushback partners to successfully weave social justice values with smart programmatic work and get extraordinary results. Together, our partners have a unity of purpose that drives the Network's vision, planning, direction, and strategies

In our target states, the Pushback Network's anchor organizations lead strategic planning and coordination for the development of broad-based alliances. PBN assists the alliances to implement common, rigorous programs to meet high standards for performance. All of PBN's state programs feature the following components that reflect our values, principles, and goals:

Building State Alliances from the Bottom Up The Pushback Network Insists on building alliances at the state level - in between election cycles and during elections - to create the space for groups to building working relationship and to push ourselves to set and meet higher goals. The Pushback Network works with existing infrastructures in order to extend their reach and amplify their power. We link organizations or budding state formations with national strategy, peer-based planning/training, and resources.

Politically Conscious Base-Building: The Permanent Campaign Pushback's state alliances develop programs and strategies to build a strong base of politically conscious grassroots leaders, members and volunteers engaged in voter participation. This ground work constitutes an on-going campaign that deepens our work in-between elections. Base building activities include leadership training, political education, and integrating voter work with local/regional issue campaigns. PBN and state alliances place highest priority on building power to make social change with and on behalf of low-income communities and communities of color.

Large Scale Direct Voter Contact Targeting Communities of Color and the Poor The "political center" has been lifted upa s the key to building a winning majority, while our constituent bases remain shut-out of the political equation. Expanding the electorate by increasing the voter engagement of our bases can be influential, if not decisive, in changing the debate regarding our national priorities as well as in electoral outcomes. Pushback's state alliances lead direct voter contact programs, supplemented by other activities such as forums, surveys, and communication. Each state alliance will develop voter contact goals and organize strategies for multiple person-to-person contacts (face-to-face or phone) with potential voters in a given election cycle.

Strategic Communications Bridge Base Communities and Non-traditional Allies PBN's state alliances will develop strategic communication plans utilizing cutting edge technologies and tools and carefully targeted delivery strategies. The communications strategies will help shape the public debate around priority public policy issues, consolidate the political consciousness of our base communities, engage and motivate new voters to participate, and move swing voters toward progressive solutions.

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Steering Committee Members

Greater Birmingham Ministries (Alabama)
California Alliance (California)
SCOPE - Strategic Concepts in Organizing & Policy Education (California)
Kentucky Jobs with Justice (Kentucky)
KFTC - Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (Kentucky)
Southern Echo (Mississippi)
SWOP - SouthWest Organizing Project (New Mexico)
SAGE Council - Sacred Alliance for Grassroots Equality Council (New Mexico)
Community Voices Heard (New York)
New York Jobs With Justice (New York)