Location: National About: The Center for Popular Democracy works to create equity, opportunity and a dynamic democracy in partnership with high-impact base-building organizations, organizing alliances, and progressive unions. CPD strengthens our collective capacity to envision and win an innovative pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice agenda. Visit the Center for Popular Democracy's website.

Location: Nationwide About: Journey for Justice Alliance (J4J) is a national network of black and brown led, grassroots community organizations in over 30 cities across the United States committed to equity in public education. J4J utilizes grassroots organizing as a tool to inspire community-driven school improvement. Visit the Journey for Justice (J4J) website.

Location: Nationwide About: The Alliance for Educational Justice (AEJ) is a national network of 29 youth and intergenerational organizations working to dismantle the school to prison pipeline. Founded in 2008, AEJ and its members have been a critical youth voice in shifting local, state, and federal education policy impacting millions of students of color. Visit the Alliance for Educational Justice (AEJ) website.

Location: Nationwide About: Black Lives Matter at School is a national coalition organizing for racial justice in education. We encourage all educators, students, parents, unions, and community organizations to join our annual week of action during the first week of February each year. Visit the BLM at Schools website.

Location: Nationwide About: The DSC challenges the systemic problem of pushout in our nation’s schools and works to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. As a national coalition, the Dignity in Schools Campaign builds power amongst parents, youth, organizers, advocates and educators to transform their own communities, support alternatives to a culture of zero-tolerance, punishment, criminalization and the dismantling of public schools, and fight racism and all forms of oppression. They bring together members through direct action organizing, public policy advocacy and leadership development to fight for the human right of every young person to a quality education and to be treated with dignity. Visit the Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC) website.

Location: Nationwide About: The Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) is an unprecedented alliance of parent, youth, community and labor organizations that together represent over 7 million people nationwide. We are fighting to reclaim the promise of public education as our nation's gateway to a strong democracy and racial and economic justice. AROS believes that the best way to ensure each and every child has the opportunity to pursue a rich and productive life is through a system of publicly funded, equitable and democratically controlled public schools. After years of division, AROS is uniting parents, youth, teachers and unions to drive the transformation of public education, shift the public debate and build a national movement for equity and opportunity for all. Visit the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) website.

Location: Providence, RI About: ARISE combines leadership training with community organizing to mobilize Southeast Asian and other Rhode Island youth of color for education justice. Visit the ARISE website.

Location: Chicago, IL About: BPNC is a community-based, grassroots organization on Chicago’s southwest side, a predominately Latinx and immigrant community. They work to build empower communities and build capacity by providing school and community-based services and programs. BPNC also engages leaders in social justice organizing campaigns. They work to win change at the local, state, and federal levels. BPNC believes in addressing the holistic needs of the community and the root causes of poverty and inequity through a racial justice lens. Their programs include: (1) Economic Justice; (2) Health care affordability and access; (3) Immigrant justice; (4) Community safety and violence prevention; and (5) Education Justice. Visit the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council's website.

Location: California – Statewide About: Californians for Justice is a statewide grassroots organization working for racial justice by building the power of youth, communities of color, immigrants, low-income families, and LGBTQ communities. Led by students, CFJ organizes to advance educational justice and improve social, economic, and political conditions. CFJ engages in statewide advocacy on school discipline/climate and related work. Visit the Californians for Justice website.

Location: San Francisco, CA About: Coleman builds the leadership and power of low-income and working class youth and parents of color in San Francisco to advance racial and economic justice in the schools and city. Through grassroots organizing, budget and policy advocacy, and voter engagement, Coleman Advocates is building a city of hope, justice, and opportunity – a San Francisco where all children and families have access to high-quality education, living wage jobs, family-supporting benefits, affordable housing, and a voice in the decisions that affect them. Visit the Coleman Advocates website.

Location: New York, New York About: Desis Rising Up and Moving is a multigenerational, membership-led organization of low-wage South Asian immigrant workers and youth in New York City. Founded in 2000, DRUM has mobilized and built the leadership of thousands of low-income, South Asian immigrants to lead social and policy change that impacts their own lives - from immigrant rights to education reform, civil rights, and worker’s justice. DRUM has built a unique model of South Asian undocumented workers, women, and youth led organizing for rights and justice from the local to the global. Their organizing model involves five core elements: Base building; Leadership Development; Policy Campaigns; Alliance Building; and Institution Building. Visit the Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM) website.

Location: New Orleans, LA About: FFLIC organizes parents and families to ensure equitable systems and practices for children who have been, or are in greatest danger of being, incarcerated. FFLIC is the only organization in the CJSF portfolio that is so explicitly focused on the juvenile justice system and the education system to transform both and stop the referral of children from schools into the juvenile justice system. Visit the Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children (FFLIC) website.

Location: Madison, WI About: Freedom, Inc. organizes in low- to no-income communities of color in Dane County, WI. They work to end violence against people of color, women, those that non-traditionally gender identify, and young people, to promote healthy lifestyle. They work to support the creation of healthy communities by campaigning against the root causes of violence, creating new definitions and solutions of identity and resiliency, and empowering all community members as agents of change. Freedom, Inc. also runs movement-building trainings for allied organizations through their Positive Action Center. Visit Freedom, Inc.'s website.

Location: New York, NY About: Girls for Gender Equity (GGE) is an intergenerational grassroots organization committed to the physical, psychological, social, and economic development of girls and women. Through education, organizing, and physical fitness, GGE encourages communities to remove barriers and create opportunities for girls and women to live self-determined lives. The young people GGE serves experience a range of living situations from foster care, poverty, substance abuse, sexual violence and incarceration. They make up the majority of those frequently suspended from school and to whom harsh discipline is applied yet they do not have access to counselors or social work services. Visit the Girls for Gender Equity (GGE) website.

Location: Wisconsin – Statewide About: GSAFE creates just schools for LGBTQ+ youth in Wisconsin. We do this by: Developing the leadership of LGBTQ+ youth; Supporting Gay-Straight Alliances; Training educators; Advancing educational justice, and; Deepening racial, gender, trans, and social justice. Visit the GSAFE website.

Location: Philadelphia, PA About: Juntos is a Latinx immigrant community-led organization in Philadelphia fighting for human rights as workers, parents, youth, and immigrants. Their approach involves a combination of leadership development, community organizing, and focused collaborations with other organizations to build the power of their community. Their mission explicitly states, “We believe that every human being has the right to a quality education and the freedom to live with dignity regardless of immigration status.” Visit the Juntos website.

Location: New Orleans, LA About: Rethink’s mission is to “support youth of color in becoming thoughtful and capable leaders through the process of rethinking their experiences in their own school communities and taking action to make systemic improvements.” According to Rethink, most young people in New Orleans who are arrested are arrested in school starting as young as fifth grade. Rethink’s five-point action plan aims to change that: (1) criminal injustice, (2) food insecurity, (3) educational climate, (4) housing, and (5) media justice. Visit the Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools (Rethink) website.

Location: Providence, RI About: Providence Student Union was created in 2010 and is building student power to ensure that young people have a fair say in improving their education. They aim to be a sincerely youth-led union where young people can freely come together to develop leadership skills and organize for ground-up improvements to their schools. Visit the Providence Student Union (PSU) website.

Location: Providence, RI About: Providence Youth Student Movement envisions a strong, healthy Southeast Asian community free from state, street, and interpersonal violence. PrYSM organizes at the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation by centering youth, female, queer, and people of color leadership in our campaigns, our organization, and our communities. PrYSM mobilizes queer Southeast Asian youth, families, and allies to build grassroots power and organize collectively for social justice. Visit the Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM) website.

Location: Richmond, CA About: Ryse is a community center for youth created by youth. In addition to programming, RYSE engages youth in organizing efforts through Richmond Youth Organizing Team (RYOT). The RYOT is a group of young people working together to create a safe, healthy and youth-friendly Richmond through organizing campaigns and base-building. The purpose of the RYOT is to ensure that young people serve as key stakeholders and decision-makers on issues and policies impacting their individual and collective health and well-being, and spark the transformation of Richmond as a youth-friendly city. Visit the RYSE Center website.

Location: Nashville, TN About: The Southern Movement Committee engages in community organizing and community-led lawyering for racial justice and human rights in the US South, starting in Tennessee. Visit the Southern Movement Committee's website.

Location: Albuquerque, NM About: The SouthWest Organizing Project was founded in 1980 by young activists of color. Their goal has been to empower their communities to realize racial and gender equality and social and economic justice. SWOP works primarily in low-income communities of color to gain community control of their land and resources. At the core of their work is the belief that “all families have the right to healthy, sustainable environments in which to live, work, and play.” SWOP has had a “student bill of rights” statewide campaign for many years, and more recently also created a school-to-prison pipeline campaign. Visit the SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP) website.

Location: Louisiana – Statewide About: Step Up Louisiana, along with our sister organization Step Up for Action, is a community based organization committed to building power to win education and economic justice for all. We work with multiracial and intergenerational Louisianans to “Step Up” by campaigning, organizing from a racial justice perspective, and holding public officials accountable. We organize with parents, workers, students, and community members to disrupt systemic oppression in our schools and workplaces through voter education, advocacy, and action. Visit the Step Up Louisiana website.

Location: Dallas, TX About: TOP promotes social and economic equality for low to moderate income Texans through community and electoral organizing. TOP provides hard working Texans the opportunity to implement real change by organizing their own neighborhoods, investing their time and energy in causes relevant to their respective communities, and collectively taking ownership over TOP’s agenda, strategy and direction. Visit the Texas Organizing Project Education Fund (TOP) website.

Location: St. Paul, MN About: The Midwest Center for School Transformation (MCST) is a fiscally sponsored project of the Twin Cities Innovation Alliance (TCIA). Their work is grounded in the belief that relationships are foundational to changing the culture, climate and conditions necessary in school communities to effect lasting change.Their present work in the Twin Cities includes advocacy around algorithmic and data justice in public education. Visit the Twin Cities Innovation Alliance (TCIA) website.

Location: Oakland, CA About: Youth Together addresses the root causes of educational inequities by developing multiracial youth leadership and engaging school community allies to promote positive school change. They work with youth in five high schools to organize around issues that youth elevate. They recently launched their first parent organizing cohort to ensure parents are equipped to support students. Visit the Youth Together website.

Location: New London, CT About: Hearing Youth Voices develops working class, Black and brown young people into courageous and skilled leaders capable of running issue-based campaigns, leading coalitions and alliances, and uniting us across our differences to build the power necessary to advance racial, economic, and gender justice. Visit the Hearing Youth Voices website.

Location: Chicago, IL About: Assata’s Daughters is a Black women-led, young people-focused abolitionist organization rooted in the Black Radical Tradition, utilizing a Black Queer Feminist lens and relationship-based tactics to organize young Black people in Chicago who will organize their communities. Visit the Assata's Daughers website.

Location: Little Rock, AR About: Grassroots Arkansas is a coalition of grassroots organizers and activists dedicated to realizing liberated, world class equity in our public schools and communities, together, starting with the Little Rock School District. View the Grassroots Arkansas website.

Location: Pittsburgh, PA About: 412 JUSTICE is a multiracial, intergenerational, and multi-issue organization that focuses our efforts around economic, environmental, and education justice. We build deep trust and collaboration with impacted people by creating an inclusive, safe space to learn, ask questions, and use our voice to promote strong, healthy communities and corporate accountability through the redistribution of wealth, power, and resources. Visit the 412 Justice website.

Location: San Francisco, CA About: Teachers for Social Justice Bay Area works to: Maintain a network of progressive educators to develop an environment of support and professional development; Sustain a membership that is engaged in a continuing process of critical self-reflection and growth; Evolve an education system that is responsive to the needs of the communities it serves and promotes equitable access to resources and power, and; A membership with a level of competency in creating empowering learning environments. Visit the Teachers for Social Justice Bay Area website.

Location: Boston, MA About: Boston Youth Organizing Project is a youth-led organization supported by adults, with a common purpose to increase youth power and create positive social change. BYOP goals are to improve the lives of young people, increase real political participation and build community.

Location: Baltimore, MD About: Baltimore Algebra Project (BAP) works to ensure that all students have access to quality, 21st-century education which includes learning and mastering advanced math. BAP values the intelligence of Baltimore City Youth and pays them a living wage to teach math to their peers; training their existing leadership skills; and supporting their vision for a more just, equitable Baltimore and beyond. Quality Education, adequate employment, proper healthcare, and safety is the right of every Baltimore City Youth. Visit the Baltimore Algebra Project (BAP) website.

Location: San Juan, PR About: FMPR is a union of teachers dedicated to the defense of public, accessible, appropriate and free public education in Puerto Rico.

Location: Nationwide About: NBWJI's community organizing does the following: (1) use the book, Pushout (written by NBWJI founder Dr. Monique Morris), to develop a toolkit to advance the content of the book in ways that are readily accessible to the public and especially teachers; (2) create a guide for organizers, a guide for advocates, a guide for policymakers, and other stakeholder-focused guides based on the book, Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools; (3) once the tools are available, the NBWJI organizer will put those tools in the hands of a number of states, via a web-based platform and possibly through components such as video. The real organizing effort is aligning the toolkit with the policy opportunities in each state. They also would maintain a “database” of who is doing relevant work and can help in each place. Visit the National Black Women's Justice Institute (NBWJI) website.

Location: Seattle, WA About: Creative Justice builds community with youth most impacted by the school-to-prison-(to-deportation) pipeline. Participants and mentor artists work together to examine the root causes of incarceration, like systemic racism and other forms of oppression, creating art that articulates the power and potential of our communities. Visit the Creative Justice website.

Location: New Orleans, LA About: BreakOUT! is a community-based organization focused on organizing LGBTQ youth 13-25 years old. Their membership base is directly impacted by the criminal justice system, which increasingly means undocumented Latino immigrants and gay and lesbian identified youth. Their mission is to end the criminalization of queer and trans youth through youth organizing, leadership development, and healing and justice. BreakOUT! is a new coordinator of the New Orleans GSA Network. Their Posh Academy provides GEDs to young people who have been pushed out of school and aligns with the expanding mission of the GSA Network to ensure equity in schools for LGBTQ students. Visit the BreakOUT! website.

Location: Dayton, OH About: Racial Justice NOW! is a community-based organization made up of educators, parents, clergy, and grassroots activists dedicated to fighting institutional and systemic racism. RJN organizes parents and community members to build a base of support for limiting zero-tolerance discipline policies, decriminalizing truancy, and implementing a statewide moratorium on pre-K to third-grade suspensions and expulsions. By focusing on human rights, RJN seeks to empower other grassroots activists to challenge systemic racism by organizing and holding people in power accountable. They have been actively acknowledged organizers/leaders in Dayton, at the state level in Ohio, and by the federal government. Visit the Racial Justice NOW! website.

Location: Los Angeles, CA About: Students Deserve is a grassroots, member-led organization made up of students, parents and teachers in Los Angeles. We are building a movement to struggle against institutional oppressions such as class and race inequities that exist in the school system and in broader society. We seek to contribute to the student movement, the movement for Black lives, and the movement for public education. Visit the Students Deserve LA website.

Location: Snellville, GA About: The Gwinnett Parent Coalition to Dismantle the School to Prison Pipeline (Gwinnett SToPP) formed to lead a parent-driven, community-centered partnership approach to dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline in Gwinnett County, Georgia. The mission of Gwinnett SToPP is to build and strengthen community relationships in two constructive ways – parent/community advocacy training and policy-change facilitation. Gwinnett SToPP seeks to build and strengthen relationships within the community through public awareness, empowerment, and advocacy. Visit the Gwinnett Parent Coalition to Dismantle the School to Prison Pipeline (Gwinnett SToPP) website.

Location: Milwaukee, WI About: Leaders Igniting Transforming (LIT) is a youth organizing group based in Milwaukee, WI that focuses on three core programs: (1) ending the school-to-prison pipeline; (2) economic justice (3) justice reinvestment. Visit the Leaders Igniting Transformation (LIT) website.

Location: New York, NY About: Led by parents, the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice is organizing a movement to end the inequities in the city’s public school system. We are a collaborative of community-based organizations and unions whose members include culturally diverse parents, community members, students and educators. We are motivated by the urgent need to obtain a quality and well-rounded education for all students. We will mobilize the power of parents and the community to affect policy change and create a more equitable educational system. Visit the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) website.

Location: Boston, MA About: Youth on Board has tapped into an incredible amount of positive energy, skills, and enthusiasm by engaging young people in the institutions that affect them most. Engaging young people as partners in efforts to improve schools, youth organizations, and neighborhoods benefits both young leaders and entire communities. Their experience is supported by research showing that youth have a profound and positive effect on resolving the issues that confront them. Young people already possess the expertise around their experiences and educations and and with the right tools can become brilliant leaders and organizers in their schools and communities.

Location: Oakland, CA Partner Type: Cohort 1 About: Black Organizing Project is a Black, member-led community organization working for racial, social, and economic justice through grassroots organizing and community-building in Oakland, California. BOP's vision is to build a strong bottom up organization of Black people that will: Craft alternative models and institutions that will advance BOP's vision of racial and economic justice. Rebuild the spirit and foundation of Black community. Exercise political and economic power. Act to win real systematic change. Transform the lives of Black people. Embody the spirit that has sustained the Black community. Visit the Black Organizing Project's website.

Location: Louisville, KY About: CLOUT is an organization of faith-based congregations and groups working together to solve critical community problems and involved in grassroots and multi-issue organizing, direct action, and improving the quality of life in communities. Presently, 19 congregations & groups with over 12,000 members are members of CLOUT and come from all parts of Louisville and represent a diverse mix of races & ethnicities, as well as different religious traditions. CLOUT’s mission is to build the power of religious congregations to solve community problems by holding systems accountable. Visit Citizens of Louisville Organized and United Together (CLOUT)'s website.

Location: Chicago, IL About: VOYCE is a youth organizing alliance for education and racial justice led by students of color from across Chicago and Illinois. VOYCE was founded in 2007 to increase Chicago graduation rates using youth-driven research and organizing to advance district-level policies that support student achievement. VOYCE’s work is driven by the belief that young people who are most directly affected by educational inequity are in the best position to develop meaningful, long-lasting solutions. VOYCE’s organizing focuses on three priority areas: (1) Ending the use of harsh discipline policies that push students out of school and into prisons, (2) Implementing the use of restorative discipline practices, and (3) Limiting the use of high-stakes testing and creating high-quality learning environments. Visit the Communities United (VOYCE) website.

Location: Los Angeles, CA About: CADRE is a community-based, membership parent organization in South Los Angeles. CADRE is led by African American and Latino parents and caregivers whose children attend local schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). CADRE works for systemic change by supporting grassroots South LA parents as the leaders in stopping the pushout crisis in schools serving low-income neighborhoods of color. Through parent capacity building, political education, advocacy, and organizing, CADRE challenges schools’ beliefs and practices that criminalize children and parents and violate their human rights to a quality education, dignity, and participation in our current public education system. CADRE builds power to win new policies and challenge existing ones as part of a movement towards educational and racial justice. Visit Community Asset Development Re-Defining Education (CADRE)'s website.

Location: Chicago, IL About: COFI works to strengthen the power and voice of low-income and working families at all levels of civic life—from local institutions and communities to local, state, and federal policy arenas. COFI has trained and organized thousands of parents. These leaders, primarily mothers and grandmothers, are winning improvements in their schools and communities, creating their own organizations and programs, and changing policies on critical issues that affect families. The work is taking root around the country, attracting national attention to parent-led innovative policy solutions. Visit the Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI) website.

Location: Nationwide About: GSA Network is an LGBTQ, racial and gender justice organization that empowers and trains queer, trans, and allied youth leaders to advocate, organize, and mobilize an intersectional movement for safer schools and healthier communities. GSAN's overall strategy is to work with grassroots, youth-led groups and GSAs, empowering them to educate their schools and communities, advocate for just policies that protect LGBTQ youth from harassment and violence, and organize in coalition with other youth groups across identity lines to address broader issues of oppression. Their work with students focuses on leadership development and activism that prioritizes building alliances not only across sexual orientation and gender identity lines, but also across race, ethnicity, and class lines, and resources and trainings are designed to facilitate coalition building. Visit the Gender & Sexualities Alliance Network (GSA Network) website.

Location: Denver, CO About: Padres & Jóvenes Unidos is a multi-issue organization led by people of color who work for educational equity, racial justice, immigrant rights, and quality healthcare for all. Jóvenes Unidos, the youth initiative of Padres Unidos, emerged as young people became active in reforming their schools, ending the school to jail track and organizing for immigrant student rights. Both Padres and Jóvenes Unidos build power to challenge the root cause of discrimination, racism and inequity by exposing the economic, social, and institutional basis for injustice as well as developing effective strategies to realize meaningful change. The Padres Freedom to Learn framework is based on the belief that education is a right, not a privilege. We believe that all students, regardless of race, income, or immigration status, deserve equal access to high-quality public schools that prepare them for college.

Location: Philadelphia, PA About: PSU builds the power of young people to demand a high-quality education in the Philadelphia public school system. PSU is a youth-led organization making positive changes in the short term by teaching students how to organize to build power. PSU also guides youth leaders toward becoming life-long learners and leaders who can bring diverse groups of people together to address the problems that communities face. Visit the Philadelphia Student Union (PSU) website.

Location: New York, NY About: Teachers Unite is an independent membership organization of public school educators in New York City collaborating with youth and parents to transform the city’s and the nation’s public schools. TU resists institutions that segregate and criminalize Black and Latinx youth, such as the school-to-prison pipeline, by organizing educators to work as allies in local and national campaigns for social and economic justice. TU also develops and shares resources for restorative justice and school-based power-building that promote grassroots leadership in public education. They conduct collaborative research on pressing educational issues. According to TU, schools can only be transformed when educators work with and learn from parents and youth to achieve social and economic justice. Visit the Teachers Unite website.

Location: Los, Angeles, CA About: Youth Justice Coalition is working to build a youth, family, and formerly and currently incarcerated people’s movement to challenge America’s incarceration and race, gender, and class discrimination in Los Angeles County, California. YJC’s goal is to dismantle policies and institutions that have ensured the massive lock-up of people of color, widespread law enforcement violence and corruption, consistent violation of youth and communities’ Constitutional and human rights, the construction of a vicious school-to-jail track, and the build-up of the world’s largest network of jails and prisons. They use transformative justice and community intervention/peacebuilding, FREE LA High School, know your rights, legal defense, and police and court monitoring to “starve the beast” – promoting safety in schools, homes, and neighborhoods without relying on law enforcement and lock-ups, preventing system contact, and pulling people out of the system. YJC is engaged in direct action organizing, advocacy, political education, and activist arts to agitate, expose, and pressure people in charge in order to upset power and bring about change. Visit the Youth Justice Coalition (YJC) website.

Location: Philadelphia, PA About: Youth United for Change is a youth-led, democratic organization made up of youth of color and working class communities holding school officials and government accountable to the educational needs of Philadelphia public school students through a process of school- and community-based organizing. Through YUC, a diverse group of youth come together, identify common concerns in their schools and community, and act collectively on their own behalf to create strategies for whole school reforms in the Philadelphia Public School System that better meet the needs of youth of color and working class communities. YUC believes that every young person deserves a quality public education that prepares him or her for success at a 4-year university, for a living wage job, and for active participation in civic life. Visit the Youth United for Change (YUC) website.

Location: New York, NY About: The New Settlement Parent Action Committee (PAC) was founded by South Bronx parents in 1997 and organizes for educational justice and safety with dignity in the lowest performing school districts in NYC. PAC develops local and district-wide campaigns, builds the leadership and skills of South Bronx parents, and offers monthly “Know Your Rights” workshops that benefit the entire community. PAC is a program of New Settlement Apartments which owns and operates nearly 1,000 units of housing and provides educational and community service programs to thousands of children, youth and adults. Visit the New Settlement Parent Action Committee (PAC) website.

Location: Miami, FL About: Power U is organizing and developing the leadership of Black and Brown youth and Black women in South Florida so that they may help lead the struggle to liberate all oppressed people. Power U's Principles of Unity - Power U believes that the systems of White Supremacy, Capitalism, and Heteropatriarchy are roots of oppression in society. To fight these forms of oppression and win Human Rights, Power U strives to uphold the following principles: Self-determination for all communities, Solidarity within and between communities of color, Economic Justice, Black Liberation, Women’s Liberation, Equality for LGBT people, Youth Empowerment, International Solidarity. Visit the Power U Center for Social Change (Power U) website.

Location: New York, NY About: Urban Youth Collaborative is led by students and brings together New York City students to fight for real education reform that puts students first. Demanding a high quality education for all students, UYC young people struggle for social, economic, and racial justice in our schools and communities. UYC believes in the transformative power of youth organizing, movement building to heal communities, and the power of young people to shift structural systems and policy. Visit the Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC) website.

Location: New York – Statewide About: The Alliance for Quality Education (AQE) is a coalition mobilizing communities across the state of New York to ensure a high-quality public education to all students regardless of the zip code in which they live. Combining its legislative and policy expertise with grassroots organizing, AQE advances proven-to-work strategies that lead to student success and echo a powerful public demand for a high-quality public school education for all of New York’s students. Visit the Alliance for Quality Education (AQE) website.

Location: Raleigh, NC About: EJA is a group of concerned individuals in Wake County, NC working for a reduction in the number of public school students pushed off the academic track through unfair suspensions, harsh discipline policies, and academic failure. Visit the Education Justice Alliance (EJA) website.

Location: Los Angeles, CA About: The Labor Community Strategy Center is a Think Tank/Act Tank for regional, national, and international movement-building, founded in 1989 and based in Los Angeles. LCSC creates campaigns, projects, and publications rooted in working class communities of color, and focus on civil rights, environmental justice, public health, global warming, and the criminal legal system. They work to build consciousness, leadership, and organization among those who face discrimination and societal attack -- people of color, women, immigrants, workers, LGBT people, youth, all of whom comprise the Strategy Center's membership. Visit the Labor Community Strategy Center (The Strategy Center) website.

Location: Washington, DC About: The Black Swan Academy empowers black youth in under-served communities through civic leadership and engagement, giving them a comprehensive set of tools needed to succeed in life and become active social catalyst in their communities. We are committed to creating a pipeline of Black youth leaders that are committed to improving self, as well as their communities. Visit Black Swan Academy's website.

Location: Washington, DC About: Critical Exposure trains youth to use photography and advocacy to make real change in their schools and communities. They are creating a new generation of civic leaders who have: The tools to express themselves; The creativity to imagine new solutions to old problems; The belief that youth have the right and ability to fight for those solutions; The skills to hold communities and public officials accountable. Through campaigns and visual storytelling, CE helps students raise their voices in conversations about education policies and build the public support and political will needed to address the issues they face. Visit Critical Exposure's website.

Location: Durant, MS About: The Nollie Jenkins Family Center visualizes an energized and involved community where all people, young and old, are valued, nurtured and supported as they work together to build and sustain communities that are purposeful in ensuring that the environmental, political, cultural, recreational, educational, economic, spiritual needs of its citizens are actualized and preserved. The NJFC mission is to advance the fundamental goal of empowering the citizens of the community by developing grassroot leaders and organizers through the building of strong community organizations as the essential means by which they are enabled to hold the political, educational, and environmental systems accountable to the needs and interests of the African-American community! Our mission is to advance the fundamental goal of empowering the citizens of the community by developing grassroot leaders and organizers through the building of strong community organizations as the essential means by which they are enabled to hold the political, educational, and environmental systems accountable to the needs and interests of the African-American community! Visit the Nollie Jenkins Family Center website.

Location: Miami, FL About: SOUL Sisters Leadership Collective mobilizes systems-involved girls and femmes of color - black, brown, and indigenous - to interrupt cycles of state violence, poverty, and oppression. Their four pillars are leadership, healing, social justice, and the arts. Visit the S.O.U.L. Sisters Leadership Collective.

Location: Jackson, MS About: Southern Echo is a leadership development, education and training organization working to develop effective accountable grassroots leadership in the African-American communities in rural Mississippi and the surrounding region through comprehensive training and technical assistance programs. This work has carried Echo staff into 12 other states in the south and southwest. The underlying goal is to empower local communities through effective community organizing work, in order to create a process through which community people can build the broad-based organizations necessary to hold the political, economic, educational, and environmental systems accountable to the needs and interests of the African-American community. A special emphasis for Echo is the active inclusion of young people, in an inter-generational model of community organizing, on the same basis as adults. Young people are less dependent upon the past, have the least fear of change, and the best potential for creating a broad vision of a fair and just society. Visit the Southern Echo website.

Location: Washington, DC About: Teaching for Change provides teachers and parents with the tools to create schools where students learn to read, write, and change the world. By drawing direct connections to real world issues, Teaching for Change encourages teachers and students to question and re-think the world inside and outside their classrooms, build a more equitable, multicultural society, and become active global citizens. Visit the Teaching for Change website.

Location: Jackson, MS About: The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects’ mission is to be a revelatory, unflickering light for Black girls and young women in the southeastern United States through focused programming and by creating spaces of solidarity and safety for them. Visit The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects website.

Location: Miami, FL About: Dream Defenders is an uprising of communities in struggle, shifting culture through transformational organizing. They are pushing for an end to the incarceration of young people by the year 2020. Visit the Dream Defenders website.

Location: National About: Advancement Project is a next generation, multi-racial civil rights organization. Rooted in the great human rights struggles for equality and justice, we exist to fulfill America’s promise of a caring, inclusive and just democracy. We use innovative tools and strategies to strengthen social movements and achieve high-impact policy change. Visit the Advancement Project's website.

Location: N/A About: D4BL is a group of activists, organizers, and mathematicians committed to the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people. Visit the Data for Black Lives website.

Location: N/A About: Free Minds, Free People is a national gathering that brings together teachers, high school and college students, community activities, academics and parents from across the country to build a movement to develop and promote education as a tool for liberation.

Location: California – Statewide About: The Dignity in Schools Campaign challenges the systemic problem of pushout in our nation’s schools and works to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. As a national coalition, DSC builds power amongst parents, youth, organizers, advocates and educators to transform their own communities, support alternatives to a culture of zero-tolerance, punishment, criminalization and the dismantling of public schools, and fight racism and all forms of oppression. We bring together our members through direct action organizing, public policy advocacy and leadership development to fight for the human right of every young person to a quality education and to be treated with dignity. Visit the Dignity in Schools Campaign California (DSC-CA) website.