SW Action

Exploring a Southwestern Regional Progressive Center

To: Friends

From:  Linda Shoemaker, President
          Brett Family Foundation
          1123 Spruce Street
          Boulder, CO 80302
          303-442-1200

Date: 10/25/04

'Southwest Action' is the working name for a new regional center intended to support and link together progressive organizations and leaders in the Southwestern states. Its goal will be to create a stronger base for progressive action, featuring:

stronger, more numerous, and more effective leaders and organizations;
greater communication and coordination among different elements of the progressive movement;
higher aspirations for long-term strategies and aggregate political power;
new and more diversified resources for change.

This is a new effort, in the earliest stages of outreach--although it is built upon a history of interest and conversations going back several years. This exploration has been initiated by Linda Shoemaker, founder and chair of The Bell Policy Center and president of the Brett Family Foundation in Colorado. Linda has been joined by Bill Vandenberg and Brandon Tanis, co-directors of the Colorado Progressive Coalition; Max Bartlett, co-director of ReVisioning New Mexico and PACE; Joel Foster, Chad Campbell, Linda Brown, and Mike Valder from the Arizona Leadership Institute (Joel) and Arizona Advocacy Network; and Maeghan Collins, director of the Brett Family Foundation. Jeff Malachowsky, founding director of the Western States Center, is providing support as a consultant.

Southwest Action is inspired by the experience of other regions of the country, where state and local organizations and leaders benefit greatly from regional infrastructure that links and supports them and helps them define regional analyses, priorities, strategies, and initiatives.

Western States Center covers 8 states in the Pacific Northwest, Great Basin, and Rocky Mountains, and provides a diversified program of organizational and leadership development through technical assistance, training, convening, and consulting, Western States' strategic emphasis is on long-term electoral strategies for grassroots organizations, building anti-racist organizations, and strengthening organizing--within politically marginalized or targeted constituencies. Western States was founded in 1987.
The Midwest States Center covers 5 states in the Midwest and Great Lakes region, and provides training, consulting, strategic planning, and campaign assistance. Now 10 years old, its emphasis is on building powerful state-based movements for social and economic justice, advancing statewide coalitions which engage in long-term electoral strategies, defining regional approaches on organizing strategy and public policy, and building a region-wide network of progressive elected officials.
Northeast Action covers 6 Northeast and New England states, providing training, mentoring, research, and regional campaigns. Its emphasis is on developing a plan and strategy within each state for knitting together strong networks and infrastructure of progressive statewide organizations and unions and grassroots organizations, especially organizations of color, as well as supporting common issue campaigns across the region such as "clean money" campaign reform. Northeast Action was launched by unions and community-based organizations in 1984.

Beyond these three regional organizations, many other programs support different aspects of progressive strategy in states, and there is much to learn and borrow from them.

An approach along these lines, led and defined by top activists in the Southwest, could yield a vital institution that both strengthens and binds the disparate efforts of progressives now working in community organizing, statewide issue and coalition organizing, labor unions, research and public policy projects, and as elected officials. A regional center, based on the experience of other regional centers, could help address the chronic shortfall in resources available for progressive organizing in the Southwest by leveraging national resources into the region, helping groups coordinate and improve fundraising, and supporting innovation in developing new sources of support.

What could the potential significance of a Southwest regional center be to the progressive movement and nationally, beyond just strengthening organizing and advocacy?

First, the Southwestern states are at the center of vital demographics--burgeoning Latino population growth, and substantial Native American populations. The regional center has the potential to uniquely support long-term organizational and leadership development within these communities. Furthermore, specifically in its commitment to develop ongoing electoral capacities, a successful center will help generate growth in Latino and Indio political power as part of maturing progressive movements in the states. This in turn will have particular national significance, since the Southwestern states look to be key "battleground states" well into the foreseeable future.

Second, there are vital issues at play across the Southwest. Immigration, clean elections (in Arizona and New Mexico), water policy, and Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights are just some of them. The regional center will enable greater coordination, more rapid and widespread diffusion of ideas, and more sophisticated integration with other issues and constituencies.

Third, a Southwestern states center can make important contributions to the structure and strategy of the national progressive movement. It will amplify a strong voice for heavily Latino states, including New Mexico, a "majority minority" state, and other states where Latinos are strong and, in places, actually wield governing political power. A new center in the Southwest will provide an opportunity to apply the lessons and strategic insights gained in the last 15 years of building infrastructure for the progressive movement and of combining grassroots organizing and electoral strategics. Finally, this may well become one of the very few, if not the only, broad-based regional centers launched and led by people of color, which will be an important milestone in the development of integrated state/regional/national strategies and progressive infrastructure.

What are the next steps in exploring the Southwest regional center? At this point, we are beginning with the states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, though the project may well expand to include other neighboring states. Leaders in each state will launch a program of outreach to broaden the conversation to include key leaders and thinkers from across their states, Over roughly the next six months, from the election through the spring, these conversations and other regional conversations will seek to more sharply define regional needs, goals, and vision, and recruit support from a broad and strategically inclusive range of leaders, organizations, and constituencies. At appropriate points, more formal steps will he taken, such as forming an organizing committee, deciding what states to include, setting and evaluating fundraising benchmarks, hiring consultants or organizers to move the project forward, and ultimately determining workplan, timeline, vision, strategy and structure.

At this time, we are seeking input and indications of support, including interest in considering financial support further on. We are excited about the potential of this project, and will I be glad to share information as it grows and develops. Please feel free to contact any of the individuals below.

Linda Shoemaker, lindashoe@aol.com
Bill Vandenberg, coprogressive@aol.com
Brandon Tani, bytani30@yahoo.com
Max Bartlett, max@nmspace.org
Joel Foster, jocl@azadvocacy.org
Chad Campbell, chad@azadvocacy.org
Linda Brown, linda@azclean.org
Mike Valder, mvalder@valderlaw.com
Maeghan Collins, mcollins@brettfounation.org
Jeff Malachowsky, jmal@compuserve.com

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