In coordination with the Right to the City Alliance, Causa Justa :: Just Cause has been anchoring the Bay Area Engaged Voter Organizing trainings. This has been a dynamic and inspiring process of bringing our San Francisco and Oakland electoral allies together to build our collective expertise in running successful civic engagement programs.  

Our goal has been to develop an electoral organizing model that combines voting and community organizing toward the goal of building power in working class communities.  We believe that the work of engaged voter organizing needs to go beyond just getting people out to vote. It means engaging communities to fight for issues that are important to them long after the election is over. Groups that carry out engaged voter organizing build long-term relationships and institutions within their communities to develop leadership, build membership and advocate on issues.  

Participants in the trainings have learned everything from the history of the U.S. suffrage movement, to developing effective field plans, to developing skills in canvassing and phone banking, to how to use voter databases. These leaders will then go on to train others in their organizations and communities – because there is power in numbers!  

Right To The City organizations in New York, Florida, and Virginia are also running similar trainings so that our impact will not only be local but national in scale.