Campaign for Communities

Campaign for Communities is a joint coalition of Earth Day Network, NAACP National Voter Fund, Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and Project Vote/ACORN. This historic coalition is committed to a long-term project building healthy communities through participatory democracy. As a new coalition representing the multiple cultures and demographics of America, Campaign for Communities is focused on fully engaging and uniting the interests of environmental and community development problems that persist in our communities.

Our Mission

Campaign for Communities’ mission is to broaden the environmental movement and redefine its agenda by including non-traditional environmental issues that face communities of color and low-income communities.

Campaign for Communities is breaking old barriers to change the face of the environmental movement. We are seeking environmental equality and the right of all people to live in healthy communities regardless of race, ethnicity, socio-economic status or geography.

Addressing Environmental Issues Facing Our Communities

Campaign for Communities has expanded the meaning of “environment” to include issues not typically associated with it, including clean schools, access to public transportation, asthma prevention and healthy and affordable homes.

We are building a solid national agenda to address tough environmental issues facing our communities, such as:

• Crumbling Infrastructure
• Unsafe Drinking Water
• Children’s Environmental Health
• Air Pollution
• Water Pollution
• Lack of Public Transportation

What We Are Doing

The Campaign for Community partners focus primarily on the under-represented: low income, people of color, and youth. In addition to educating and mobilizing communities, each of our major partners also works to train and promote new community leaders. We often work directly with our community-based partners on leadership training at the local level and organizing around local community development issues.

While we build long-term community infrastructure, we educate, train, and register voters. Our goal is to make sure that people who would not otherwise vote are registered and mobilized - to help traditionally underrepresented voting constituencies participate.

In the 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections, Campaign for Communities registered and turned out close to one million new and infrequent voters from communities of color and college campuses. The next steps will be to empower our targeted communities around the new environmental/community health/community development agenda through increased public education and awareness.

Working with the Latino Community

As part of our efforts to grow and diversify the environmental movement and mobilize communities, Earth Day Network has launched different initiatives to engage the Latino community in the US in green initiatives.

For the past three years, Earth Day Network has been a convener of the National Latino Congreso, to be celebrated in Los Angeles July 19 and 20. The Congreso first broke new ground in 2006 with delegates representing over 260 endorsing organizations and individuals from 20 states creating a platform of 70 resolutions.

Earth Day on the Hill

On Earth Day 2007, community leaders and citizens from all across the US came to Washington DC to advocate for bold and swift action to stop global warming. For Earth Day 2009, we will work with the US Senate to raise environmental awareness among legislators and congressional staff.