Theory of Change

Reclaim Philadelphia is a multiracial member-led organization that builds community power to win change, reclaim government for the people, and advance economic, racial, and gender justice. Our work is grounded in three connected pillars: organizing and training people, changing policies and ideas, and building political power in elections and institutions. Together these pillars create a cycle that brings people together around shared interests, builds leadership, and popularizes our values. Over time our work deepens solidarity and increases the power of Philadelphia’s multiracial working class. We are serious about winning. That’s why we nurture a culture of accountability, continually analyzing the power we need, evaluating our effectiveness, and creatively shifting activities to meet the moment.

People

Organized people are powerful. Our base is made up of people who act together around shared values. We build and sustain our base through issue, identity, and neighborhood groups across the city. We recruit community members to fight together, meeting them where they are in order to build a bigger “we.” By sharing our stories and motivations, we work to unite the diverse communities of the multiracial working class around our common interests, deepening connections over time into lasting solidarity. Our members anchor our base and lead our organization, democratically deciding our strategy. To sustain our work and scale our capacity, we are relentlessly committed to investing in our members and base with leadership development training and mentorship. We believe the only path to deep, sustainable change at a large scale is training thousands of leaders to step up for their communities. Read more

Policies

The issues that impact us, our loved ones, and our communities are at the heart of our work. Policy wins serve as stepping stones to deeper change by delivering material benefits to poor and working people, raising expectations and inspiring hope. We advance our policy agenda through legislative and budget advocacy, elections, direct actions, political education, and supporting the efforts of allies and movement politicians. We also create our own issue campaigns when leaders and members decide to focus our collective energy on moving our base into action. In all our work, we know we are up against powerful players who have long dominated the “battle of big ideas,” and that to make change, our vision of an economy that puts people first and a government that serves all of us must feel self-evident to our communities. We make this happen by consistently telling our stories, using inclusive framing, creating accessible political education, and coordinating messaging with partners for maximum amplification. Read more

Political Power

We reclaim our government for the people, taking it back from the corporations and wealthy few that currently control it. To make lasting reforms in pursuit of our values, we must affirm the value of democratic government — and we must aim to govern. We engage in elections strategically to elect candidates with shared values, to build our base and develop leaders, to move our policy agenda forward and amplify our ideas, and to defeat right-wing extremism. We work within an ecosystem of political power in which we collaborate with partners and allies on strategy and building enduring progressive infrastructure. We are most powerful when we act together, with allied movement organizations, grassroots and community groups, movement politicians, labor unions, and progressive wards. Read more