All of us as individuals, communities and a society should have fundamental rights to education, health care, housing, work with dignity and the other foundations of a decent life. But right now, all too many of us are denied those basic needs. Business as usual isn’t working: our economic and political systems are not adequately responding to the challenges of income and deprivation, racism, ecological degradation, anti-democratic politics, and other urgent problems. We need a New Social Contract: one that offers a framework grounded not in profiteering, social hierarchies, or concentrated power, but in human rights, equity and inclusive democracy.

Not only are communities and workers all over the country articulating shared visions for a just and truly democratic future: they are also pursuing a range of strategies to build power to make these visions a reality. Many of these strategies focus on co-governance, policy and organizing models that work inside and outside of government to shift governing power towards people who are directly impacted by injustices and have the biggest stake in making sure our society works for everybody—people like Black students, low-wage immigrant workers, and working class neighborhood residents. We are collaborating with movement allies to map, support and build out transformative co-governance models as we push together toward a just and beautiful multiracial economic and political democracy.

Assemblies as a Tool for Just Democracy

Assemblies—gatherings where large numbers of people come together to deliberate and make collective decisions—are a powerful tool of governance. In 2025, the U.S. and countries around the world struggle to meet people’s material needs, reduce extreme concentrations of wealth and defeat right-wing racist and xenophobic authoritarian threats, assemblies and other models of collaborative governance hold potential to help reverse this tide and build more just, equitable, democratic societies. Assemblies can operate within social movements as power-building tools, within governments as official parts of the policy process and in a hybrid form spanning movements and governments that we call governing-power assemblies.

Community Schools & Co-governance: Lessons from Los Angeles and San Diego

Community schools are public schools that include collaborative leadership and active family and community engagement while working to expand learning opportunities and wraparound services for their students. In both LA and San Diego, the community schools initiatives have centered collaborative decision-making between multiple stakeholders, including the district, teachers, students, families, administrators and local community grassroots organizations, jettisoning the traditional top-down approach to decision making, and using the on-the-ground resources and knowledge of the entire community to strengthen their schools. The results are schools that authentically respond to their individual community’s needs, holistically supporting students and parents, while also providing an outstanding education.

Click to see our new interactive map:
Co-Governance In Action
Across the Country

Read our reports:

• Assemblies as a Tool for Just Democracy
• Community Schools & Co-governance: Lessons from Los Angeles and San Diego
• Co-Governing Toward Multiracial Democracy
• New Social Contract: Collective Solutions by and for Communities
• A New Social Contract for Workers
• Democratizing Workers’ Compensation

Watch our webinars:

• Assemblies as a Tool for Just Democracy
• Community Schools & Collaborative Governance: Building Models that Strengthen Public Education
• Puerto Rico & Hawaii: Building Power with Energy Democracy
• Governing Power: Movement Strategies in the US and the Global South
• Co-Governing Toward Multiracial Democracy
• From the Ground Up: Community Centered Policies to Scale Equitable Development
• Cultivating Food Justice
• Privatization or Economic Democracy?
• How Do We Invest in Our Communities?

Check out these resources:

• Pursuing Co-Governance in Chicago
• Building Bottom-Up Democracy Through Co-Governance
• How to Build Multiracial Democracy at the Local Level
• Can We Learn from COVID-19? The Need for Common Sense

Find out about our 2018-2019 speaking tour here.