Strategies

Provide financial assistance to working parents, or parents attending school, to pay for child care

Expand federal or state child tax credits by increasing credit amounts, making credits refundable, decreasing or eliminating the earnings threshold, or creating a fully refundable supplement

Support locally-based visual, media, and performing arts initiatives for children and adults; also called participatory arts programs

Provide space to promote socializing among community members and offer programs and services such as recreational or educational activities, counseling or support services

Expand refundable earned income tax credits for working individuals and families with low to moderate incomes

Adopt policies that allow custodial parents who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to collect all child support paid by the non-custodial parent; no portion is retained by the state

Establish a non-share capital cooperative model in which fee-paying members can share the communal resources of a grocery, house, or utility cooperative

Return the rights to land, property, and resources to Native people as part of policies and initiatives that promote tribal sovereignty

Establish locally mandated wages that are higher than state or federal minimum wage levels

Increase the lowest hourly, daily, or monthly compensation that employers may legally pay to workers

Establish voluntary formal groups of residents who work together to create a unified voice, enhance living conditions in their neighborhood, and address neighborhood concerns

Provided work supports for low income individuals and families (e.g., job search assistance, transitional jobs, subsidized child care, health insurance, etc.); participants worked at least 30 hours/week

Allow community members to gather, socialize, walk, run, bike, skate, etc. on streets temporarily to closed to motorized traffic; also called Ciclovía programs

Engage community members to determine how public budgets are spent, ideally to improve neighborhood conditions and reduce inequality.

Bring people with diverse values and perspectives together to engage in facilitated, inclusive, and informed dialogues about a topic of public concern. Examples include Citizens’ Initiative Reviews, deliberative polling, citizen juries, and citizen’s assemblies.

Lend materials, offer gathering space, and provide educational, civic, and social programming; open to the community and publicly funded

Offer a refundable tax credit to working families with qualifying children or other dependents that receive care outside the home (e.g., a spouse with disabilities)

Support individual and group use of internet-based tools to receive news, communicate or share information, collaborate on ideas, mobilize networks, and make collective decisions

Explore ways to increase Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program benefit amounts for aged, blind, or disabled individuals, including children, with little or no income

Support and strengthen traumatized and distressed residents and communities and address effects of community trauma (e.g., poverty, violence, structural racism, etc.) via a comprehensive, multi-stakeholder, and multilevel approach

Increase compensation provided to unemployed workers looking for jobs by expanding eligibility, amount, or duration of benefits

Provide all individuals with regular cash transfers, without conditions, over their lifetimes

Increase the number of registered voters through initiatives that reduce barriers and expand accessibility, including automatic voter registration (AVR), voter registration drives, easing voter registration requirements, and expanding registration sites

Increase voter turnout through get-out-the-vote campaigns and initiatives to make voting more convenient such as allowing early in-person voting, vote-by-mail, or expanding polling locations and hours

Teach students attitudes, skills, knowledge, and behavior needed to participate in and contribute to a democracy