Keep up with our ongoing projects here:
Rep the Bay Leadership Program
Rep the Bay Leadership Program
We want there to be a streamlined process for building up leaders in our movement. One program is not enough to address all the barriers to leadership development, so we are working with partners and local leaders to create a more thorough approach to leadership development at many different levels. That is why we have five branches in our Rep the Bay Leadership Program: Project Base Build, Campaign Communications, the Progressive Governance Lab, the Rep the Bay Policy Fellowship, and Leadership Resilience. Each of these programs aims to build our leaders up from where they are – whether they are a volunteer at our member organization, newly elected council member, or an organizer of 20+ years.
Shared Communications
Bay Rising has made building a shared communications infrastructure a top priority since our founding. This involves aligning messaging and narratives, sharing resources, and building the communications capacity of member and partner organizations. By connecting organizations in this way, we can collectively impact local, regional, and state policy debates and shift public opinion towards important policy wins throughout the region.
Beyond building capacity, we have also helped partner organizations share their stories and successes through earned media and strengthen their outreach and organizing efforts using innovative strategies such as arts, culture, and digital organizing.
Solutions Springboard
In 2015, the local Rising alliances in Oakland, San Francisco, and Santa Clara County came together to found Bay Rising to share a bold, and increasingly winnable, vision for the Bay Area’s future.
Since then, we’ve shared learnings from our victories, challenges, and policy innovations tested in the Bay Area between organizers, researchers, elected officials, and other policymakers – from Sonoma to the South Bay, and from the Mission to Mount Diablo.
Lead Organizer Fellowship
Organizing requires a lot of time and a lot of people. We can’t control time, but people are everywhere! We need people to run these campaigns, to manage the organizers who are recruiting and developing voters, to create the strategies that expand our base. The Bay Rising Organizing Fellowship will equip organizers who already have field experience with the skills necessary to running and winning campaigns through training, coaching, community-building, and hands-on experience.
Democracy Dollars
In November 2022, thanks to the work of the Fair Elections Oakland coalition, voters overwhelmingly approved Measure W in Oakland. This vote showed how much Oaklanders want a more participatory, responsive, and accountable local government. With anti-democratic forces on the march around the nation, Oakland is pushing back.
Measure W creates a democracy dollars program to revolutionize how money works in local election campaigns. It will enable all eligible Oaklanders to receive four $25 vouchers to support local political candidates of their choice, making every household a potential donor household and bringing power back to the people.