Roadmaps to Power

How Education Justice Organizers are Building Co-Governing Power, Affecting Community Safety Nets, and Transforming Systems

 

July 28, 2026

Communities for Just Schools Fund and the USC Equity Research Institute

The United States is at a crossroads. The multiple crises and emergencies that have rocked the country since 2020—the COVID-19 pandemic, the national reckoning with structural racism and racialized police violence triggered by the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, economic shocks, the induced weakening of the social services and safety net programs, threats to public education and marginalized youth, racialized immigration enforcement, and natural disasters—have shed light on social precarity and vulnerability.

This report suggests that the secret sauce for the small and large change we need is community power. Specifically, the type of community power that is nurtured and developed in grassroots community organizations who have a record of forcing us, including the state, to pay attention to our most pressing needs and challenges. As such, we understand community organizing as a set of grassroots methods, practices, and strategies that strengthen people’s capacity to work together, exercise power, and improve community life.

 

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Download report

Visit CJSF to download the Roadmaps to Power report

Roadmaps to Power Webinar – Tuesday, July 28, 2026

Explore “Roadmaps to Power,” a report from Communities for Just Schools Fund with support from Nellie Mae Foundation and the USC Equity Research Institute, that examines how grassroots organizers are building co-governing power, the role of community safety, and the part funders must play in sustaining both for the long haul.

Roadmaps to Power webinar

Roadmaps to Power webinar

Read our other publications by research area

    Immigrant Integration & Racial Justice

    Our work on immigrant integration and racial justice brings together three emphases: scholarship that draws on academic theory and rigorous research, data that provides information structured to highlight the process of immigrant integration over time, and engagement that seeks to create new dialogues with government, community organizers, business and civic leaders, immigrants and the voting public to advance immigrant integration and racial equity.

    Economic Inclusion & Climate Equity

    In the area of economic inclusion, we at ERI advance academic theory and practical applications linking economic growth, environmental quality, and civic health with bridging of racial and other gaps; produce accessible and actionable data and analysis through the data tools; and establish research partnerships to deepen and advance the dialogue, planning, and actions around racial equity, environmental justice, and the built environment.

    Social Movements & Governing Power

    ERI’s work in the area of governing power includes: conducting cross-disciplinary studies of today’s social movements, supporting learning and strategizing efforts to advance dialogues among organizers, funders, intermediaries, evaluators, and academics, and developing research-based social change frameworks and tools to inform—and be informed by—real-world, real-time efforts towards a vision of deep change.

    Publications Directory

    In 2020, the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) and the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) merged to form the USC Equity Research Institute (ERI).

    The full list of publications published under our previous and current names can be found in our publications directory.

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