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Centering resident leadership and collective action to drive lasting change.Transformative community development doesn’t happen to people, it happens with them. Too often, engagement is transactional: residents are informed but not empowered, consulted but not included in real decision-making. Without authentic participation and shared leadership, even the most well-intentioned initiatives struggle to take root or sustain impact.
Building strong, equitable communities requires a shift from traditional outreach toward models that build power, trust, and accountability between residents, institutions, and decision-makers.
Our Approach
Through the Advancing Communities Institute (ACI), The Coalition helps jurisdictions design and implement engagement strategies that move beyond participation toward partnership.
Grounded in community organizing principles, our approach strengthens civic infrastructure by equipping residents to lead, advocate, and co-create solutions alongside government and institutional partners. We work with local leaders to build systems that sustain this collaboration over time — ensuring that community priorities remain at the center of planning, policy, and investment.
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We equip residents with organizing skills, policy knowledge, and leadership training to elevate their role in civic life and build collective power within their communities.
We design and facilitate engagement strategies that bring residents, service providers, and community leaders together to identify shared priorities, build trust, and advance coordinated solutions.
We help communities design and launch large-scale, community-driven advocacy campaigns that raise public awareness, mobilize grassroots support, and influence policy change.
We help build the long-term infrastructure that sustains civic engagement: cultivating trusted relationships with elected officials, strengthening networks of community advocates, and ensuring ongoing accountability to community-defined goals.
For over 25 years, The Coalition has worked alongside residents, practitioners, and public leaders to advance equitable community development in Washington, DC. Our approach has always centered community voice, from large-scale advocacy campaigns to neighborhood-based initiatives.
Through ACI, we help other jurisdictions replicate this model of shared power, translating grassroots leadership and cross-sector collaboration into lasting systems change.