Charlottesville, VA 22903-5208
Phone: (434) 984-4655 Fax: (434) 984-2803
The Virginia Organizing Project is a statewide, multi-issue citizens' organization committed to challenging injustice by empowering people in local communities to address issues that affect the quality of their lives. Since 1995, VOP has intentionally involved people who have never participated in working for change alongside those with many years of experience. VOP is intentionally diverse in its leadership development, and attempts to cultivate democratic skills amongst people who, regardless of differences in race, gender, class, sexual orientation, age, occupation, religion, geographic location or ability, believe in the importance of working through local, grassroots communities to ensure a better quality of life for all Virginia's citizens.
Please click on each bullet for additional information on each category:
in 2008:
* VOP brought together 13 statewide groups to coordinate the Summer Civic Engagement Project and hired 50 interns for the project
* representatives of the Virginia Organizing Project, Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, Virginia AFL-CIO and Virginia League of Conservation Voters briefed Governor Tim Kaine on the Summer 2008 Civic Engagement Project and future coalition efforts
* the town of Berryville changed its ordinance after the ACLU threatened to sue on VOP’s behalf for being overly restrictive in regulating the right of people to peaceable assemble
* held a power analysis weekend at Hat Creek Camp with VOP leaders, board members and staff as well as representatives of other Virginia non-profit groups
* celebrated the publication of Lessons From the Field: Organizing In Rural Communities, edited by Joe Szakos and Kristin Layng Szakos
* hired a new organizer and a new apprentice organizer
* participated in the Festival of the Book in Charlottesville by hosting a luncheon for Susan Wells, participating in a panel on community organizing and holding a workshop on organizing with Michael Jacoby Brown
________________________________________________________________________________________
* organized officially-recognized local VOP chapters in:
o Lee County
o Legislative District 4 (Washington County/Abingdon)
o Northern Shenandoah Valley
o Central Shenandoah Valley
o Greater Williamsburg
o Petersburg
o Roanoke Valley
o Norfolk/Portsmouth
o Charlottesville/Albemarle
o Virginia Beach
o University of Virginia
* continue to build and develop relationships with these groups, among others:
o AARP Virginia
o Adopt a Soldier
o Advancing Green Chemistry
o AFL-CIO of Virginia
o African-American Teaching Fellows of Charlottesville/Albemarle
o Albemarle County DSS Advisory Board
o Alexandria Office on Women
o Alternatives, Incorporated
o American Association of University Women – Virginia
o Appalachian Office on Justice and Peace
o Appalachian Peace Education Center
o Asociacion de Trabajadores de Construccion Residencial
o Augusta Coalition for Peace and Justice
o Berryville Citizens Association
o Better Business Bureaus of Virginia
o Better Than Television
o Better World Betty
o Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Williamsburg
o Blue Ridge Radio Project
o Brothers for Change
o Camping for All
o Central American Resource Center
o Central Virginia Vets for Peace
o Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Alliance
o Charlottesville – Albemarle Commission on Children and Families
o Charlottesville DSS Advisory Board
o Chesapeake Climate Action Network
o Citizens United For Rehabilitation of Errants
o Coalition for Smarter Growth
o Community Bikes
o Concerned Citizens for Abingdon’s Future
o Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality
o Delta Sigma Theta Sorority
o Earth Week
o Environmental Health Sciences
o Equality Virginia
o Fairfax Futures
o Fairfax Office for Children
o Families and Allies of Virginia’s Youth
o First Street Church Project
o Fluvanna/Louisa Housing Foundation
o Foothills Child Advocacy Center
o Friends of Washington County Schools
o Greene Alliance of Church and Community Efforts (GRACE)
o Gulf Coast Bookmobile Project
o Help Winneba Read
o Hispanic Services Organization
o Hogar Hispano
o HOME Consortium Advisory Committee
o Housing Opportunities Made Equal
o Infant-Toddler Family Day Care
o Inova Health System
o Interfaith Gay/Straight Alliance
o Jobs with Justice
o JustChildren
o Justice Seekers
o Latino Connection
o League of Women Voters of Virginia
o Legal Aid Justice Center
o Living Wage Coalition at Emory and Henry
o Local 400 UE160
o Migrant Health Network
o Monticello Area Community Action Agency
o NAACP Virginia State Conference
o National Environment Trust
o Network for Latino Peoples
o New River Community Action
o Northern Virginia Family Service
o Northern Virginia Pan-Hellenic Council
o Our Sons and Daughters Support Group
o Parent Advisory Council-Legal Aid Justice Center
o Peninsula Community Development Corporation
o People Incorporated of Southwest Virginia
o People of Color Coalition
o People, Inc.
o Petersburg City Workers Association
o Piedmont Environmental Coalition
o Piedmont Housing Alliance
o Prevent Child Abuse Virginia
o Public Housing Association of Residents
o Quality Community Council
o Quinn Dam Project
o RAIL Solution
o Residential Construction Workers Association (ASTRACOR)
o Resource Information Help for the Disadvantage
o Reston Interfaith Center
o Richmond Peace Education Center
o Richmond Peace Foundation
o Richmond Tenants Organization
o Rockingham-Harrisonburg NAACP
o Rocktown Infoshop
o Rooms for a Reason
o Rt. 1 Taskforce
o Save Our Cumberland Mountains
o SHEA Collaborative
o Shenandoah Valley Network
o Smart Beginnings South Hampton Roads
o Social Action Linking Together
o Southern Appalachia Mountain Stewards
o Southwest Virginia Alliance
o Sowers of Justice
o Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition
o Sunrise Center
o Tenants and Workers United
o The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative
o The Clinch Coalition
o The Commonwealth Institute of Virginia
o The Metropolitan Business League
o The People United
o Tidewater Sowers of Justice
o United Way of Central Virginia Success by 6
o Unity in the Community
o Upper Tennessee River Roundtable
o Urban Ministries
o Virginia ACLU
o Virginia AFL-CIO
o Virginia Alliance of Family Child Day Care Associations
o Virginia Alliance of Social Work Practitioners
o Virginia Association for Early Childhood Education
o Virginia Association of Area Agencies on Aging
o Virginia Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Networks
o Virginia Association of Personal Care Assistants
o Virginia Association of Realtors
o Virginia Black Lung Association
o Virginia Center for Policing Innovation
o Virginia Citizens Consumer Council
o Virginia Coalition for Latino Organizations
o Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness
o Virginia Conservation Network
o Virginia Education Association
o Virginia Forest Watch
o Virginia Head Start Association
o Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy
o Virginia Justice Center
o Virginia League of Conservation Voters
o Virginia League of Social Services Executives
o Virginia Muslim Coalition for Public Affairs
o Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee
o Virginia NAACP
o Virginia Partnership to Encourage Responsible Lending
o Virginia Poverty Law Center
o Virginia School Aged Child Care Coalition
o Virginia SCOPE
o Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance
o Virginia Sheriffs Association
o Virginia Sierra Club
o Virginia State University
o Virginia Transfer & Storage Co.
o Virginians Against Payday Lending
o Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
o Voices for Virginia’s Children
o Warren-Page NAACP
o Washington County TRIAD
o Westhaven Afterschool Program
o Westhaven Nursing Clinic
o Wild Virginia
o Williamsburg Climate Action Network
o YouThink Coalition
Some facts from 2007:
* held 60 constituent meetings with state legislators
* had 305 community leaders use a new skill to improve their community
* had 45 interns
* provided 207 consultations with other groups to increase their effectiveness
* worked in 61 Virginia communities
* held 24 public forums on poverty, mental health, predatory lending and other issues
* distributed 53 letters to the editor and 32 op-eds to each of the 125 newspapers in the state
VOP continues to:
* implement a statewide e-mail action alert system to link organizations and individuals in different parts of the state, enabling them to work more effectively together on a variety of issues, such as: living wage, sexual orientation issues, Earned Income Tax Credits, death penalty, clean air, Pharmacy Connect, forestry and logging, out-of-state garbage, Mattaponi reservoir, affordable housing, tax reform, racial profiling and others
* publish virginia.organizing, a news magazine with a circulation of 8,500 that provides news of VOP and its chapters and affiliates, as well as other groups in the state, and has sections on organizing skills (in English and Spanish), a column on understanding the economy, and leadership profiles
* upgrade the VOP web site, www.virginia-organizing.org, which includes links to other organizations and information resources
* develop an annual Organizing Plan to insure strategic action and to evaluate effectiveness
* distribute op-eds and letters to the editor to 125 newspapers across the state
* participate in the Public News Service, which broadcasts radio announcements across Virginia
* increase our coordination of media conferences
* the Used Computer Project which has placed more than 1,600 computers, 325 printers, 55 fax machines, 25 copiers, 14 typewriters and 30 scanners in the hands of non-profit groups and individuals who could not otherwise afford such equipment
Additionally, VOP:
* purchased and renovated an office building in Charlottesville and established an endowment, The Fund for the Virginia Organizing Project
VOP joined forces with Voices for Virginia’s Children and many other local, regional and statewide groups in forming the Working Families Child Care Coalition. The Coalition’s first initiative was to seek additional public funding from the General Assembly to serve more low-income working families with child care subsidies available through local departments of social services. With waiting lists of approximately 10,000 children, a serious underestimate of need, the Coalition set out to obtain funding over a four-year period that would eliminate these waiting lists. The Coalition had urged Governor Kaine to include additional funding in the 2008 – 2010 biennium, and his budget initiatives included $6 million in federal TANF funds to address child care subsidy needs each year of the biennium. The Coalition and VOP supported the Governor’s initiative during the 2008 session, which was adopted, to fund child care subsidy needs.
in 2008:
* met twice with staff in the Governor's office on payday lending legislation
* had a visible presence at all of Governor Tim Kaine’s town hall meetings across the state, passing out lapel stickers and informational flyers and asking questions about the predatory lending legislation passed in the General Assembly
* spoke at a press conference on the payday lending legislation that passed
* VOP worked with the Commonwealth Institute to defeat a bill that would have favored large companies with out-of-state business at the expense of smaller establishments; the bill had previously passed 94-0 in the House before being successfully blocked in the Senate Finance Committee
* supported the City of Charlottesville and the Charlottesville school system to increase their living wage
* worked with a Lynchburg VOP supporter to recruit people of color who are members of a local credit union to apply to be on their board of directors
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Statewide Tax Reform Campaign
A national study released in early 2002 by the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities ranked Virginia as one of the harshest tax states for working class and working poor families. The study estimated that a single-parent family of three earning $17,661 would owe $483 in Virginia income taxes – the fourth highest figure in the nation, behind Kentucky, Hawaii and Alabama. With services being cut or eliminated and local governments scrambling to make up for decreases in state revenue, issues of tax reform have a major impact on other issues that need attention in Virginia.
VOP's statewide campaign to help Virginians understand state taxes, appropriations and expenditures achieved success on many levels in 2004. We worked with 18 other groups, held 41 workshops, used our news magazine and action alert system, developed a media campaign, organized informational visits with legislators and encouraged participation in public meetings. As a result, this campaign allowed VOP to experience a new level of organizational capacity.
Our work helped facilitate some improvements for the poor and working poor in Virginia:
* a raise in the filing threshold from $5,000 to $7,000 for individuals and from $8,000 to $14,000 for married couples, which exempts 141,000 low-income Virginians from paying state income taxes
* the creation of a new low-income tax credit for the working poor
* an increase in the personal exemption from $800 to $900
* elimination of the "marriage penalty"
* a schedule of reductions in sales tax on food, working toward the total elimination of this tax
* elimination of two common loopholes used by many major corporations and businesses to legally avoid paying state income taxes
* elimination of a foreign income loophole
* a tax increase on cigarettes
* a means test of the deduction formerly based solely on age
* preserved estate tax revenue on estates worth more than $1 million
VOP also worked with members and allies on other statewide improvements, including:
* an increase of $1.5 billion in new state support to public education, reducing the pressure on local real estate taxes
* an increase in $32 million to assist persons with mental disabilities
* the largest infusion of funds for natural resource programs in Virginia's history
* $15 million each year to the Water Quality Improvement Fund and $2.5 million per year to the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation
During the state revenue debate in 2004, the dialogue received much media attention, including a highlight in The New York Times. VOP was a forerunner and remains a central player in this issue. We were featured in articles in the Washington Post, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Virginian-Pilot (Tidewater), and the Roanoke Times, to name a few. We have been credited in a variety of publications in Virginia with providing continued grassroots leadership in addressing this critical issue.
Living Wage Activity
* succeeded in getting the Albemarle County School Board, Albemarle County and the Charlottesville School Board to raise the wages of their lowest paid employees
* succeeded in our living wage campaign for the City of Charlottesville for employees and contract workers
* currently, playing a key part in the Virginia Alliance for Worker Justice, a new partnership of religious, community and worker organizations working to get legislation introduced to increase the Virginia minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.50 an hour
* supported the Tenants' and Workers' Support Committee, a VOP affiliate, in their efforts to successfully secure living wage ordinances in Alexandria and Arlington
* supported the Richmond Coalition for a Living Wage as they got the Richmond School Board and the Richmond City Council to pay their workers a living wage
* worked with students at the University of Virginia to press for a living wage for university contract workers
* held two living wage luncheons in Wythe County to honor employers who pay a living wage
* successfully worked with a broad-based coalition in 2001 – and again in 2004 – to stop state legislation that would have prohibited localities from enacting living wage ordinances
* made a presentation on living wage campaigns at the 2001 Virginia AFL-CIO Convention
* made a presentation to the Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church in Virginia, which adopted a resolution supporting the living wage and authorized a wage study of all church employees
* co-sponsored a living wage forum in Blacksburg
* facilitated two workshops –Win or Lose: What are the next steps? and How to Dismantle the “isms” in a Living Wage Campaign – at the Southern Living Wage Conference (Spring 2003)
* held a living wage workshop for students from nine different Virginia college campuses including guest speakers Ben McKean, from United Students Against Sweatshops, and Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America
* provided assistance to a living wage campaign at Emory & Henry College where they have 14- produced a newsletter, gathered research and obtained signatures and endorsements
Affordable Housing
*set up a tour for members of VOP, the Williamsburg Housing Coalition and the Williamsburg City Council of mixed-cost, workforce housing being constructed in New Town
*the Northern Shenandoah Valley VOP Chapter held housing vigils in five jurisdictions – Winchester city and the counties of Clarke, Warren, Page and Shenandoah
* succeeded in getting the Virginia Housing Development Authority (VHDA) to approve more than $339 million to finance low-income home ownership and rental construction loans and set up a three-member creative financing team to work with local governments, non-profit organizations and developers to find new and more effective strategies to address low-income home ownership and rental needs throughout the state
* succeeded in getting VHDA to open up its public comment process
Community Participation
* succeeded in getting the City of Petersburg to fund a fair housing officer/housing ombudsman position
* supported the Public Housing Association of Residents (PHAR), a VOP affiliate, in its successful effort to push for increased representation of public housing residents on the local housing authority board, with the first public housing resident in the state serving as chair of a housing authority board
* provided tours of low-income and working class communities for senior officials of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in Martinsville, the Eastern Shore and Northern Virginia
* worked with labor and community groups to get the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond to set up a Community Development Advisory Council to address issues of concern to low-income and working class people, a major change in the Bank’s operation
* co-sponsored a Community and Business Economic Development Symposium with the Wythe County Chamber of Commerce and the Community Affairs Office of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank to involve community leaders in working toward a long-term healthy local economy
* worked with the Independence Resource Center to do a survey of each school in Charlottesville in terms of accessibility; succeeded in getting the Charlottesville City Council to designate $1.1 million to make all school facilities in the city fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act
* assisted on a local campaign to keep the Williamsburg/James City County’s Alternative School operating
* assisted on a local campaign in the Williamsburg area around school redistricting, working for racial and economic parity between schools
* organized a group of Lee County parents who convinced the local school board to retain Advanced Placement classes in their high school, which the board had planned to eliminate
* changed the suspension policy in Lynchburg city schools from a mandatory 365-day suspension to offer appropriate alternative education and counseling
* received the endorsement of the Albemarle Education Association in our successful living wage campaign for Albemarle County Schools
* met with the field staff of the Virginia Education Association about their new efforts to gain adoption of living wage resolutions in school districts throughout the state
* included public school support issues in the tax reform campaign
in 2008:
* testified before the U. S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology, by friendly invitation, on the adverse health outcomes of bisphenol A and several phthalates
* VOP joined nine other groups and a Shenandoah County farmer in a federal lawsuit to block plans to widen Interstate 81 to eight or more lanes through much of western Virginia
* Connected with local environmentalists in Roanoke in collecting survey information on transportation during Earth Day celebrations
_____________________________________________________________________________________
* worked with the Sierra Club to collect hair samples from 30 women at a Portsmouth hair salon; tests showed some levels of mercury in every sample, with two above the EPA “acceptable limit.”
* co-sponsored a forum with Public Policy Virginia and other groups called “Biofuels: Our Environment, Economy and Security”
* assisted Virginia Forest Watch, with action alerts and other publicity in their successful effort where legislation was passed making Best Management Practices mandatory on logging jobs in Virginia
* provided assistance to RAIL Solution, a group of citizens in western Virginia counties connected by a proposed expansion to Interstate 81, calling for Virginia to increase use of rail for freight moving along the east coast
* helped the Montebello Clean Mountain Coalition (MCMC) in their victory to get the Central Virginia Electric Power Cooperative to refrain from spraying pesticides under power lines on private property if the landowner requests it and to maintain the vegetation manually
* supported groups that succeeded in getting 10,000 acres in Nelson County designated as federal wilderness areas
* helped Virginia Forest Watch in getting the legislature to establish a commission to study the impact of chip mills on the economy and environment
* worked with eight environmental groups in Virginia to establish a statewide environmental e-mail action alert system
* provided consultations and workshops for the West Virginia Timber Coalition, Kingsport Citizens for a Cleaner Environment and Coalition for Jobs and the Environment, among others
* did Dismantling Racism workshop for Save Our Cumberland Mountains (TN), a three-day workshop for national staff and leaders of the Sierra Club and weekend workshops for the Appalachian Community Fund
* helped with campaign planning sessions for the Blue Ridge Coalition which involves a five-county area: Wythe, Floyd, Carroll, Patrick and Henry counties – a coalition that fought two natural gas pipelines proposed to cut through these counties
* led a workshop on Engaging New Constituencies and New Voices at the 2004 National River Rally
in 2008:
* helped organize the Virginia portion of the national "Road to American Health Care" bus tour
* made video interviews of eight people telling their health care stories for the Health Rights Organizing Project of the Center for Community Change
* worked with Families USA to release national reports on needed health care reform
* currently setting up a statewide health care strategy committee
in 2008:
* attended the meeting of a rapid response team of social service agencies, lawyers, activists, and immigrant rights organizations in response to an Immigration Customs Enforcement raid on a Manassas construction office which led to 34 detentions. VOP had contributed to raid education materials in the fall, and is monitoring the situation and having conversations with area leaders about moving the political focus from scapegoating immigrants to the real, economic problems the locality faces
____________________________________________________________________________________
* helped organize and sponsor a rally to support immigrant rights at Richmond’s Monroe Park that drew more than 3,000 people
* encouraged the Virginia Housing Development Authority (VHDA) to make loans to legally documented immigrants; formerly, only immigrants with permanent resident status qualified for VHDA loans
* joined the Tenants’ and Workers’ Support Committee (now Tenants and Workers United) and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in persuading the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority to publish all notices in Spanish and English
* put statewide pressure on two corporations to resolve workers compensation cases and pay benefits that had initially been denied
* continue holding a Leadership Institute annually to build a larger network of grassroots leaders across the state
* held trainings for more than 16,000 individuals with workshops on racism, sexual orientation discrimination, and the economy, and ongoing training programs to help people learn leadership skills, such as: speaking in public, chairing a meeting, fundraising, meeting with legislators, working with the media, etc.
* developed teams of "home-grown" workshop facilitators, providing training and experience at the local level
* held a workshop with authors Barbara Ehrenreich and Helena Cobban on how to increase the flow of op-ed pieces appearing in newspapers statewide
* provided campaign strategy and organizational development assistance to more than 200 groups throughout the state working on a wide range of issues and skills
* co-taught three Principles of Community Organizing class at the University of Virginia
* held a training event on computer-based strategic research for VOP staff and labor union organizers from Virginia
* held a roundtable discussion with journalist Bill Greider
* led a workshop on Engaging New Constituencies and New Voices at the National River Rally in Wintergreen, Virginia, sponsored by the River Network
* led a workshop on Organizing for the Long Haul at the Institute of Management and Community Development in Montreal, Quebec
in 2008:
* moved the Racial Profiling Campaign forward by meeting with Senator Henry Marsh, the new chair of the Senate Courts of Justice Committee; Senator Marsh agreed to support the budget amendment calling for a new position at the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services to deal with bias-based policing, and also agreed to help VOP get a meeting with Governor Tim Kaine on data collection on traffic stops
* began work with a small group of Williamsburg residents on a community education project involving taking a look at Whiteness as an identity in relation to anti-racism work
* held a diversity training for the Charlottesville Housing and Redevelopment Authority
____________________________________________________________________________________
Statewide Criminal Justice Reform Campaign
* succeeded in getting the Governor to streamline the process by which former felons have their voting rights restored after serving their sentences where the Governor has been able to re-enfranchise a record number of former felons in the last three years
* continue to educate Virginians on and facilitate the restoration process where we find an opportunity
* initiated a campaign to eliminate racial profiling
* taped public access TV forums in Charlottesville and Lynchburg on racial profiling
* gave an interview to Lynchburg News & Advance regarding the goals of the racial profiling campaign
* met with the Virginia Sheriff's Association and the State Association of Chiefs of Police to gain support on the issue
* met with the Chief Deputy Attorney General and Lieutenant Governor and his staff
* held a press conference where students testified to their experiences of repeated stops by local law enforcement
Dismantling Racism Workshops
* continue to hold one- and three-day Dismantling Racism workshops
* held a workshop on how Dismantling Racism workshops assist in building a strong citizens' organization for a conference of the National Coalition of Education Activists, Reclaiming Our Children's Future: Uniting Families, Schools and Communities
* facilitated a three-day Dismantling Racism workshop for national staff and leaders of the Sierra Club
* led a workshop on How to Dismantle the "isms" in a Living Wage Campaign for the Southern Living Wage Conference
* adapted our Dismantling Racism workshops to address specific issues of racism among youth
* extended our anti-racism work to a second level of training in a Dismantling Racism II workshop
* published Tools for Dismantling Racism, a compilation of practical tools, session plans and background articles, including transcripts from roundtable discussions and short profiles of those involved in VOP's Dismantling Racism workshops
Local Chapter and Other Campaigns
* helped to change the jury selection system in Lee County from one in which five white men hand-picked the jury pool to a random system which ensures that people of color have an equal chance of selection; since the change, three African-Americans have served as jury commissioners
* won removal of racist artwork from the Lynchburg Circuit Court building and a covering for another piece of racist artwork on the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court building
* supported members of the Appalachian Peace Education Committee in their successful push for a zero-tolerance racial discrimination policy in Washington County Schools
* worked to get a safety barrier put on a bridge in Lynchburg that has been a high risk location for suicide attempts
* succeeded in having a new bridge over the James River named in recognition of the Monacan Nation, the indigenous people of central and western Virginia
* helped with the development of the African American Teaching Fellows to support the certification and hiring of African-American teachers
in 2008:
* attended a gathering of the main LGBT groups in Northern Virginia, which were looking for something positive and pro-active to do together to revive their collaboration; talked about borrowing and sharing power, presented information about VOP, including payday lending, the summer internship program and VOP's letter to the editor distribution system
________________________________________________________________________________________
* worked with other groups to oppose the so-called Marriage Amendment, which passed by 57 percent of those voting, the lowest margin for such an amendment in a southern state
* supported Equality Virginia in its successful effort to pass legislation in 2005 to allow private employers to offer health insurance and other benefits to domestic partners
* succeeded in campaigns to convince the Charlottesville and Albemarle County School Boards to add sexual orientation to the non-discrimination policy
* assisted Equality Virginia in convincing a church in northern Virginia to cancel their “cultural war training” sponsored by the Family Foundation of Virginia that would “help defeat the forces that are trying to push homosexual rights in Virginia”
* worked with Equality Virginia to get VHDA to remove the "family rule" (which specifically defined family as a husband and wife or those related by blood or adoption) and again in 2004 to block legislation that would have forced VHDA to keep the "family rule"
* supported Equality Virginia on adding sexual orientation to hate crimes legislation
in 2008:
* notified the Virginia Department of Social Services that they were not in compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires states to “designate as voter registration agencies … all offices in the State that provide public assistance.” After meeting with them, the DSS rapidly committed to making major improvements in their voter registration systems. VOP worked with Demos, NAACP, Project Vote and Democracy South to make this important change.
* assembled a 32-page non-partisan voter's guide and printed 300,000 copies for distribution across the state
* 17 volunteers knocked on 202 doors in a low-income Charlottesville neighborhood to register voters
_______________________________________________________________________________________
* worked with other groups to secure passage of a bill in 2007 prohibiting future purchases of direct recording electronic voting machines, phasing them out and replacing them with optical scan voting machines which provide a paper ballots, giving the voter confidence in the accuracy and security of elections
* sent a delegation to the Heartland Presidential Forum in Des Moines, Iowa in December 2007
* distributed 40,000 copies of a non-partisan voter guide for the 2005 Virginia gubernatorial election
* published a 16-page non-partisan voter's guide for the 2004 Charlottesville City Council race
* published No Vote, No Voice, a non-partisan voter registration and education guide for the 2004 Presidential Election
* distributed 90,000 copies of No Vote, No Voice through 118 organizations and adult literacy programs
* produced and distributed four public service announcements to 276 radio stations statewide on voter registration
* brought together a group of low-income public housing residents and students to attend the Center for Community Change's Presidential Dialogue with America's Families event in Columbia, South Carolina in 2004
* continue to assist in local voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives
in 2008:
* VOP brought together 13 statewide groups to coordinate the Summer Civic Engagement Project and hired 50 interns for the project; the interns are knocking on 300,000 doors, distributing non-partisan Voter Guides, issue flyers, and asking people about their top concerns
____________________________________________________________________________________
* held a living wage workshop for students from nine different Virginia college campuses including guest speakers Ben McKean, from United Students Against Sweatshops, and Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America
* held a Dismantling Racism workshop for youth in Lynchburg, Amherst County and the Eastern Shore and have others planned
* developed a VOP internship program to provide new avenues for high school and college students to work for social change
* had several young leaders present living wage concepts to Albemarle County School officials which led to a policy change for low-wage workers
* sent a delegation of young people to participate in the Southern Living Wage Conference
* sent an intern to an international youth conference in Belize sponsored by Agricultural Missions
* assisted an intern in coordinating an Agrarian Reform Panel as part of the Rural Justice Tour 2002 involving representatives of the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil, the Network of Amazonian Cooperation in Venezuela and the National Indigenous Congress in Mexico
* had interns attend the World Economic Conference in New York City
* had organizers and leaders speak for numerous classes, from high school to graduate school, about community organizing and social justice
* provided major consulting support to JustChildren, a legal aid group working on children’s issues, to pass a statewide policy that requires the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice to develop regulations that provide mental health service transition plans for all incarcerated juveniles prior to their re-entry into the community