Build Community Power
Our cross-sector approach brings together community, faith, labor, immigrant & refugee, transit, environmental and public sector partners who may not have a previous working history. Deep partnerships are essential to building equity in the Puget Sound Region. Only though long-term relationship building can we change the regional power map and accrue more power for our communities.
Forward Policy Solutions
We generate research and in-depth reports that illuminate some of our region's most pressing problems, incorporating data from diverse local and national sources. We have produced community based participatory research, which involves affected communities in the study's design and data collection. By unapologetically centering racial justice and equity in all of our work, we have moved numerous groundbreaking policies on transit, housing, labor standards, and climate justice.
Shape the Debate
Puget Sound Sage is at the forefront of shaping the debate on groundbreaking economic, environmental and equity issues in the region. Elected officials, opinion-leaders and the media view Puget Sound Sage as go-to resources for economic and environmental policy expertise, seeking our organization’s innovative ideas and racial equity expertise when it comes to shaping sound policies and winning local campaigns.
Grow the Movement
We advocate for policy that makes racial and social equity a top goal for decision makers at all levels of government. We believe communities of color can prosper in place by harnessing market forces and public investment, with their own vision for growth at the center of local planning. We are dedicated to providing emerging leaders from low-income communities and communities of color the training they need to have a seat at decision making tables, laying long-term groundwork for achieving solutions based on grassroots needs.
One way we turn community visioning into policy is through community-based participatory research.
Turning community visioning into transformative policy wins
Back in 2015, Puget Sound Sage and Got Green set out to learn how our communities were experiencing climate change. Led by the Climate Justice steering committee, we interviewed 175 people living in Seattle and South King County and 30 community organizations with the goal of determining our collective priorities for a ground-up climate resilience effort. The steering committee, made up of people of color and community members, met regularly to develop survey tools, create community engagement plan, and hold community roundtables to incorporate feedback.
The report, Our People, Our Power, Our Planet, was released in March 2016, setting the foundation for our organizations to develop grassroots campaigns that grow an intersectional climate justice movement.
Through the research process, we ensured community visioning was included from the start, which has been instrumental in changing the climate conversation with the public sector, community, and environmental partners. The report is now used to shape climate policy at the city, county and state level.