The Center for Social Inclusion sees the roots of racial inequity in the landscape of public policy: racial injustice in its primary form is not about individual attitudes, but about collective decisions that shape how resources are allocated.  CSI develops ideas, builds leadership and moves public will to promote structural transformation on racial, gender and class equity, ultimately increasing prosperity for all.

CSI develops tools and leadership for dismantling structural racism .  This requires research, analysis, testing and public education to expose the structural arrangements that exclude communities of color and weaken our society as a whole.  It also requires investment in communities’ leadership, engagement and strategy capacity to form multi-racial coalitions that can translate the changing demographics of the U.S. into a new source of political power.

All of CSI’s projects are built around these three pillars:

Ideas: We can build a vibrant and just society, but we must have new, transformative policy ideas that change our sense of what is possible.  CSI works with our partners to understand the dynamics of structural exclusion and develop community-level solutions as well as big ideas to galvanize a national movement.

Leadership: Effective policy reform requires leadership.  CSI believes that community organizers and other grassroots advocates can play a much larger role in the policy debates that shape all of our lives.  We invest in community leaders’ ability to advocate for structural transformation. 

Communications: We cannot have transformative policies without building public support for change. But for too long, issues of race have polarized us and shut down debate.  Through the communications testing and tools, CSI supports the field’s ability to talk about race productively.  The results inform our own work, and are disseminated to partners and allies in order to build a cohesive, effective approach to winning public support.

HISTORY

The Center for Social Inclusion was founded in 2002 by a civil rights lawyer and a political scientist, Maya Wiley and Jocelyn Sargent, whose work together led them to see the need for an organization that addresses structural racism, and serves as a bridge between the worlds of public policy and grassroots community organizing, as well as national strategies and local innovations. 

Working at the Open Society Institute, they found too little work being done that would contribute to significant structural reforms.  To this end, they identified the following needs:

• more analysis of the compound effects of policies and practices that disadvantage people of color;

• more research and advocacy support for community-based organizations to enable them to engage in long-term policy reform that can dismantle structural racism;

• stronger and more connections between local and national organizations that work to address similar problems;

• support for multi-racial coalitions that can work collectively to develop common goals and a shared vision in order to address structural barriers that affect all people of color.

They founded CSI as a policy intermediary, linking the work of local community advocates and national public policy analysts.  It has engaged in applied research, community planning, communications testing, network and coalition building to support nurture a field and foster a broad, multi-racial movement to dismantle structural racism.