Detroit Organizing

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We are proud to work with the Detroit People’s Platform (https://www.detroitpeoplesplatform.org) on a year-long education and organizing project to Illuminate the TIFs of Detroit. See how the folks there are protesting and fighting back!

Contact us at 312-566-8180 or info@civiclab.us

We trained 20 people to get the data!

Download a copy of The DPP News from July 2022

We help you turn hidden data into stories for organizing to make change!
The TIF work in Detroit was translated into questions for
candidates running for City Council in the November 2021 election.
linda s campbell

“The CivicLab has been a great partner to learn with the past two years. Detroit People’s Platform (DPP) is an organizing organization based in Detroit, the nation’s largest majority Black city. DPP is dedicated to advancing policies that improved economic outcomes for long time Detroiters. DPP staff and community leaders went thru a six-month intensive learning process led by Tom and Jonathan that helped to deepen our analysis and technical research skills on the important issue of TIFs. A year later many of those tactics and strategies taught by Civic Lab are being implemented as DPP and residents ramp up the education and organizing campaign to challenge the existing TIF policies here in Detroit. Tom and Jonathan are great coaches in that they honored the local expertise of those of us doing the work. At the same time, CivicLab challenged us to embrace opportunities for new strategies which resulted in a shift in the organizing culture to accommodate data collection and research. At first this approach was seen as daunting but now is a matter of course in our organization’s culture. As a result, we have positioned staff and residents to become important voices in the fight for alternatives to TIFs as an acceptable tool for promoting economic development in our community.” linda s campbellDetroit People’s Platform 

New Organizing Against Monster TIF for White Billionaire!

Detroit People’s Platform is organizing against the masive TIF subsidy of yet another set of white billionaires – the The District Detroit Project. Watch this short video. Russ Bellant, an ally of the DPP, was a Detroit Library Commissioner for 12 years. He is organizing a coalition to fight the public dollar giveaway for the District Detroit Project. Watch this news clip.

Our work is funded in part by Illinois Humanities with support from the MuckRock Foundation, the Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation and from Leonard C. Goodman and from many small donors. Thank you!