Hi John,

Over the past year, our communities have been suffering – from violent ICE raids that disappear our neighbors to working families skipping groceries to pay for rent. It has been a challenging and chaotic time to build and wield power. Through it all, our local elected officials, movement leaders, and labor partners have organized together leading Know Your Rights trainings for our immigrant and refugee communities, protecting tenants, feeding families, and centering collective care. This is collaborative governance in action!

More than ever, the collaboration between local elected officials, movement leaders, and labor partners is paramount to defending our democracy and protecting our communities. With that in mind, it is critical to have a program that reflects our commitment to doing this work together. We’re proud to launch our refreshed program — the Collaborative Governance Academy (CGA) — a program designed to harness this collective work by helping elected officials, their staff, and movement leaders build the trust, relationships, and shared strategy needed to strengthen local governance with alignment and purpose.

We define collaborative governance as breaking down barriers between government and community—centering people who have been historically excluded or marginalized, building authentic partnership to develop a shared strategy and vision to advance long-term, transformational policies while building long-term sustainable change.

We spend time, money, and resources to elect candidates, but how do we ensure values-aligned electeds govern effectively and stay in touch with the communities they serve? This is the gap the CGA aims to fill, through shared learning and organizing practice, participants in the CGA strengthen relationships, bridge institutions, and build strategies that sustain the democratic power needed to fight this moment of rising authoritarianism. We do this by: 

The end result? Movement leaders and elected leaders see each other as governing partners, and our collective power grows stronger and more sustainable to advance the shared agenda needed to ensure all of our communities can live with dignity and thrive. 

Since launching in 2019, this program, led jointly between Local Progress Impact Lab and re:power Fund, has trained more than 2,700 leaders across 46 states. Sixty-eight percent of participants identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of color, and 68% identify as women or gender-expansive. As we further evolve our program into the Collaborative Governance Academy in 2026, the heart of our work focuses on equipping local and state elected officials, their staff, and movement leaders with the skills, strategy, and shared language to govern collaboratively and courageously. 

Leaders leave our program more connected, more grounded, and more prepared to govern with courage and care. If you’re interested in getting involved, you can: 

To collaboratively governing for all,

Rebecca Thompson
Managing Director, Strategic Initiatives
re:power