Our Mission

The Institute for Common Power is a non-profit educational branch of Common Power, dedicated to illuminating undervalued, underappreciated, and pivotal aspects of our collective history. We founded the Institute for Common Power in June 2022 to serve as an educational branch of Common Power.  We understand that to sustain people in the long and challenging work of voting justice, they must understand how we have arrived at our current economic and sociopolitical environments.  We must also foster in people an appreciation for the history of voter suppression and the long struggle for voting rights. This history serves as an inspiration for us all as we navigate the abject challenges of creating social change. We catalyze people to action through experiential learning opportunities such as workshops, lectures, courses, learning tours, national educational events, and more.

The Institute for Common Power provides education that fosters, sustains, and expands what should be the most common power in American democracy: the right to vote. Voting has always been contested in America, and today this foundational democratic power is under assault–especially for communities of color. We cannot and will not idly watch. The Institute for Common Power is devoted to education as a foundation to voting justice and inclusive democracy in the United States.

Our programming reflects the current needs of society and addresses relevant topics such as the assault on truth in districts across the country, the need to mobilize and vote, the importance of understanding how historical processes have resulted in our current political and social environments, and much more.