Breaking down barriers to form progressive, action-based partnerships in California
Vision & Mission
The vision of Community Governance Partnership is to break down long standing barriers between conservation, labor, Tribes, small businesses, social justice and environmental justice organizations to form and facilitate pragmatic, action-based progressive partnerships in California's Central Valley and Northern counties.
The Community Governance Partnership exists to empower others, through a combination of campaign development, directed trainings, partnership development and assisting with community-based actions that tie into larger issues. Our mission is to see key social and environmental issues raised through new community alliances, to address key planning and conservation issues with new tools and innovative campaigns, to break down barriers between diverse interests, and to make our partners' work more effective.
Approach & History
The Community Governance Partnership is the TIDES sponsored 501c3 arm of Leadership For Jobs and a New Economy, or LJANE (501c4), and was created to fully separate our 501c3 work from our other activities.
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Our project work is often supported by these partnerships, which we develop and facilitate, as was done with the Fresno Partnership (now the 501c3 Central Valley Partnership). In early 2013, we brought together over 40 labor, environmental and community organizations in Fresno to identify common values and put aside minor differences in order to organize and stand together on social and environmental issues like healthcare and income inequality—and then to stand together on public education and voter registration in election years. The Fresno Partnership succeeded in creating a new alliance between labor and community groups, and helped us to establish a new organizing paradigm.
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In 2017, we began organizing work to solve the seemingly intractable problem of illicit cannabis growing on public lands. The Cannabis Removal on Public Lands Project (CROP) has developed into a major project with broad-based, bipartisan support, and represents the only citizen-based effort to leverage state and federal resources to clean up trespass grows in California.
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Campaigns of any type have organizing at their core, which is why we have developed the California Organizing Academy. Originally created by our Executive Director as the Sierra Community Organizer Academy in 2009, this intensive, two-day training based on the Midwest Academy Model teaches community activists how to identify and influence power, build coalitions and establish winning campaigns. We then provide mentorship, counsel and support to the 600+ graduates of the program, 40 of whom now run non-profit organizations.
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Our trainings are often the first step many people take in public service. There are now over 40 elected officials, including Supervisors, City Council members, and members of the California State Assembly who credit these past trainings as the start of their political careers.
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In November 2023, CGP launched the CD3 Sierra Partnership, now the Sierra Protection Action Network, in an effort to build a regional coalition across the ten counties of California’s 3rd Congressional District. This project brings together grassroots, labor, environmental, and community groups to drive progressive change in rural Northern California and the Central Valley.
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Our Strategic Mentoring program utilizes the skills and experience of past elected officials to teach newly elected the skills and techniques of governance. Using the appointment process, policy initiatives, reaching out to constituencies, model ordinances and resolutions, holding town halls and government efficiency are elements covered in this program.
Meet the CGP Team
Rich has been involved in conservation and electoral politics for most his career, serving in senior positions on Presidential and Senate campaign staffs, running a key 2016 California Assembly Special Election, and developing and running national and regional conservation campaigns. He was the Water Program Director at Food and Water Watch in DC, and Political Director for The Sierra Nevada Alliance, where he founded what would become The California Organizing Academy. With the help of organized labor and the conservation community, he founded our c4, Leadership For Jobs and a New Economy in 2012, and our c3, The Community Governance Partnership. He has trained over 500 organizers and political candidates, all with an eye to making the world a more just place.
After a career in biotechnology, Chris was motivated to help save the Affordable Care Act in 2017 and has been at the intersection of activism and political organizing ever since. She ran for Congress in CA-08 in 2020, participated in the California Citizens Redistricting process in 2021, and was elected to Council in the Town of Mammoth Lakes in 2022. She organizes with The Sierra Club Range of Light Group, the No Hot Creek Mine Group, and other organizations focused on protecting the Sierra. Chris joined CGP as CD3 Field Director in the summer of 2023 to help direct the new CD3-Sierra Partnership which will create connections and build working relationships between conservation, labor, small business, social justice and environmental interests.​
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Earl was the Deputy Director of Watersheds Branch with the Karuk Tribe Dept. of Natural Resources for many years. He received a B.S. from Humboldt State University in 1997. His passion for restoration began in 1985 when he joined the California Conservation Corps. With his partners and dedicated staff in the Six Rivers National Forest he planned and implemented road decommissioning projects throughout the southern portion of the Karuk Aboriginal Territory until 2015, when they literally ran out of roads to decommission! He is dedicated to California tribes inherent right in protecting, promoting, and preserving the cultural/natural resources and ecological processes upon which tribal communities depend.​
David is noted as one of the world’s top community organizer trainers, having trained over 3000 activists in his career. His 25 years experience in the community development and citizen empowerment field gives him a special interest in working with community-based organizations. He has been working with the CGP team for over a decade. He continues to work with The Midwest Academy where he spent many years on staff, and whose approach and techniques are embraced in our trainings. David is a legendary storyteller, which makes his trainings unique and memorable.
Francesca Brittingham
Training Coordinator
francesca@cgovpartnership.org
Francesca brings a strong background in research, writing, and administrative task management. A native Washingtonian, Francesca was called to social justice advocacy at an early age. She received a BA in Government from Harvard University with a focus in International Relations, and now applies her skills in our nonprofit work. She has supported multiple watershed cleanup projects, serving BIPOC, low-income communities in the Anacostia, Patuxent, and Potomac River basins.​
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Board
The Board of Directors of CGP consist of recognized senior leadership from well-known California-based organizations, who direct the activities of a small, highly experienced organizing and environmental campaign staff.
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Richard A. McIntyre, President
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Howard Penn, Executive Director, Planning Conservation League
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Justin Pressfield, Principal, Dewey Square Group
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Kody Jaeger, Treasurer, Chief Operating Officer, Bishop Paiute Tribe
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Francesca Brittingham, Secretary