Our Commitment
In-Advance is a community organizing hub based in Oakland, California. Our mission is to advance racial and economic justice by strengthening grassroots movement infrastructure and organizing to build power and demand equitable policies that drive meaningful, systemic change in disinvested communities.
Our mission is supported by two key programs: Spadework, our community organizer training school, and Oakland Freedom Project, our Oakland community base-building initiative that brings residents, organizations, and local leaders together to organize for self-determination and structural investment in the flatlands of East and West Oakland.
Our Vision
At In-Advance, we are working toward a future where working-class communities of color are leading, shaping, and sustaining civic life. Our vision is grounded in an organizing approach that restores public imagination, strengthens community bonds, and builds grassroots power across languages and neighborhoods.
How We Get There
Spadework is In-Advance’s organizer training school that aims to resuscitate the heart of organizing by supporting frontline organizers and aligning base-building organizations around a shared organizing approach rooted in cultural practice, care, and a deep commitment to structural transformation.
Through intensive trainings and field assistance for aspiring organizers, supported by a cohort of mentors oriented towards an accompaniment strategy, Spadework helps establish a baseline of rigor in organizing practice and a conducive movement culture that can sustain organizing for the long haul.
Oakland Freedom Project, our Oakland community base-building initiative, brings residents, organizations, and local leaders together to organize for self-determination and structural investment in the flatlands of East and West Oakland. We train and support a working-class, multiracial, and multilingual base of flatland residents to become organizers and neighborhood leaders. With these resident leaders, we have framed campaigns, launched grassroots initiatives, and engaged hundreds of community members in shaping systemic change in Oakland’s most disinvested communities.