What We Do
Building a Racially Just DC, Sector by Sector
Anti-Racist DC works across the city to align leaders, organizations, and communities around actionable racial justice strategies. We organize and connect sectors so they can move together toward long-term, systemic change.
Racial Justice Pillars
We focus on five interconnected issues that determine opportunity and well-being in DC. Each is deeply shaped by the city’s history and systems, and each requires coordinated, cross-sector action to create lasting change.
Housing Justice
In DC, housing is a gateway to stability, opportunity, and health — yet too many residents face displacement, unaffordable rents, or unsafe conditions. We work with partners to advance policies and practices that ensure safe, affordable, and equitable housing for every resident.
Educational Justice
Education in DC should open doors for every child, regardless of zip code. We support strategies that equitably educate all children in schools that reflect and affirm their communities, while addressing systemic barriers that limit access and opportunity.
DC Autonomy
Without full self-governance, DC residents are denied the ability to make decisions about their own future. We work to secure DC autonomy, ensuring residents have full control over the systems, policies, and budgets that shape their lives.
Economic Justice
Income and wealth gaps in DC are among the widest in the nation. We collaborate with partners to abolish these gaps by expanding pathways to sustainable livelihoods, supporting small businesses, and advancing policies that close inequities in wages, employment, and wealth-building.
Youth
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Health Justice
Health outcomes in DC remain sharply divided by race. We partner with health and community leaders to eliminate disparities in access to care, improve health services for BIPOC residents, and address the social and economic factors that shape health.
Our Work at a Glance
Cross-Sector Organizing
We bring together leaders from nonprofit, philanthropy, and faith-based sectors
Hosting quarterly sector-wide convenings to build relationships, share learning, and strategize together.
Forming Racial Justice Strategy Advisory Councils in each sector to co-create 3–5 year racial justice plans.
Connecting sector work into a citywide racial justice strategy that addresses systems, policies, and practices.
Racial Justice Training & Political Education
We equip organizations with the tools, knowledge, and shared language needed to act on racial justice.
Sector-Specific Racial Justice Trainings – Three full-day sessions each year tailored to the sector’s history, challenges, and opportunities for advancing equity.
Quarterly Political Education & Organizing Trainings – Open to all sectors, rooted in community organizing, DC history, Critical Race Theory, Black Feminism, Popular Education, and Queer Theory.
Data-Driven Strategies
We gather and analyze sector-specific data to understand current racial equity practices and identify opportunities for action.
Conducting focus groups, interviews, and assessments.
Publishing Sector Needs Reports to guide strategy and track progress.
Sectors We Serve
Our current focus is on nonprofit organizing and youth justice strategizing, where we are building relationships, gathering data, and developing sector-wide strategies.
As we grow, we will expand this work to include philanthropy and faith-based institutions, with the long-term goal of engaging every sector in DC — from labor and media to business, education, healthcare, small and locally owned businesses, government, and the arts. Each sector faces unique challenges and plays a critical role in advancing racial justice citywide.
Nonprofit Organizations
DC’s nonprofit sector is home to hundreds of groups working toward equity, often with limited resources and overlapping missions. We help nonprofits connect, share strategies, and align their efforts. Through convenings, advisory councils, and tailored training, we support nonprofits in updating strategic plans, building cooperative networks, and integrating racial justice into every part of their work.
Philanthropy
Foundations and funders have the power to shape the flow of resources — and with it, the pace of change. We have begun working with philanthropic leaders to embed racial justice internally, prioritize funding for organizations doing critical change work, and develop coordinated funding strategies that match the scale of DC’s needs.
Faith-Based Organizations
Faith communities are essential to DC’s social fabric and have a long history of leading justice movements. We are looking to partner with faith-based leaders to address racial inequities within congregations, build racially diverse cross-faith coalitions, and mobilize faith networks to support the communities most impacted by injustice.