LB Foward, Location
Long Beach Foward is a local nonprofit who’s mission is to create a healthy Long Beach with low-income communities of color by building community knowledge, leadership, and power.
Leadership Development
Developing community knowledge, leadership, and power is a key priority to ensuring race and income no longer determine one’s future in Long Beach.
Long Beach Forward provides support for people to be more effective leaders and organizers. We understand that creating change isn’t easy or something that’s meant to be done alone. We provide multiple entry points for people to contribute to movements for racial and economic justice in Long Beach and strive to meet people where they’re at.
- We coordinate and facilitate neighborhood and citywide trainings which include issue-area and political education and developing participants’ advocacy and organizing skills.
- We provide one-on-one coaching support to emerging leaders and established organizers alike.
- We facilitate peer-to-peer support amongst community organizers.
- We are creating pathways for people to influence decision making as well as to become decision makers.
Learning Series & Workshops
Long Beach Forward works to strengthen advocacy efforts by facilitating technical trainings and knowledge sharing. We regularly train individuals on how to make a more strategic and impactful case when engaging decision makers and influencers on issues they care most about.
Movement Strategy and Strategic Communications
As the glue that brings people, community organizations, and decision-makers together, we support movements to win equitable policies and build power with low-income communities of color.
We provide strategic insight and take strategic action in order to strengthen movements for racial and economic justice in Long Beach. We ensure that community and governmental planning and decision-making processes meaningfully include low-income communities of color.
- We focus our support and outreach to groups whose work centers low-income communities of color.
- We develop relationships with systems leaders in order to identify potential partnerships.
- We follow the community and governmental landscape and alert stakeholders to potential opportunities for advocacy and engagement.
We provide support for people to be more effective communicators for social change. We work with community stakeholders to develop and carry out communication strategies that elevate their issues, change the narrative, and move people into action.
- We lead our communications support in tandem with advocates and organizers so they can be effective communicators. We work with them to identify the support they need and provide the appropriate training, such as how to create messages, pitch stories to media, and utilize social media.
- We combine storytelling and local data to create compelling narratives that shift people’s hearts and minds.
- We cultivate relationships with local media and utilize local expertise to increase news coverage of issues often left out of the Long Beach narrative.
We strengthen advocacy efforts by facilitating technical trainings and knowledge sharing. We train individuals on how to make a more strategic and impactful case when engaging decision makers and influencers on issues they care most about.
- We bring together data and policy experts with community-based organizers so they have the technical knowledge to win social change. Examples include how to use online databases for land-use campaigns or how to turn an Environmental Impact Report into a reader-friendly infographic.
- We connect community organizers with other leaders looking to strengthen their organizing skills and share their insights on topics like communications and power analysis.
