Tides Center, The Opportunity Agenda

The Opportunity Agenda, a project of the Tides Center, is a national social justice communication lab. Focused on reforming the criminal justice system, expanding immigrant rights, and achieving greater economic equality, the Opportunity Agenda works with a network of directly affected individuals and movements, including the formerly incarcerated, immigrants, and people living in poverty, to uplift their voices and bring attention to community-based solutions. It builds the communication capacity of leaders through training and resources and engages with journalists, artists, creatives, and culture makers to amplify the voices of marginalized communities. This grant provides flexible support for the Opportunity Agenda to continue its efforts to empower individuals and citizen groups to use media and storytelling to influence public discourse and shape culture and policy. 

The Opportunity Agenda was launched 10 years as a project of the Tides Center to build the national will to expand opportunity in America. It does this by providing communications training and resources to social justice leaders and organizations working on a range of issues from criminal justice reform to immigrant rights to economic equality for all. This grant provides general support to the Opportunity Agenda to equip diverse leaders and communities with the skills to use traditional, social, and cultural media in ways that inspire civic engagement and inform critical policy debates. It supports the Opportunity Agenda to develop and launch a new online system, the LinkTank, to alert leaders to breaking news events and media opportunities, offer tools and advice for framing the debate, and network together leaders working on similar issues.