The research and community organizing projects supported by the foundation this year will investigate a wide range of issues such as wage theft, discrimination, fraud, workplace safety, and the effects of recent anti-immigrant legislation.

Most of the projects link the research process with a grassroots advocacy campaign and typically involve a number of coalition partners in the effort.

To view the grants list, click here.

Please check back in June for more information about deadlines and changes in funding guidelines.

The 2011 award recognizes the statewide organization as a model of how member-led advocacy organizations can integrate research with community organizing. CVH is a multi-racial organization led by and for low-income people, predominantly women, working to build power in New York City and State.

Challenging New York’s Power Brokers

CVH was founded in New York City in 1994 when a group of women, some homeless, some on welfare, and many unemployed came together to build a voice that is excluded from the halls of power and denied a seat at the table. The organization leads grassroots direct action campaigns to reform public policy and build a statewide base of community leaders that advocate to improve the lives of low-income people.

Research is Integral to Community Organizing

Since its founding in 1994, most of CVH’s campaigns related to housing, education, jobs, or welfare-reform, have incorporated participatory research to investigate problems identified by members. Research committee members made up of community residents, staff, and organizational partners collect data to shape the campaign’s policy recommendations and media strategy. In addition, the research process for each campaign helps CVH involve new members and develop new leaders – activities that are essential for building a large and noisy base of political power.

Big Wins – Bigger Vision

No matter what the issue, CVH members uncover familiar stories of broken promises and barriers to opportunity. Over the years, CVH-led reform campaigns have pushed back to secure millions of dollars for local and state services, saved thousands of homes and jobs, and created many opportunities for low-income communities.

CVH members have also increased voter turnout, published investigative reports, and trained thousands of citizens how to take action to solve problems in their neighborhoods.

Most importantly it has developed a model for building a large, membership-driven, people’s organization that supports a broader movement for social change.

The award program begun in 2009 is named after Leo P. Chall, best known in the field of sociology as the founder of Sociological Abstracts. Leo P. Chall launched Sociological Abstracts in 1953 as a journal that abstracted and indexed the international literature in sociology and related social and behavioral sciences. An endowment to establish the Sociological Initiatives Foundation was funded by the proceeds from the sale of the Abstracts in 1999.

The foundation makes yearly grants to support research that furthers social change and its intersection with social and policy questions.

Grants to advocacy organizations supporting immigrants and low-wage workers once again figured prominently in the foundation’s portfolio.

Most of the research projects supported coalition-based advocacy campaigns that addressed social problems of national significance and featured strong research partnerships with academic researchers and institutions.

To read the 2011 awards, click here.

Community Organizing and Family Issues was founded in 1995 to build the leadership and power of low-income parents – mostly African-American and Latina mothers and grandmothers – in neighborhoods across Chicago. With its unique model of Family Focused Organizing, COFI brings historically disenfranchised communities and single parents into public life, often for the first time.

The Chall Award recognizes COFI’s work to understand, from the point of view of low-income and immigrant families, why so many eligible low-income children of color are not enrolled in quality early childhood education programs.

With a grant from the Sociological Initiatives Foundation in 2008, COFI examined the reasons why low-income parents did not enroll their children in early childhood education programs despite their eligibility. The project, the Early Learning Campaign, done in collaboration with the leadership of COFI’s parent-led organization POWER-PAC (Parents Organized to Win, Education, and Renew Policy Action Council), analyzed more than 5000 interviews with the support of a professional researcher and presented the findings at several community forums in 2008 and 2009.

After receiving feedback and analyzing results with stakeholders, POWER-PAC’s Early Learning Committee developed recommendations for strategies to expand access to preschool. They published these recommendations in the report, Why Isn’t Johnny in Preschool? that received extensive local and national attention and won new programs to address the barriers identified.

“The research developed by this project stands out because even though Illinois leads the nation in establishment of high quality programs, only a fraction of eligible children are enrolled and it is important to know why to correct that” said Sociological Initiatives Foundation Chair, Glenn Jacobs

“The funding from the Sociological Initiatives Foundation proved key to the success of this campaign. The struggle to eliminate barriers to access to quality early learning programs continues, but our progress has been significant,” explained Ellen Schumer, Executive Director or COFI.

The award program begun in 2009 is named after Leo P. Chall, best known in the field of sociology as the founder of Sociological Abstracts. Leo P. Chall launched Sociological Abstracts in 1953 as a journal that abstracted and indexed the international literature in sociology and related social and behavioral sciences. Therafter, Language Learning and Behavior Abstracts was established with a similar mission. An endowment to establish the Sociological Initiatives Foundation was funded by the proceeds from the sale of the Abstracts in 1999.

The foundation makes yearly grants to support research that furthers social change and its intersection with social and policy questions.

The award is in keeping with Leo P. Chall’s conviction that the dissemination of scholarly information is subject to the democratic principle of reciprocity. As Glenn Jacobs, who was first a student of Chall’s and then an abstractor working under him in the 1960s recalls, “I was struck by a conversation I had with Leo in which he answered my query of why the Abstracts consistently included the sociology produced by Third World countries. Leo replied that ‘They read our [i.e., U.S.] sociology and we must read theirs.’ Leo’s work to correct social inequities underlies both the Abstracts and the mission of the Sociological Initiatives Foundation”.

Re-victimizing Women and Endangering Children

“My husband was given physical custody of our son, even though I had been home with him since he was born. Neither the law guardian nor the judge asked me a single question. The law guardian never even met our son” (Alice)

New York City’s Voices of Women Organizing Project had often heard that visits to family courts traumatized victims of domestic violence. Project members decided to document the experiences of formerly abused women served by the family court system.

The study found that family courts did not follow its own legal and ethical standards of conduct or existing policies and procedures for safeguarding families. The study also found that the courts were biased toward men and provided preferential treatment toward parties with greater wealth or having a higher social status. The most troubling finding of the three- year study was that the courts minimized domestic violence and made decisions that placed children in danger.

The research presented in the report, Justice Denied: How NYC Family Courts Endanger Battered Women and Children, revealed an overburdened system that re-victimizes women and lacked the oversight mechanisms that can guard against racial bias, corruption, and poorly informed child custody decisions.

Linking Research to Action

Advocates used the research to advocate for several procedural reforms that improved the experiences of women in the New York family court system. Reforms included domestic violence sensitivity training for court staff, better enforcement of the New York State Bar Association Law Guardian Representation Standards, and other safeguards that protect the rights of domestic violence survivors. Negotiations with the courts also resulted in better working relationships with family court judges.

Voices of Women’s success in influencing the courts made the organization an ideal candidate for the Sociological Initiatives Foundation’s 2009 Leo P. Chall Award. The award honors grantee organizations that link research with advocacy. It highlights organizations with projects that build strong community partnerships, increase organizational effectiveness, and influence public policy.

“This project stands out because the very women who have been affected by the courts were involved in all aspects of the research, analysis, and action that pushed to make the family court system more responsive to women and their families,” said Sociological Initiatives Foundation Chair, Glenn Jacobs.

The Voices of Women Organizing Project (VOW) is the lead initiative of the Battered Women’s Resource Center. The center is a leading grassroots advocacy organization of domestic violence survivors working to improve the many systems battered women and their children rely on for safety and justice.

The award is named after Leo P. Chall, the founder of Sociological Abstracts. Launched in 1953, Sociological Abstracts abstracted and indexed international literature in sociology and related social and behavioral sciences. The Sociological Initiatives Foundation was endowed with funding from the proceeds of the sale of Sociological Abstracts in 1999. The foundation makes grants to support research that promotes social change.

“Community-based research takes place in community settings and involves community members in the design and implementation of research projects. Such activities should demonstrate respect for the contributions of success which are made by community partners as well as respect for the principle of “doing no harm” to the communities involved.

In order to achieve these goals, the following principles should guide the development of research projects involving collaboration between researchers and community partners, whether the community partners are formally structured community-based organizations or informal groups of individual community members”.

Principles:

• Community partners should be involved at the earliest stages of the project, helping to define research objectives and having input into how the project will be organized.
• Community partners should have real influence on project direction–that is, enough leverage to ensure that the original goals, mission, and methods of the project are adhered to.
• Research processes and outcomes should benefit the community. Community members should be hired and trained whenever possible and appropriate, and the research should help build and enhance community assets.
• Community members should be part of the analysis and interpretation of data and should have input into how the results are distributed. This does not imply censorship of data or of publication, but rather the opportunity to make clear the community’s views about the interpretation prior to final publication.
• Productive partnerships between researchers and community members should be encouraged to last beyond the life of the project. This will make it more likely that research findings will be incorporated into ongoing community programs and therefore provide the greatest possible benefit to the community from research.
• Community members should be empowered to initiate their own research projects which address needs they identify themselves.

Taken from the University of Washington School of Public Health

Similarly, the Edward Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning offers a helpful distinction of the various levels of the research process: