Email: shinson[at]grassrootspolicy[dot]org
Phone: 510-898-1812
Address: 1515 Oxford Street, Unit 1D, Berkeley, CA 94709

Since 1994, Sandra has been a core member of the GPP team, developing curriculum materials and frameworks for staff and leaders of community, labor and faith-based organizing networks. As part of her work with national networks and statewide groups, Sandra provides strategic analysis on housing, healthcare, taxes and budget issues, labor and criminal justice policies and more. Sandra’s analytic approach incorporates a ‘strategic inquiry’ framework that aligns short-term issue campaigns with longer-term opportunities to advance more structural reforms. Sandra got her start in community organizing in Memphis, Tennessee in the late 1970s. She became involved in labor organizing in the 1980s and worked with unions on healthcare reform in the early 1990s.

Richard founded the Grassroots Policy Project in 1993 to advance organizational and social movement strategy and practice using frameworks for power, worldview and ideology and strategic inquiry. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Richard was active in the civil rights and anti-war movements. From 1970 to 1982 he helped found and lead the New American Movement, a democratic socialist organization involved in many local organizing efforts, including housing, energy and full -employment. Richard also became involved in community environmental health organizing. During the 1980s Richard was involved in disarmament and anti-intervention activities. He was Director of the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy and Nuclear Times magazine. He also served as Director of the Institute for Policy Studies and was a co-founder of the Study Circles Resource Center. Richard is a board member of the Center for Social Inclusion, the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity, the See Forward Fund, and the One World Fund. He is an advisor to the Solidago Foundation.

Charlene works with local and national organizations to develop a comprehensive grassroots organizing and political strategy. For over 20 years, Charlene has been a community organizer, network-builder, educator, mentor and thought-leader. As a socially-engaged seminarian, Charlene explores the intersection of class, race and faith, and brings this into her work to advance human liberation. Charlene is the founder of the Center on Race, Religion and Economy Democracy and the Director of Reinvestment for the Center for Community Change.