CDT 20th Anniversary Highlight: San Diego Impact Tour
At each convening we’ve held (in LA in 2023 and San Diego this fall) we bring out-of-town donors door to door to community hubs we’ve invested in. These visits showcase the victories won by frontline organizers, working in collaboration with elected leaders.
For decades, the multi-national, majority immigrant city of San Diego was governed by an unchallenged conservative establishment, unresponsive and unaccountable to the needs of its citizens.
After 20 years of sustained investments from progressive donors, it has become a case study in co-governance — when communities guide leaders they voted for toward the policies they want.
Now, with a fully progressive county Board of Supervisors, San Diego showed us what they’re fighting for — now, with political will and funding:
- Our first stop was at a park-in-progress at Paradise Creek, a hard fought patch of open space carved out of an industrial corridor surrounded by freeways, warehouses, rail lines and some of the dirtiest air in the country. In a sunny spot of a small amphitheater/community gathering space in the making, we heard about a generations-long struggle: parents walking their kids to school past idling trucks; elders growing up with chronic asthma; residents testifying year after year to stop more polluting facilities from moving in.
- As they helped elect better leaders, residents have gradually forced the city, the port, and state regulators to acknowledge these issues and invest in a park and better regulations. The same residents are pushing to ensure this land became deeply affordable housing and green space instead of another industrial project. Paradise Creek shows what decades of persistence can make possible.
- At the same time, the project is facing major setbacks under the current administration whose EPA terminated a $20 million climate-resilience and clean-air grant they were banking on.
Touring Alliance San Diego Mobilization Fund with the newly elected Supervisor Paloma Aguirre and:
- Andrea Guerrero, ED
- Itzel Maganda Chavez, Civic Engagement Director
- Ted Womack, Civic Engagement Manager
- At Alliance San Diego, we toured a beautifully designed community hub, where volunteers are frequently canvassing their neighbors with information about Know Your Rights and upcoming elections. In their call center, we saw them creating disaster-preparedness kits which they distribute door to door. Along the backdrop of their district maps, locals described what it means to live in a border town, where people of color are routinely stopped for passport checks miles from the border. If you’re not white, you may be routinely stopped and asked for your passport within 10 miles of the border in any direction.
- Executive Director Andrea Guerrero grounded all of their work in the core belief that dignity is the foundation of a multiracial democracy. According to international human rights law, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to dignity includes rights to safety, freedom of movement, fair treatment, participation in public life, and the ability to live without discrimination or fear. Through their Safe, Welcoming, and Dignified Communities workshops, young people use this framework as a moral north star and practical organizing tool to guide their work.
- Over lunch, newly elected Supervisor Paloma Aguirre shared her experience of becoming the first Latina elected to the San Diego County Board. She described how her love for surfing — a common denominator for many in the area — led her toward environmental justice advocacy for coastal communities. Leveraging that experience toward governance, she is part of the new progressive majority that is– for the first time in county history — unlocking decades of untouched tax revenue that previous administrations kept in reserves while communities struggled with housing insecurity, pollution, and the impacts of border enforcement. Today, those funds are supporting immigrant legal defense, emergency housing, and SNAP replacement programs.
San Diego LGBT Community Center
- Cara Dessert (she/her) CEO
- Gloria Gruz Cardenas (she/they) Chief Impact Officer
- David Vance (they/them), Director of Advocacy & Civic Engagement
Mid-City Can
- Diana Ross, executive director
At The San Diego LGBT Community Center, we saw a regional democracy ecosystem aligning dozens of LGBTQ groups to organize, vote, and build safety together. Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer underscored how this ecosystem of queer and trans leadership has reshaped county politics and expanded what’s possible when communities that were once politically marginalized now have real governing power.At the same time, Mid-City CAN showed us what sustained youth organizing can achieve. Their Youth Council’s transportation justice campaign led to free public transit passes for students, transforming access to school, jobs, and community life for thousands of young people.
Center on Policy Initiatives & Planned Parenthood
- Planned Parenthood: Neal Ortiguerra, Sr. Director of Public Affairs
At the Center for Policy Initiatives with input from Planned Parenthood, we understood how different kinds of issues (labor, housing, climate, reproductive justice) become a powerful force multiplier when they collaborate on budget advocacy from their county.
In addition to bridging and convening groups toward shared goals, CPI trains and mentors new generations of policymakers through its Social Equity & Justice (SEJ) Internship Program, which trains young people through the Community Budget Alliance (CBA), policy research, public testimony and civic.
As CDT CEO Ludovic Blain reminded us, this is what it looks like when decades of quiet, steady investment finally breaks through the halls of power — when communities once sidelined become the very people shaping budgets, winning protections, and governing their own futures. San Diego proves that when donors commit for the long haul, power doesn’t just shift. People’s lives shift with it.
San Diego is the blueprint. Now it’s time to scale it. With new regional tables rising in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Mateo — and growing momentum in the Inland Empire, Central Valley, and Orange County — we’re poised to build a multiracial democracy across California rooted in dignity, safety, and community power.
The work ahead is clear: expand the map, deepen our roots, and ensure every community has the power to govern its own future.
