Ready for Action | Communities Organized For Relational Power In Action
To develop the leadership skills of ordinary people to engage effectively in public life with power to negotiate with public and private sector leaders to change the economic, social, political and cultural pressures on their families.
Joaquin Sanchez, has been an IAF organizer since 1999, having started in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas with Valley Interfaith and in Los Angeles with One-LA. Joaquin was hired as the lead organizer for COPA in February 2007.
Annie Willis, joined COPA as an Associate Organizer in August, 2010. She previously worked as a public interest lawyer.
Rosa M Vitela, is a Watsonville native and graduate of UC Santa Cruz.
COPA’s budget primarily supports the salaries of our 3 staff, along with office rent, supplies, copies, and materials, travel, and translation services for bilingual meetings. Funding comes from 3 sources: Membership Dues, Foundation Grants and Individual Investors.
Each member institution pays annual dues according to the size of their institution. Because the issue agenda of COPA is driven by its members, the financial ownership in the organization by the members is critical to COPA’s success.
COPA is grateful to the foundations who believe in our work and provide us programmatic funding to support various initiatives of mutual interest:
In recent years, COPA leaders have asked individual business leaders and organizations to invest in our work of leadership development for the mutual benefit of economic development, community safety, public education and affordable housing. We thank these community leaders for believing in, and investing in COPA’s agenda over the years:
Under the leadership of Pastor Pam Fine, the members of Aptos Community United Methodist Church decided to join COPA in the summer of 2011.
Calvary Episcopal Church of Santa Cruz, located in downtown Santa Cruz, has an active outreach ministry under the direction of Pastor Joel Miller.
East Salinas Family Center United Methodist Church, joined COPA to share in its power to affect gang violence in the City of Salinas. Under the leadership of Pastor Frank Gomez, the East Family Center has been working to welcome former gang members and provide them with a path to opportunity.
Alianza Charter School is a two-way bilingual immersion school for 530 students (79% English-learners) in a K-8 program, within the Pajaro Valley Unified School District. Teachers Carol Keeney, and (fill in names) organized a 4-week Achievement Academy for 35 parents to learn the pathway to college. Following this experience, the team of teachers and parents got agreement from the school council to fund membership in COPA through annual dues and pay teachers for their after-hours contribution to COPA activities.
St. Mary’s of the Nativity:After 500 parishioners participated in Bishop Garcia’s Procession for Peace on March 26, 2010, a group of 30 parishioners participated in a 4-week leadership development training by organizer Joaquin Sanchez. Participants examined stories of the Gospel, for example, how the Beatitudes teach qualities of leadership. The group decided to form a Social Justice Ministry to have a parish focus for work on issues like gang violence and to join with COPA to build relationship with other Salinas institutions.
The Regional Strategy Team fulfills the functions of COPA’s Board of Directors, but more importantly, the group acts to support the work of the institutional leaders at the local level, while giving overall strategic direction to COPA as a regional organization.
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