At Income Movement, we know the power of taking direct action. To increase the impact of actions our community takes, Income Movement creates dual approach campaigns, pushing across multiple channels of influence. If we have a petition gathering signatures, we have a Day of Action associated to deliver these to elected officials while targeting them in a social media campaign. Whether supporting grassroots community members to urge their mayors to support basic income, connecting constituents to their elected officials during key policy debates, or getting into the streets to protest, we know the best approach is one that is coordinated and direct.
In our work supporting a wide range of direct cash legislation at state and national levels, we know the importance of a tool that supports long-term coalition building that can grow over time. This is why we created the I Support Basic Income Open Letter.
The goal of this open letter is to accumulate millions of individual signers and thousands of organizations, businesses, and local, state and national elected officials to show that our movement isn't going away - it's getting stronger by the day. Add your name to the letter. Urge elected officials to join you in supporting basic income for a more just and equitable society.
Core to Income Movement's work is bringing together people and organizations from across the three pillars of the basic income movement and developing a long term roadmap for our collective work that can inform program and initiative design at the organizational level. By helping everyone stay informed of each other's work and finding opportunities to support and amplify action, we can increase impact. Ultimately, this is how we compress timelines and help us reach our goal of getting to a federal basic income by 2030.
The Movement for Basic Income Leadership Cohort (MBILC) is a formal program designed to bring together key organizations, stakeholders and community members from across the basic income ecosystem to build the vision, tools and infrastructure necessary for a sustainable, thriving and well-coordinated, national movement. The program is built using human-centered, community first design principles, where grassroots organizers and lived experience experts sit alongside policy wonks and organization leadership to create a roadmap for the national movement for basic income and the implementation plan to ensure its success.
For regular updates on the progress of the Movement Leadership Cohort, register for our Quarterly State of the Movement events,
Income Movement has led the redesigning of the annual Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) conference, celebrating its 21st year in 2023. Just like the movement for basic income, this conference has grown to include a diverse range of community members: grassroots organizers, researchers and educators, political figures, social and economic justice organizations, basic income advocates, and more. This is an exciting event where experts from across the movement come together to share their most recent and immediate work and chart the course for the upcoming year. Learn more about The BIG Conference and RSVP to the 2023 hybrid event hosted this year in Chicago, IL.
In our unique position, working with both pilots and the grassroots, we discovered an important area of need. The design and launch of a basic income pilot is complex and has many moving parts. Organizations leading these efforts often don't have the resources or expertise to include deep community engagement opportunities across the region. This often means that when a pilot ends, so too ends the energy for basic income. In 2021, Income Movement created the Pilot Community Engagement Program (PCEP) in order to support pilot organizations in building deep, long lasting support for basic income. Through events, workshops and more, we help pilots connect with their communities and strengthen the trust and collaboration across their pilot partner networks.
Pilots gather data to inform potential basic income policy, but they also can be epicenters for grassroots engagement and action. This program nurtures the latter. To accomplish this, Income Movement has created a toolkit with resources and workshop designs with activities pilot organizations can do to engage their partners and local community members. Contact Income Movement if you are organizing a pilot in your area and would like to partner with us to increase your community engagement.
In our continued effort to put people at the center of the basic income movement, we created an interactive map that hosts the stories of direct cash and basic income recipients from across the country. This is an effort to have everyday people rebuild the narrative around poverty and help design direct cash policy. Building advocates and supporters for basic income is rooted in shifting our understanding of negative stereotypes about the impact of our current economic system on those living in our country. The internalization of unworthiness and deserving in our economic situation gets in the way of feeling empowered to change our society. Individuals sharing stories and rooting the conversation in our realities is an important step in establishing an economic system that works for the many, not just the few.
Are you a parent who received the monthly Child Tax Credit checks or are the recipient in a basic income pilot? Share your story with us and help inform the conversation about the important changes needed to create a dignity economy.
This annual event celebrates the progress of the movement and was the inception of Income Movement as an organization. Th s a nationwide and international celebration done in deep partnership with basic income pilot organizations and committed local organizers to execute a coordinated day of public action that is as strong as it is creative. Each year we support events that display the strength and growth of this movement to local and national leadership. Check out last year’s celebration.