On June 5-6, 2025, Just Futures convened a Movement Building & Strategy Summit to build on the momentum of community assemblies across Washington.

Movement Building & Strategy Summit
2025

Strengthening Community Partnerships with Government Agencies

Across two days, community assembly participants and government staff collaborated on ways to better incorporate community wisdom into decision making. Participants shared solutions generated in community assemblies about climate change, agricultural worker protections, mental health resources, and more. Review a digital zine about the event in English and Spanish

Celebrating Community Anchors Advancing Collaborative Governance

Just Futures expressed our deep gratitude to the organizations that anchored six Community Assemblies in 2024: Blue Mountain Action Council (BMAC), Community to Community Development (C2C), ECOSS, Equitable Recovery & Reconciliation Alliance (ERRA), Nuestra Casa, and United Territories of Pacific Islanders Alliance (UTOPIA) Washington.

These organizations planed and facilitated multi-session Assemblies across the state, as well as led difficult and crucial conversations with each other, Movement Partners, government representatives, and funders.

Bringing Collaborative Governance to Washington State

“We had people aged 5 to 80 in the room, speaking 5 different languages with 6 different interpreters. It was powerful watching people be engaged and really want to invest in their own community. When you bring multiple minds, multiple spirits, multiple cultures and ideas into the same room—people who don’t spend a lot of time with each other—and they’re willing to not only invest in their community but learn about each other’s communities, that’s when the magic happens. ”
— Carol - ECOSS

At the end of the Summit, we collectively agreed to the following actions:

  • Government partners agreed to meet, make a plan for supporting Community Assemblies, and report back to Just Futures and community

  • Collectively map our assets, resources, and power in a secure way

  • Meeting regularly, in-person and virtually, to continue moving the work of Collaborative Governance and Community Assemblies forward

  • Collectively recognize, center, and fight against anti-Blackness and settler colonialism as the root causes of all the issues we’re tackling