Since 2020 our members have organized and mobilized community members for a people centered budget that invests in housing, community driven public safety, and education.

We have held teach-ins, mass meetings, and city council watch dinners to increase public awareness around the city budget.

We’ve used People’s Movement Assemblies and community surveys to determine community member’s budget priorities.

We’ve mobilized community members to speak out and demand a People’s Budget.

Since last Fall we’ve been working with community members to develop a Varsity Spending Plan that prioritizes investments in young people, families, and neighborhoods to build safer communities.

Through a series of People's Movement Assemblies and campaign meetings we used participatory budgeting to determine community members’ budgetary priorities. Members of our Youth Assembly and the Black Nashville Assembly discussed the issues in their community and voted for programs and budgetary investments to address those issues.

We need systemic change and significantly more investments to address the root causes of harm in our communities. The Varsity Spending Plan is a move in the right direction to build safer communities that are not reliant on arrests, courts, and jails.

To ensure the success of the Varsity Spending Plan, the programs must be implemented by community-based public entities - not nonprofits or private organizations - with oversight from the community members impacted by targeted policing, incarceration, and harm.

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