Grassroots Policy Project (GPP) is a nonprofit which provides academic research findings and training to activist groups to promote left-wing activism. The organization was founded in 1993 by Richard Healey, a former leader of the radical socialist New American Movement, which later merged into the Democratic Socialists of America. ¹

History and Founder

The Grassroots Policy Project was founded by Richard Healey, whose mother was Dorothy Ray Healey, a prominent member of the Young Communist League and the American Communist Party nicknamed the “Red Queen.” ² In the 1980s, Richard and his mother co-hosted an hour-long public-affairs radio show. ³

Richard Healey never joined the Communist Party, but he was active in Students for a Democratic Society and in the 1970s he became one of the ideological leaders of the New American Movement (NAM), a socialist and feminist far-left political organization. In 1974, he became the official leader of NAM and eventually oversaw its merging with the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Healey served as a member of the executive committee of the DSA until 1984. ⁴

Throughout the late 1980s and early 90s, Healey worked as a policy director of the Institute for Policy Studies, worked for the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy, and founded the Study Circle Resource Center, an early form of the GPP. ⁵

In 1993, Healey founded the GPP as a means of helping other organizations accomplish the work he originally set out to do as the head of the New American Movement. ⁶ He was executive director of the GPP until 2018 and remains a strategic advisor today. ⁷

Current Leadership

Executive director Maria Poblet has been involved in left-wing activism since the early 1990s. For seven years, she worked as the executive director of Causa Justa Just Cause, a left-wing Hispanic-focused community organizer group in San Francisco. ⁸⁹ In 2017, the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board appointed Poblet as commissioner. While speaking to the press, Poblet vowed to fight gentrification. ¹⁰

Director of praxis Harmony Goldberg is the founder and former co-director of SOUL: School Of Unity and Liberation, a social justice activism training organization in Oakland. She has worked for or with numerous left-of-center and left-wing activist groups, including the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Social Justice Leadership, Right to the City Alliance, National People’s Action, and the Bertha Foundation. In 2017, Goldberg founded Organizing Upgrade, an online magazine focused on radical-left activism. ¹¹¹²

Senior strategist Christine Cordero worked as a program assistant for two years at the California Wellness Foundation, a left-of-center grantmaking foundation that used to be the for-profit insurance company, Health Net. Cordero then worked as a program director for the Center for Environmental Health, a left-of-center anti-pollution nonprofit. Next, she served for almost six years as the executive director of the Center for Story-based Strategy where she conceived means of marketing left-of-center positions using popular narratives. ¹³¹⁴

Senior strategist Ted Fertik is a long-time strategist for the Working Families Party, a left-wing pro-union political party based out of Brooklyn, New York. Since 2008, Fertik has worked for the Party as New York Campaigns Coordinator, Oregon State Director, and in the Political Development department. ¹⁵

Strategic advisor David Mann is the former co-director of the Minnesota Alliance for Progressive Action and was a co-founder of TakeAction Minnesota. ¹⁶

COVID-19 Opportunism

In April 2020, GPP released a paper titled, “Stepping into the Moment: The Coronavirus Crisis as an Opening for Transformative Change,” which argued that left-wing activists should use the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to enact and entrench their favored long-term political policies. Specifically, the paper encourages supporting the nationalization of key portions of the economy, using bailouts as “leverage” to take control of private companies, and implementing socialized healthcare. The paper also suggests attempting to shift American culture from favoring “individualism” to “interdependence.” ¹⁷

1. Cohen, Victor. “Interview with Richard Healey.” Works and Days. Volume 28. 2010. Accessed June 10, 2020. http://www.worksanddays.net/2010/File08.Healey.pdf.
2. Davis, Mike. “Dorothy Healey.” The Nation. August 24, 2006. Accessed June 9, 2020. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/dorothy-healey-0/.
3. Healey, Dorothy; Isserman, Maurice. “California Red: A Life in the American Communist Party.” University of Illinois Press. Pages 245-250. 1993. Accessed June 9, 2020.
4. Cohen, Victor. “Interview with Richard Healey.” Works and Days. Volume 28. 2010. Accessed June 10, 2020. http://www.worksanddays.net/2010/File08.Healey.pdf.
5. Cohen, Victor. “Interview with Richard Healey.” Works and Days. Volume 28. 2010. Accessed June 10, 2020. http://www.worksanddays.net/2010/File08.Healey.pdf.
6. Cohen, Victor. “Interview with Richard Healey.” Works and Days. Volume 28. 2010. Accessed June 10, 2020. http://www.worksanddays.net/2010/File08.Healey.pdf.
7. “Who We Are.” Grassroots Policy Project. Accessed June 9, 2020. https://grassrootspolicy.org/who-we-are/.
8. “Who We Are.” Grassroots Policy Project. Accessed June 9, 2020. https://grassrootspolicy.org/who-we-are/.
9. “Maria Poblet.” Linkedin. Accessed June 9, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-poblet-853a6b29/.
10. Straube, Ahna. Rent Stabilization Board appoints Maria Poblet as Commissioner.” The Daily Californian. May 22, 2017. Accessed June 9, 2020. https://www.dailycal.org/2017/05/18/rent-stabilization-board-appoints-maria-poblet-commissioner/.
11. “Who We Are.” Grassroots Policy Project. Accessed June 9, 2020. https://grassrootspolicy.org/who-we-are/.
12. “About.” Organizing Upgrade. Accessed June 9, 2020. https://organizingupgrade.com/about/.
13. “Who We Are.” Grassroots Policy Project. Accessed June 9, 2020. https://grassrootspolicy.org/who-we-are/.
14. “Christine Cordero.” Linkedin. Accessed June 9, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-cordero-67ba4932/.
15. “Ted Fertik.” Linkedin. Accessed June 9, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-fertik-39948656/.
16. “Ted Fertik.” Linkedin. Accessed June 9, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-fertik-39948656/.
17. Goldberg, Harmony. “Stepping into the Moment: The Coronavirus Crisis as an Opening for Transformative Change.” Grassroots Policy Project. April 2020. Accessed June 10, 2020. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1itbyOD-hnZz-MliggjRrW2AnDsUTwFRv/view.