Action Center on Race & the Economy Institute

Its subsidiary, the Action Center on Race and The Economy (ACRE) has advocated for cancellation of rent payments and mortgages,³ cancellation of student debt payments,⁴ and a moratorium on corporations merging with one another. ⁵ To advance its policy objectives, ACRE engages in alliances with many left-leaning partners, such as organizations such Demos, Democracy for America, Greenpeace USA, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, the United Teachers of Los Angeles, the Center for Popular Democracy, and the Partnership for Working Families. ^{6 4}

Background

The Action Center on Race and The Economy Institute (ACRE Institute) is a 501(c)(3) left-leaning policy organization and the direct controlling entity of the Action Center on Race and The Economy, an affiliated 501(c)(4) left-leaning political advocacy organization. ¹

Launched in 2017, the ACRE Institute has two executive directors, Sadiq Bhatti and Maurice BP-Weeks. ⁷ According to BP-Weeks, ACRE was founded to focus on Wall Street and corporations that the group asserts are “extracting wealth from communities, with an explicitly racial lens.” BP-Weeks also mentions that “the actual function of how these companies operate is built on the extraction of wealth from people of color.” ⁸

Funding

The ACRE Institute is funded by several left-leaning foundations. Since 2017, according to the charitable recordkeeping service Foundation Search, these have included the Ford Foundation ($950,000 total), the ARCA Foundation ($75,000), and the Proteus Fund ($15,000). ²

Additional sources of left-leaning foundation funding have reportedly included the Nathan Cummings Foundation ($200,000 in 2019),⁹ the Surdna Foundation ($477,000 since 2018),¹⁰ the Rockefeller Brothers Fund ($41,502 in 2019),¹¹ the RISE Together Fund ($10,000 in 2018),¹² the General Service Foundation ($50,000 in 2019),¹³ and the Libra Foundation ($100,000 in 2019). ¹⁴

Policy Advocacy

ACRE Institute and its political advocacy subsidiary, the Action Center on Race and The Economy (ACRE), engage in several left-leaning advocacy.

Rent Cancellation Advocacy

In the spring of 2020 ACRE began promoting a “national reckoning” that would include a “local, state, and federal cancellation of rent and mortgages.” ³

In April of 2020, ACRE, alongside several other social justice organizations, launched “We Strike Together.” The campaign website for the project provides a heat map of persons across the country that cannot pay rent with a “unified commitment to demand universal rent relief.” ACRE jointly announced the campaign with Alex Caputo-Pearl (the left-wing president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles), and left wing Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. Left-leaning coalition partners in the campaign included the Alliance for Housing Justice, the Center for Popular Democracy, Jobs With Justice, and the Partnership for Working Families. ⁶

Student Debt Cancellation

In 2020, ACRE and 101 other mostly left-leaning organizations sent a letter to Congressional leadership asking that Congress include a “student debt cancellation” plan as part of a stimulus package. The primary promoters of the letter were left-leaning advocacy organizations such as the Center for Responsible Lending, Americans for Financial Reform, and Demos. In addition to ACRE, some of the other left-leaning advocacy organizations participating included Democracy for America, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, the Consumer Federation of America, Greenpeace USA, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. ⁴

Opposition to Corporate Mergers

In 2020 ACRE and two dozen other left-leaning advocacy organizations urged Congress to suspend the ability of corporations to merge with each other. Other left-wing signatories included 350.org, Justice Democrats, Friends of the Earth and the Sunrise Movement. ⁵

Responsible Endowments Coalition

In 2017, the Responsible Endowments Coalition (REC) board and staff decided to incorporate the organization as part of the ACRE Institute. REC later ended its association with the ACRE Institute and ceased operation. ¹⁵