Dream Corps

The organization has received funding from notable athletes, musicians, and organizations, including Apple² and the National Football League. ³

Green for All is the climate advocacy project of Dream Corps. Green for All has opposed the use of zero carbon nuclear energy. ^{4 5}

People

Dream Corps was founded in 2007 by Van Jones, a left-of-center political commentator and activist best known for serving in the Obama White House as Special Advisor for Green Jobs and hosting the “Van Jones Show” on CNN. Jones has a long record of promoting environmentalism and leading billions of dollars of investments into environmentalist-aligned companies in his role as a senior advisor in the Obama administration. ⁶

Jones resigned from the Obama administration after receiving criticism from Republicans due to his association with 9/11 terrorist attack conspiracy “truthers,” ⁷ and for calling Republicans “a**holes” ⁷ before being appointed to his position within the administration. ⁷

Vien Truong, a California-based climate activist who formerly led the Oakland Planning Commission, works as the CEO of Dream Corps. ⁸ Truong earned over $221,000 in compensation from the organization in 2018. ⁹

Activity

Among the most visible of the projects conducted by Dream Corps is the #Cut50 campaign. The campaign is dedicated to reducing the number of incarcerated inmates in all 50 states. Cut50 works with “formerly and currently incarcerated individuals.” ¹⁰ Notable Cut50 partners include Shaka Senghor, who served 19 years for murder, and Michael Mendoza, who was convicted for the role he played in a gang-related murder. ¹¹

Many notable organizations and individuals have supported the #cut50 campaign including the San Francisco 49ers football team. ¹² Additionally, rapper Travis Scott performed at the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show under the condition that the National Football League make a donation to the organization, which led to the NFL making a $500,000 contribution to Dream Corps. ³

Other campaigns led by Dream Corps include the Green for All campaign, which promote left-leaning environmentalist policies and seeks to garner support for such initiatives from low-income communities,¹³ and the Dream Corps Tech campaign which seeks to promote diversity within the technology sector. The Tech campaign also includes the #YesWeCode initiative, which has drawn support from large tech companies including Apple that have partnered with Dream Corps to promote coding education programs in the Oakland area. ²

Green for All

Green for All is the climate advocacy project of Dream Corps. ⁵

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

Green for All was one of more than 600 co-signing organizations on a January 2019 open letter to Congress titled “Legislation to Address the Urgent Threat of Climate Change.” The signatories declared their support for new laws to bring about “100 percent decarbonization” of the transportation sector but denounced nuclear power as an example of “dirty energy” that should not be included in any legislation promoting the use of so-called “renewable energy.” ^{4 5}

Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and as of 2021 accounted for 19 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States. ¹⁴ An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output. ¹⁵

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