The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) is a national network of community organizing groups that teaches people to build power and create change in their neighborhoods. Founded by Saul Alinsky in the 1940s, IAF has helped build over 2,800 affordable homes through the Nehemiah program in New York, with foreclosure rates below 1%. The organization has 50+ affiliates across the US training thousands of leaders to work on housing, immigrant rights, criminal justice reform, and other local issues.
IAF uses a model of broad-based organizing that brings together people from different backgrounds - churches, unions, schools - to identify problems and hold politicians accountable for solutions. Recent updates highlight their housing success stories, media recognition of their work, and a historic meeting with Pope Francis where 20 leaders discussed their organizing approach. The organization emphasizes listening to communities, building relationships across differences, and never doing for others what they can do for themselves.
IAF groups work at local, state and national levels to win concrete changes that improve people's daily lives through strategic political action.