About Just Futures
Since 2021, a coalition-based initiative called Just Futures has worked to make sure Washington state’s policies are shaped by the people most impacted by pollution and poverty.
Facing environmental and economic challenges has given community members valuable wisdom on how to address issues like climate change and high housing prices. Just Futures advances collaborative governance as a strategy to help Washington state translate this expertise into actively improving communities.
Disparities in health care, housing, and safe environments are due, in part, to a disconnect between government policy making and community members with lived experiences of these challenges. Just Futures works in communities across the state – in Seattle, Spokane, Walla Walla, Tacoma, Sea-Tac, Sunnyside, Everson and Yakima – to make public programs and investments more effective, build community self-determination, and create a healthier democracy.
What is Just Futures?
Just Futures is an initiative where decision-makers and community members work together to center community leadership in investing public money and making laws. We are changing the relationship between government and the communities it serves by designing new avenues for public participation, through a strategy called collaborative governance.
A coalition of community-based organizations lead the Just Futures initiative.
Poverty Action Network
The Statewide Poverty Action Network is an anti-poverty advocacy organization located in Seattle, WA. Through in-person community organizing and policy advocacy, it advances equitable policy solutions for low-income people in Washington state.
People’s Economy Lab
People’s Economy Lab builds networks of leaders and advances projects that reshape our local economy toward one that is just, sustainable, and regenerative. People’s Economy Lab is led by and centers Black, Indigenous, and communities of color in the Seattle area who are striving for economic justice, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible for a Just Transition to a solidarity economy in Washington state.
Front and Centered
Front and Centered is a diverse and powerful coalition of communities of color-led groups across Washington State, whose missions and work come together at the intersection of equity, environmental and climate justice. Front and Centered seeks a Just Transition away from an extraction-based economy to one centered on ecological restoration, community resilience, and social equity, fueled by regenerative resources and cooperative work, governed by deep democracy, and a culture of caring and sacredness.
Washington Economic Justice Alliance
Hosted by the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, the Alliance is a partnership between many lived experts, community organizations, tribes, businesses, and state agencies working to implement the 10-Year Plan to Dismantle Poverty. Read more from DSHS about the roots of the plan.
Many community-based organizations serve as vital bridges between government and communities, creating sustained pathways for meaningful public participation in forums such as Community Assemblies.
History of Just Futures
In Spring of 2021, Front and Centered and Statewide Poverty Action Network worked with the People’s Economy Lab to create the Just Futures initiative, after previous work together on the New Economy Washington: A Path Forward report that identified the need for community-level leadership on policy.
Just Futures is supported by the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), in alignment with Washington’s 10-Year Plan to Dismantle Poverty.
In 2024, The Washington State Legislature passed the Climate Commitment Act, which funded Just Futures to pilot a statewide network of Community Assemblies.