Our History

Leading the fight for the rights of residents most impacted by injustice 

Empower DC proudly shares the grassroots origins of so many powerful movement organizations that have shaped social change. In 2003, current Executive Director Parisa Norouzi and Linda Leaks, an award-winning Cooperative Housing organizer, co-founded Empower DC in the basement of DC’s St. Augustine Catholic Church, out of the same offices where Washington Inner-City Self Help (WISH) operated for decades prior. After the closure of WISH, Linda and Parisa started Empower DC because they understood the importance of organizations that exist to disrupt inequitable and unjust systems through community organizing. Empower DC organizes community power to ensure that residents are shaping the decisions that impact their daily lives.

Empower DC has organized with residents across the city for the past twenty years to protect and better our communities. In addition to our current campaigns, our work has addressed multiple issues of critical importance to DC’s Black and brown communities, including:

• Winning increased funding for childcare subsidies that ended the waiting list for eligible families.
• Adoption and funding DC’s most critical affordable housing laws — like the Housing Production Trust Fund and Local Rent Supplement Program.
• Fighting against the unjust and discriminatory closure of DC’s neighborhood public schools.
• Preventing the DC government from locating a polluting bus depot at the Crummell School, the heart of Ivy City.
• Creating accountability around the use of public land.
• Strengthening policies that promote racial equity.
• Documenting previously unknown community history, and more!

Watch our 20th Anniversary video recap!

What We Do

Our Goals

Empower DC builds the power of DC residents through resident-led community organizing to advance racial, economic and environmental justice. We are guided by a vision in which DC is a state where human rights and needs are met, systemic harm is exposed and repaired, and empowered residents shape the decisions that impact their lives.

Our Values

In everything we do, we aim to:

• HONOR the history, expertise and vision of DC’s low/moderate-income Black and brown residents.

• BUILD collective power that demands accountability from decision-makers.

• DISRUPT inequitable and unjust systems and institutions.

• PERSIST in the determined, uncompromising pursuit of justice.

How We Do It

We are dedicated to addressing the root causes of social, racial, economic and environmental injustice, and achieving meaningful systemic change, by investing in the inherent power and lived expertise of DC residents most impacted by injustice. Our strength comes from our community, particularly our most active members comprising over 200 Black and brown DC member-leaders who guide campaigns addressing issues that directly affect their lives. Our work is guided by our organizing principles:

• BUILD COLLECTIVE POWER by unifying DC residents within the organization, across neighborhood lines.

• CENTER IMPACTED MEMBERS in defining the problems and solutions that set the agenda for Empower DC’s efforts.

• NURTURE LEADERSHIP of impacted residents through training, coaching and encouraging confidence in their views and visions.

• DEVELOP STRATEGIC ACTION PLANS with thoughtful and sustained engagement of members and partners. Use confrontation when necessary.

• SHAPE THE NARRATIVE by building visibility and support from the public, through the media, and among decision-makers.

• STAY THE COURSE in the face of obstacles or setbacks. Organizing works and longevity wins.