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Our approach

Community-rooted™ is a practice, not a slogan.

CIP's community-rooted™ approach uses governance structures, decision-making practices, and strategies that reinforce accountability, deepen community ownership, and aim at systems-level change, not just service delivery.

What matters is that an organization's mission, vision, and day-to-day operations center on the people most affected by the conditions it's trying to change.

Our theory of change

If Black communities in Durham are whole, organized, and resourced, then we can lead our own liberation.

  1. 01

    Collective Action

    We organize to abolish what harms us.

  2. 02

    Resources

    We move resources to where they're needed.

  3. 03

    Creation

    We build the systems that come next.

Community-Rooted™

Not separate programs. One connected ecosystem.

Each part strengthens every other part.

  1. 01

    Food

  2. 02

    Housing

  3. 03

    Education

  4. 04

    Health

  5. 05

    Entrepreneurship

  6. 06

    Organizing

  7. 07

    Transformative Justice

Then the cycle begins again ↺