What a Year!

In the Fall of 2016, New York Communities for Change launched our new program to fight inequality and climate change. To be honest, we didn’t think we’d win anything big anytime soon, but now it’s 2018, and thanks to our hard-hitting and intense campaign alongside our allies, NYC will stop financing climate destruction through its massive pension fund.

It’s a stunning victory.

The city’s $190 billion pension funds will divest about $5 billion from the likes of ExxonMobil over the next five years. It’s a shot in the arm to the worldwide movement fighting the oil, gas, coal and pipeline corporations, and a major blow to this death-dealing industry. The announcement created worldwide news and is prodding other large investors to consider divestment.

They even lit the Empire State Building green for #DivestNY the night of the announcement.

The #DivestNY campaign could not have won without NYCC’s work, detailed in the following pages. Read about our role in this great writeup of the activist story.

Last Spring, we also successfully convinced NYC to cut off Wells Fargo – which finances the Dakota Access pipeline – from the city’s banking business.

In all, we organized (or the co-led organizing) of over 40 protests dating from our launch in October of 2016 to January of 2018. That’s more than one protest every two weeks. Our campaigns generated turnouts ranging from a small picket line to the #Sandy5 protest march of thousands of people over the Brooklyn Bridge on the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. We also trained over 100 NYCC members to deepen their knowledge of these issues and are developing activist leaders. We’re generating real and deep involvement from communities of color alongside our progressive climate allies in the fight against climate change – delivering victories through community power.

In 2018, we plan to build our movement! Please read this report for details.