C-PREP is a non-profit organization that conducts participatory research, capacity building and policy with people who want to restore vitality in their communities. C-PREP addresses the external structural barriers of race and class that limit opportunity and the internalized barriers of fear, alienation and hopelessness that extinguish the human impulse to achieve self-reliance and the drive to create constructive change. 

C-PREP brings a seasoned team of researchers, trainers, policy analysts and innovators to bear on social problems. C-PREP has deep experience working with low-income communities and people of color. Through knowledge, capacity and policy grounded in everyday reality, C-PREP delivers hope.

Mission

The mission of the Center for Popular Research, Education and Policy is to deliver hope by working with people to create local self-reliance.

Purpose

To acquire new grassroots knowledge through participatory action research to better understand the locality (neighborhood, village, town or city) as a set of interdependent social, economic and political systems that create the conditions of everyday life for the people of that locality and that perpetuate poverty, poor educational attainment, low levels of home and business ownership, and, in general, low levels of self-reliance and high levels of social dependence, particularly in low income communities and communities of color.
To organize grassroots, local knowledge into learning opportunities for training, technical assistance and education that establish and enhance the skills and capacity of people in low-income communities and communities of color to overcome poverty, improve educational outcomes, achieve economic development, increase home and business ownership, reduce dependence and achieve self reliance.
To transform grassroots, local knowledge into informed public policythat supports low income communities and people of color in their efforts to overcome poverty, improve educational outcomes, achieve economic development, increase home and business ownership, reduce social dependence and achieve self-reliance.
To establish and operate programs based on grassroots, local knowledge that demonstrate, foster and promote wealth formation through local economic development, the ownership of residential and commercial property through community land trusts and other innovative forms of land tenure, the ownership of microenterprises and small businesses and other ventures that reduce social dependence and achieve self-reliance.

Vision

The Center for Popular Research, Education and Policy generates knowledge, skills and public policy to support low-income people and people of color in their quest for democratic participation in the governance of their communities, ownership of the means of production and exchange within their communities, and therefore, social justice, economic equality and genuine self-reliance.