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Traction (organization)
Traction is a progressive non-profit organization promoting civic engagement, based in the city of Durham, North Carolina. Traction's goal is to inform, inspire and connect a growing social network of left-leaning 20- and 30-somethings. The organization focuses on raising awareness of progressive issues including civil rights, health care, the environment, electoral fairness, economic justice and education. These topics are integrated into activities such as movies, dodgeball, art exhibitions, sushi-making workshops, potluck dinners and parties to create issue-based events which inform and mobilize the community for social action. Traction was founded in 2005 by Lanya Shapiro and became a project of the San Francisco-based Tides Center in early 2007. The group's funding sources include the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, Jonathan and Peter Lewis, and the Open Society Institute Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Progressivism
Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, technology, economic development, and social organization. Adherents hold that progressivism has universal application and endeavor to spread this idea to human societies everywhere. Progressivism arose during the Age of Enlightenment out of the belief that civility in Europe was improving due to the application of new empirical knowledge to the governance of society.Harold Mah''Enlightenment Phantasies: Cultural Identity in France and Germany, 1750–1914'' Cornell University. (2003). p. 157. In modern political discourse, progressivism gets often associated with social liberalism, a left-leaning type of liberalism, in contrast to the right-leaning neoliberalism, combining support for a mixed economy with cultural liberalism. In the 21st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-profit Organization
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in contrast with an entity that operates as a business aiming to generate a profit for its owners. A nonprofit is subject to the non-distribution constraint: any revenues that exceed expenses must be committed to the organization's purpose, not taken by private parties. An array of organizations are nonprofit, including some political organizations, schools, business associations, churches, social clubs, and consumer cooperatives. Nonprofit entities may seek approval from governments to be tax-exempt, and some may also qualify to receive tax-deductible contributions, but an entity may incorporate as a nonprofit entity without securing tax-exempt status. Key aspects of nonprofits are accountability, trustworthiness, honesty, and openness to eve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civic Engagement
Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to protect public values or make a change in a community. The goal of civic engagement is to address public concerns and promote the quality of the community. Civic engagement is "a process in which people take collective action to address issues of public concern" and is "instrumental to democracy" (Checkoway & Aldana, 2012). Underrepresentation of groups in the government causes issues faced by groups such as minority, low-income, and younger groups to be overlooked or ignored. In turn, issues for higher voting groups are addressed more frequently, causing more bills to be passed to fix these problems (Griffin & Newman, 2008). Forms Civic engagement can take many forms—from individual volunteerism, community engagement efforts, organiz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Durham, North Carolina
Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carolina, Wake County. With a population of 283,506 in the 2020 United States Census, 2020 Census, Durham is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, 4th-most populous city in North Carolina, and the List of United States cities by population, 74th-most populous city in the United States. The city is located in the east-central part of the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region along the Eno River. Durham is the core of the four-county Research Triangle#Office of Management and Budget Definition, Durham-Chapel Hill Metropolitan Area, which has a population of 649,903 as of 2020 U.S. Census. The Office of Management and Budget also includes Durham as a part of the Raleigh, North Carolina, Raleigh-Durham-Cary Combined Statistical Area, com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Left-wing Politics
Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political%20ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished. Left-wing politics are also associated with popular or state control of major political and economic institutions. According to emeritus professor of economics Barry Clark, left-wing supporters "claim that human development flourishes when individuals engage in cooperative, mutually respectful relations that can thrive only when excessive differences in status, power, and wealth are eliminated." Within the left–right political spectrum, ''Left'' and ''right-wing politics, Right'' were coined during the French Revolution, referring to the seat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of society and the state without discrimination or repression. Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples' physical and mental integrity, life, and safety; protection from discrimination on grounds such as sex, race, sexual orientation, national origin, color, age, political affiliation, ethnicity, social class, religion, and disability; and individual rights such as privacy and the freedom of thought, speech, religion, press, assembly, and movement. Political rights include natural justice (procedural fairness) in law, such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy; and rights of participation in civil society and politics such as freedom of associati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health Care
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health professionals and allied health fields. Medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, midwifery, nursing, optometry, audiology, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, athletic training, and other health professions all constitute health care. It includes work done in providing primary care, secondary care, and tertiary care, as well as in public health. Access to health care may vary across countries, communities, and individuals, influenced by social and economic conditions as well as health policies. Providing health care services means "the timely use of personal health services to achieve the best possible health outcomes". Factors to consider in terms of health care access include financial limitations (such as insurance coverage), geo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmentalism
Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the impact of changes to the environment on humans, animals, plants and non-living matter. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecologism combines the ideology of social ecology and environmentalism. ''Ecologism'' is more commonly used in continental European languages, while ''environmentalism'' is more commonly used in English but the words have slightly different connotations. Environmentalism advocates the preservation, restoration and improvement of the natural environment and critical earth system elements or processes such as the climate, and may be referred to as a movement to control pollution or protect plant and animal diversity. Fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional and local government. This process is also used in many other private and business organisations, from clubs to voluntary associations and corporations. The global use of elections as a tool for selecting representatives in modern representative democracies is in contrast with the practice in the democratic archetype, ancient Athens, where the elections were considered an oligarchic institution and most political offices were filled using sortition, also known as allotment, by which officeholders were chosen by lot. Electoral reform describes the process of introducing fair electoral systems wher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Economic Justice
Justice in economics is a subcategory of welfare economics. It is a "set of moral and ethical principles for building economic institutions". Economic justice aims to create opportunities for every person to have a dignified, productive and creative life that extends beyond simple economics. Models of economic justice frequently represent the ethical-social requirements of a given theory, whether "in the large", as of a just social order, or "in the small", as in the equity of "how institutions distribute specific benefits and burdens". That theory may or may not elicit acceptance. In the Journal of Economic Literature classification codes 'justice' is scrolled to at JEL: D63, wedged on the same line between ' Equity' and 'Inequality' along with 'Other Normative Criteria and Measurement'. Categories above and below the line are Externalities and Altruism. Some ideas about justice and ethics overlap with the origins of economic thought, often as to distributive justice and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Education
State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary schools that educate all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in part by taxation. State funded schools exist in virtually every country of the world, though there are significant variations in their structure and educational programmes. State education generally encompasses primary and secondary education (4 years old to 18 years old). By country Africa South Africa In South Africa, a state school or government school refers to a school that is state-controlled. These are officially called public schools according to the South African Schools Act of 1996, but it is a term that is not used colloquially. The Act recognised two categories of schools: public and independent. Independent schools include all private schools and schools that are privately governed. Independent schools with low tui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tides Center
Tides Foundation is an American public charity and fiscal sponsor working to advance progressive causes and policy initiatives in areas such as the environment, health care, labor issues, immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, women's rights and human rights. It was founded in San Francisco in 1976. Through donor advised funds, Tides distributes money from anonymous donors to other organizations, which are often politically progressive. It manages two centers in San Francisco and New York that offer collaborative spaces for social ventures and other nonprofits. Since 1996, Tides has overseen the Tides Center, which is an incubator for smaller progressive organizations. In 2004, Tides formed the Tides Shared Spaces offshoot which specializes in renting office space to nonprofit tenants. As of 2008, the umbrella organization for these entities was the Tides Network. History Tides was founded in 1976 by Drummond Pike, who worked with Jane Bagley Lehman, heir to the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
