Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI, Iowa CCI, occasionally ICCI) is a membership-based

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...

organization dedicated to community organizing in the state of

Iowa Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wiscon ...

. CCI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, affiliated with sister

501(c)(4) A 501(c) organization is a nonprofit organization in the federal law of the United States according to Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. § 501(c)) and is one of over 29 types of nonprofit organizations exempt from some federal income taxes. ...

organization Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund.

History

CCI was formed in 1975 by a group of ministers in

Waterloo, Iowa Waterloo is a city in and the county seat of Black Hawk County, Iowa, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census the population was 67,314, making it the eighth-largest city in the state. The city is part of the Waterloo – Cedar Fall ...

who felt Iowa needed an organization to fight for

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...

issues. CCI began by focusing mainly on neighborhood-level organizing, but soon grew into a statewide organization. Early issues addressed by CCI members included misuse of public funds, slum landlords, and the practice of

redlining In the United States, redlining is a Discrimination, discriminatory practice in which services (Financial services, financial and otherwise) are withheld from potential customers who reside in neighborhoods classified as "hazardous" to investm ...

. Notable victories from the 1970s included the establishment of the

Peoples Community Health Clinic A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prop ...

in Waterloo, passage of the statewide Iowa Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, and the state Neighborhood Revitalization Law. As Iowans faced the Midwest

farm crisis A farm crisis describes times of agricultural recession, low crop prices and low farm incomes. The most recent US farm crisis occurred during the 1980s. Crisis of the 1920s and 1930s A farm crisis began in the 1920s, commonly believed to be a ...

of the 1980s, CCI members added rural issues to their urban organizing. CCI members stopped farm foreclosures, renegotiated mortgages, and helped family farmers gain access to much-needed credit. In the 1990s, as agriculture began to be ever more tightly controlled by corporate interests with the appearance of

factory farms Intensive animal farming or industrial livestock production, also known by its opponents as factory farming and macro-farms, is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to animal husbandry designed to maximize production, while ...

and the mandatory pork checkoff, CCI members led efforts to block these actions. CCI made national news in August 2011 when members questioned Republican presidential candidate

Mitt Romney Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusett ...

at a soapbox appearance at the

Iowa State Fair The Iowa State Fair is an annual state fair held in Des Moines, Iowa in August. It began in 1854 and has been held on the Iowa State Fairgrounds since 1886. It is based in the state capital Des Moines, Iowa over an 11 day period in August. Wit ...

, leading Romney to respond, "Corporations are people, my friend." Video footage of this remark was picked up by media outlets as an indication that Romney was out of touch with ordinary Americans.

Campaigns

CCI members continue to organize against

factory farm Intensive animal farming or industrial livestock production, also known by its opponents as factory farming and macro-farms, is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to animal husbandry designed to maximize production, while ...

s, work to regulate

payday lending A payday loan (also called a payday advance, salary loan, payroll loan, small dollar loan, short term, or cash advance loan) is a short-term unsecured loan, often characterized by high interest rates. The term "payday" in payday loan refers to ...

, institute public campaign financing in the form of Voter-Owned Iowa Clean Elections (VOICE), and defend the social safety net, among other campaigns to fight corporate power. Many CCI members are members of Iowa's growing Latino community. CCI issues in this community include ending widespread

wage theft Wage theft is the failing to pay wages or provide employee benefits owed to an employee by contract or law. It can be conducted by employers in various ways, among them failing to pay overtime; violating minimum-wage laws; the misclassification ...

and enacting

immigration reform Immigration reform is change to the current immigration policy of a country. In its strict definition, ''reform'' means "to change into an improved form or condition, by amending or removing faults or abuses". In the political sense, "immigration ...

. CCI has been organizing around four issues: Farming & Environment, Immigrant rights, Fair Economy and Clean Elections. ICCI exposed the state’s failure to protect

water quality Water quality refers to the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of water based on the standards of its usage. It is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which compliance, generally achieved through ...

. It fought for a workplan for

Clean Water Act The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Its objective is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters; recognizing the responsibiliti ...

enforcement by suing EPA to bring

Iowa Department of Natural Resources The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (Iowa DNR or IA DNR) is a department/agency of the U.S. state of Iowa formed in 1986, charged with maintaining state parks and forests, protecting the environment of Iowa, and managing energy, fish, wildl ...

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations In animal husbandry, a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), as defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is an intensive animal feeding operation (AFO) in which over 1,000 animal units are confined for over 45 day ...

(CAFO) program into compliance with the

. After an EPA field investigation of the DNR in 2012, DNR "promised to enforce the Clean Water Act, yet did not sign a workplan in 2012, and only signed a weakened plan on September 11, 2013. In the year since, the Iowa DNR did not issue any Clean Water Act permits to agricultural polluters. ICCI has pointed out that DNR has fined responsible parties of only 11 of the 49 manure spills, but has not issued administrative orders nor collected fines issued.

Recognition

John Nichols of ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's ''The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

'' named CCI the "most valuable grassroots advocacy group" of 2009. CCI was featured on the final episode of ''

Bill Moyers Journal ''Bill Moyers Journal'' was an American television current affairs program that covered an array of current affairs and human issues, including economics, history, literature, religion, philosophy, science, and most frequently politics. Bill Mo ...

'', where the group was described as "advocates for the people."{{cite web, url = https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/profile3.html, title = Bill Moyers Journal . Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) {{! PBS

References

External links

Official website
Non-profit organizations based in Iowa Organizations established in 1975 Organizations based in Des Moines, Iowa