Reclaiming the Commons

SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONS

Alliance for Community Media
www.alliancecm.org
Founded in 1976, the Alliance represents over 1,000 public, educational and governmental access organizations and community media centers that broadcast over cable systems throughout the United States. The group works to protect community media centers and advance policies that will aid their transition to digital communications and other advanced technologies.

American Community Gardening Association
www.communitygarden.org
The American Community Gardening Association (ACGA) was founded in 1979 to help gardening programs share their limited resources, and benefit from each other's experience and expertise. It is estimated that there are 18,000 community gardens in Canada and the United States today.

American Library Association, Washington office
www.ala.org/ala/washoff/washingtonoffice.htm
The Washington advocacy arm of the American Library Association tackles a wide array of issues relating to creativity and knowledge. Its Office for Information Technology Policy, established in 1995, promotes the development and use of electronic access to information to enable the public to enjoy a free and open information society. Areas of interest include equity of access, copyright, e-books, E-rate, and the information commons.

Bioneers
www.bioneers.org
Founded in 1990, Bioneers hosts an annual gathering of scientific and social innovators who have demonstrated visionary and practical models for restoring the Earth and communities, as well as conducting programs in the conservation of biological and cultural diversity, traditional farming practices, and environmental restoration. Bioneers seeks to unite nature with culture and create economic models founded in social justice.

Center for the American Dream
www.newdream.org
Since 1997, the Center for the American Dream has been challenging commercialism in American culture through education and advocacy. Its work centers on promoting responsible consumption as a means to protect the environment, enhance quality of life, and promote social justice.

Center for Democracy and Technology
www.cdt.org
Founded in 1994, Center for Democracy and Technology is a public policy organization dedicated to promoting the democratic potential of today's open, decentralized global Internet. The group aims to develop and implement public policies to preserve and enhance free expression, privacy, and open access. CDT promotes its policy positions in the United States and globally through policy advocacy, online grassroots organizing, and litigation, as well as through the development of technology standards and online information resources.

Center for Digital Democracy
www.democraticmedia.org
Founded by media activist Jeff Chester in 2001, the Center for Digital Democracy aims to enhance public understanding of digital media, develop media activists, encouraging nonprofit participation in media, and promote the development of a new online "commons," in which the public will have access to a variety of noncommercial sources of information and service.

Consumer Project on Technology
www.cptech.org
Founded in 1995, CPTech focuses on issues concerning the production of and access to knowledge, including medical inventions, information and cultural goods. The group focuses on intellectual property policy and practices, but also has worked to develop business models that support creative individuals and communities, and incentive systems for investments in medical and agricultural inventions, such as those involving prizes and/or competitive Intermediaries.

Cultural Commons
www. culturalcommons.org
The Cultural Commons is an affiliate of Americans for the Arts, a DC-based think tank that seeks to inform and improve the decisions that affect cultural life. The cornerstone of the Commons is its series of Cultural Comment essays, in which writers comment on cultural issues, and an online Discussion Forum, in which the entire community is encouraged to reflect and respond. The Commons site also provides links to current news articles, new books and reports, events, job announcements, and experts and academic policy centers.

Electronic Frontier Foundation
www.eff.org
Founded in 1990, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is a public interest group of lawyers who seek to protect free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights in cyberspace today. Initially founded to protect personal privacy in electronic media from government intrusiveness, the group has shifted focus in recent years to limit private industry's ability to control and expand revenue sources at the expense of the traditional “commons” principle of fair use.

Foundation on Economic Trends
www.foet.org
Established in 1977 by noted author Jeremy Rifkin, the Foundation on Economic Trends examines the economic, environmental, social and cultural impacts of new technologies introduced into the global economy. Over the years, the group has been a participant in many efforts to limit the patentability of life forms and preserve the common gene pool (human genome) from becoming privately owned.

FreeCulture.org
www.freeculture.org
Founded in April 2004, today FreeCulture.org chapters exist at over 30 colleges. Inspired by the book Free Culture Free Culture by Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig, the group aims to bring together young activists from a number of related movements: including free software advocates, the open source community, media activists, creative artists and writers, and civil libertarians.

Free Press
www.freepress.net
Free Press is a national nonprofit group that works to increase informed public participation in crucial media policy debates, and to generate policies that promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, and universal, affordable access to communications.

Land Trust Alliance
www.lta.org
The Land Trust Alliance focuses on supporting conservation land trusts across the nation that preserve and protect open space. When the alliance was formed in 1982, there were fewer than 450 local and regional land trusts. Now there are more than 1500. Between 1998 and 2003 alone, acreage nationwide protected by these land trusts doubled from 4.7 to 9.4 million acres.

Media Access Project
www.mediaaccess.org
Founded three decades ago, the Media Access Project's early work implementing the FCC's fairness doctrine helped open TV networks to anti-war and civil rights activists. Today, the group works to promote common access to emerging technologies, such as broadband and low-power FM radio.

National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture
www.sustainableagriculture.net
The National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture is a nationwide partnership of diverse individuals and organizations cultivating grass roots efforts to engage in policy development processes that result in food and agricultural systems and rural communities that are healthy, environmentally sound, profitable, humane and just.

Nature Conservancy
www.nature.org
Founded in 1951, the Nature Conservancy works in all 50 states and more than 30 countries. To date, the group has protected more than 117 million acres of land and 5,000 miles of river around the world. It also operates more than 100 marine conservation projects in 21 countries and 22 US states.

OnTheCommons.org
www.onthecommons.org
OntheCommons.org promotes activism on behalf of the commons in all its variety. Founded as a project of the Tamales Bay Institute and edited by author David Bollier, the web site contains links to a number of blogs and activists groups. It also contains essays, book reviews, movement leader profiles, online archives, discussions and other resources.

Post Carbon Institute
www.postcarbon.org
The Post Carbon Institute, founded in 2003 and which now has over 100 local chapters worldwide, does research and education work on how to adapt to an energy-constrained world. The group's main strategy has been to promote Relocalization, which aims to rebuild societies based on the local production of food and energy, as well as local currency, governance and culture. The main goals of Relocalization are to increase community energy security, strengthen local economies, and dramatically improve environmental conditions and social equity.

Public Knowledge
www.publicknowledge.org
Public Knowledge is an advocacy group that was founded in 2001 to build support for a vibrant information commons. In addition to its policy work, Public Knowledge runs three specific projects in collaboration with movement communities to further this work. Its Open Access Project promotes the free and unrestricted electronic distribution of peer-reviewed journal literature. Its Creator's Project aims to make copyright and technology law work for artists. And its Global Knowledge Initiative works on international intellectual property issues.

Redefining Progress
www.redefiningprogress.org
Redefining Progress works to shift the economy and public policy towards sustainability. It works in three main areas: measuring the real state of our economy (including social wellbeing) with tools like the Genuine Progress Indicator; designing policies to shift behavior towards sustainability in terms of economy, equity, and ecology; and by promoting new frameworks, such as common assets, that facilitate meeting sustainable objectives.

Time Banks USA
www.timebanks.org
TimeBanks USA supports and nurtures a network of Time Banks located in 50 communities across the United States, as well as lending support for the movement's further development. Time banks are systems of voluntary labor exchange based on the concept of equal exchange of labor time. The concept, developed by Edgar Cahn in the 1980s, has proved to be a valuable tool in building social networks and social capital.

Trust for Public Land
www.tpl.org
The Trust for Public Land is a national, nonprofit, land conservation organization that conserves land and common space for people to enjoy as parks, community gardens, historic sites, rural lands, and other natural places, ensuring livable communities for generations to come.