POWER uses our faith and moral grounding to organize and empower Pennsylvanians to live and work together so that the presence of the Divine is known on every block, that people work together to transform the conditions of their neighborhood, and that life flourishes for all. We want to be a political AND spiritual home for Pennsylvanians to grow in their power, and build a society where we are all heard, and we are all free.

In 2024, POWER welcomed more than 3,000 new people into our organizing movement, including 19 new members and 7 new staff. Our Democracy Fellows and community leaders had more than 30,000 conversations with prospective voters as we headed into one of the most important elections of our time. Our Black Faith Votes project facilitated more than 1,000 multigenerational conversations about the importance of civic participation. POWER’s Philadelphia team engaged more than 700 people through one to one and house meetings to identify the most pressing issues facing Philadelphia communities. We launched listening campaigns in Montgomery County and Central PA to do the same.

In June, POWER bid not-quite-farewell to Bishop Dwayne Royster when he accepted the position of the Faith in Action national network. In December, the board of directors affirmed former POWER Chief of Staff Rev. Dr. Gregory Edwards as Executive Director of POWER Interfaith.

Building on 2023’s house meeting and listening campaign, we began the year hosted preparing to host our first statewide interfaith convention – February 19, 2024 Roadmap to Justice Convention – on February 19, 2024. The convention Roadmap to Justice brought together more than 400 faith leaders, congregation members, and members of communities from the statecommunity faith leaders. We discussed the current political climate, planned for the coming year, and led a dialog with PA House Majority Leader Matt Bradford and Education Chair Pete Schweyer. After hearing from Leader Bradford and Chairman Schweyer that they doubted they had enough power in the legislature to protect 2024-25 public education funding from new private school vouchers, POWER leaders met with more than 40 PA House representatives, and called and emailed others, to ensure they understood why vouchers are bad for public education. Partners and allied organizations across the state wielded their power in the Senate, and the final budget passed with no new vouchers.

In the spring, POWER’s Democracy Fellows knocked on 22,000 doors and made, with help from POWER faith leaders, more than 10,000 phone calls, having more than 6,000 total conversations with prospective voters to drive turnout for Pennsylvania’s primary election. Several Democracy Fellows returned, along with new additions to the team, teaming up with volunteers to canvass another 143,000 doors and 140,000 phone calls, and nearly 60,000 text messages in Philadelphia, Lancaster County, Montgomery County, and the Lehigh Valley this fall. The more than 30,000 live conversations we had not only helped turn out voters, but built our organizing capacity and power. Canvassing and phone scripts include asking voters what they know and how they feel about the issues around which POWER organizes, so that we are able to engage and follow up with those who have potential interest in POWER’s ongoing organizing work.

POWER #BlackFaithVotesPA clergy leaders built on the success of 2023’s Soul Food Dinner program pilot, organizing 150 dinners hosted by members of more than 60 African American Christian and Muslim congregations across the Commonwealth. Hosts were given a $250 stipend, a conversation guide, video and materials to share with guests, including voter commitment cards. Guests had inter-generational conversations about the importance and mechanics of voting, and the issues that impact them the most. We engaged more than 1,000 guests in inter-generational dialog about the importance of civic participation, collected more than 800 voter commitment cards, and engaged new leaders in our organizing work. Voter commitment cards are a vital tool in our efforts—they allow us to collect contact information from voters so we can remind them to vote and help them create a concrete voting plan for Election Day.

Additionally, the #BlackFaithVotes team also supported 20 Black congregations hosting voter registration drives throughout the election season.

POWER Interfaith celebrated 2023’s continued decline in violence in Pennsylvania and across the country. Still, there was much to be done this year, and our Live Free team has been hard at work to ensure that trend continues, that our prisons will soon no longer be filled disproportionately with Black and Brown bodies, that society invests in our communities to help them thrive, and that police are held to the highest standards of accountability. 

Throughout the year Live Free‘s Ending Mass Incarceration Team supported geriatric/medical parole for those who have served 25 years of their sentence, and partnered with allies to end solitary confinement. For more than two years POWER Live Free has participated in Philadelphia’s 911 triage meetings advocating for increased non-police responses to mental health crises. We helped secure increased funding for such interventions and insisted on greater transparency so that the public could access an accounting of all police and non-police responses to 911/988 behavioral health calls. 

Live Free‘s Police Accountability Team is currently working to change the grievance arbitration portion of PA Act 111, so that police officers guilty of misconduct receive appropriate discipline and consequences through arbitration. We’re also calling for greater transparency in both the contract and grievance portions of the arbitration process, with results provided to the public. After attempts to bring about change legislatively with no success in the PA Legislature, we are turning our focus to the City/Fraternal Order of Police contract and changes the City of Philadelphia can pursue to bring consistency and accountability to the arbitration process. 

Live Free‘s Immigration Justice Team has been supporting the Driving PA Forward campaign, advocating for drivers licenses being made available to all regardless of immigration status. This policy would increase public safety and revenue, and encourage fuller participation in communities for immigrants. As we brace for 2025’s anticipated federal immigration crackdowns, we’re working to strengthen ties with the organizations leading the work to protect immigrants in Pennsylvania.

We’re SO close to winning our fight for full, equitable public education funding in Pennsylvania! With significant pressure from POWER and our allies, the PA legislature passed a 2024-25 budget that included nearly $500 million in new basic education funding, plus an additional increase in “Level Up” funding for our most underfunded districts, increased accountability for cyber charter schools, and no new private school vouchers, which draw funds away from our public schools.

In Philadelphia, POWER faith leaders hosted 43 house meetings, having conversations with more than 7600 Philadelphians about housing affordability and its impact on community safety, gentrification, education, and more. Meetings were held in every major neighborhood in the city, and in 9 out of 10 council districts. The data we collected was used to plan a January 26, 2025 Philadelphia leadership assembly to launch a housing affordability campaign.

The richness of the POWER Interfaith community never ceases to amaze us. Every day our leaders step into the organizing work in powerful ways. Bob Brand helped us recruit new donors and encourage some of our existing donors to increase their annual gift, with his donation of his It Has Always Been About Voting collection of photographs taken at the 1966 Meredith Voting Rights March in Mississippi.