Vision Statement

We believe in real grassroots empowerment and grassroots governance. We believe that people should have the power to direct the decisions that affect our lives. We believe that by engaging collectively in civic life, we can create and control institutions that reflect and promote our values, rather than reinforcing the individualism that dominates our society.

We recognize that it is difficult—if not impossible—for people to work for social and economic justice when their immediate needs for food, housing, and employment are unmet, and that many low-income families are isolated from institutions that traditionally connect people to broader society. ADP works to establish and promote cooperative economic development and civic engagement as a vehicle to bridge these gaps:
to provide low income people with basic necessities through institutions that we own and direct; to foster a sense of responsibility for each other in a community focused on building our power; and to serve as a mediating institution for the thousands of families whose poverty cuts them off from civic life.

The inherent dignity in self-determination drives all of our work--the way that we organize, the issues around which we engage, and the operating principles that govern the cooperative businesses we launch, and the neighborhoods we build. We seek to be a model for the broader adoption of these practices.