Our Wins

Change From The Ground Up

Fighting for Criminal Justice Reform & Community Safety

  • In 2021, OOC and Building Freedom Ohio (BFO) won the powerful Issue 24 initiative in Cleveland. Issue 24 established a new Community Police Commission, with sweeping powers to enact police discipline, propose better police practices, and implement mandatory de-escalation and crisis intervention training for officers.

  • In 2023, BFO led field efforts for Issue 38, a participatory budgeting initiative that would allocate $14 million dollars towards community projects in Cleveland.

Protecting Our Freedom To Vote & Expanding Our Access To The Ballot

  • In 2023, OOC was a key part of building the coalition of more than 250 organizations to stop attacks on direct democracy in Ohio. Our leaders helped defeat the controversial Issue 1 initiative during an August special election.

  • From 2021-2023, OOC helped lead the Equal Districts coalition, which fought for fair district maps in Ohio. We sued the Ohio Redistricting Commission for their failure to pass fair maps, resulting in the Ohio Supreme Court ruling in our favor multiple times. We also helped change the conversation about what a fair map constitutes in Ohio.

Fighting For Public Education & Economic Justice

  • In 2021, we joined forces with the Ohio Education Association, Ohio Federation of Teachers, and Policy Matters Ohio to pass the Fair School Funding Plan as part of the biennial Ohio budget. We formed the All In For Ohio Kids Coalition to help ensure that Ohio lawmakers fairly and fully fund our public schools.

  • In 2023, we built upon our previous public education work as a coalition to protect the Fair School Funding Plan for a second time. We protected more than $500 million in public school funding and advanced Ohioans towards a full phase-in of the Fair School Funding Plan.

  • In 2023, OOC and The CEO Project (CEO) helped pass budget provisions that would give doulas Medicaid reimbursement for their work, provide continuous Medicaid coverage for eligible kids from birth to age 3, and expand child care eligibility to low-income families up to 145% of the poverty line.

  • In 2023, CEO child care leaders also released a well-publicized memo to Intel urging them to fund Ohio’s child care infrastructure and support Ohio’s workforce as they build a new multibillion-dollar chip plant in central Ohio.

  • In 2022, CEO grassroots leaders also won over $20 million in Franklin County to help families afford child care, providers to reach or maintain quality care standards, and early childhood educators to be able to afford housing. Cincinnati officials also committed $1 million towards child care facilities in the Cincinnati budget.

  • In 2021, we helped expand eligibility for childcare subsidies to 6,000 Ohio families. We also won a year of guaranteed postpartum care for those who’ve given birth and guaranteed Medicaid treatment for breast cancer and cervical cancer.

Telling The Story of a People’s Movement: Changing The Narrative

  • In 2023, OOC and our members were prominently featured in nearly 100 local, state, and national press clips. The majority of coverage spotlighted our grassroots leaders on critical issues regarding democracy, voting rights, economic justice, and our reproductive, bodily, and academic freedoms.

  • OOC has trained nearly a hundred Ohio leaders in the Race Class Narrative (RCN), including the Ohio Education Association, LEAD Ohio, and Honesty For Ohio Education. We have also deployed winning, race-forward communications strategies in our successful school funding, community safety, and democracy campaigns.