ReFund America Project to provide a dedicated campaign team to help local organizations restore the balance of economic power to Main Street
New York, NY: Saqib Bhatti has joined the Roosevelt Institute to lead the ReFund America Project, the Institute announced today. ReFund America tackles the ongoing impact that the financial crisis has had on the financial health of America’s cities. Formerly a Fellow at the Nathan Cummings Foundation and a researcher with the Service Employees International Union, Bhatti joins Roosevelt as the institute’s first New Perspectives Fellow, a program that will identify fresh public voices who share a commitment to introducing diverse perspectives on policy issues.
Following the rise of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, labor unions, community organizations, and policy advocates have launched campaigns to turn the balance of political and economic power to Main Street and away from Wall Street. The issues driving those campaigns include municipal finance, housing and foreclosures, student debt, and financial reform. With the ReFund America Project, Bhatti will lead an effort to bring grassroots policy solutions directly to local organizations and work with those groups in their communities to wage strategic and effective campaigns and win tangible victories.
Bhatti’s program will complement an already robust program exploring financialization and its impacts, led by Roosevelt Institute Fellow Mike Konczal. ReFund America will also work with the Institute’s Campus Network to expand its reach and engage Millennial stakeholders.
“I am excited to launch the ReFund America Project, and believe it fitting that a project aimed at rebalancing the relationship between the financial elite and ordinary Americans should be anchored at the Roosevelt Institute,” says Bhatti. “I hope with this project to carry forward FDR’s legacy at the local level through bold experimentation in cities and states. It is time to fight for sensible policies that will protect vulnerable communities from Wall Street’s excesses in the same way that New Deal reforms once did.”
For more information or to request an interview, please contact Tim Price attprice[at]rooseveltinstitute[dot]org.
About the Roosevelt Institute
The Roosevelt Institute is an ideas and leadership organization founded in the belief that America should offer opportunity to all. To develop a new social contract for the 21st century, we advance the work of progressive thinkers and support an emerging generation of leaders as they design solutions to the nation’s most pressing issues.
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