Naugatuck Valley Project (NVP) was organized in 1983. It is made up of 25 religious, community and labor organizations. Its most recent accomplishments have included winning agreement from the 4 Valley hospitals to take steps to create face-to-face medical interpretation services; helping form a coalition which has just won $4.7 million from the State of Connecticut to fund face-to-face medical interpretation for thousands of new immigrant speakers of limited English; as well as prosecution by the Connecticut Attorney General of 3 major predatory lenders in the Valley. It has also saved 3,000 jobs in threatened plant closings, created Valley Care Cooperative, an employee-owned firm with 75 previously low-income women of color as worker-owners, a 102-unit limited equity/sweat equity cooperative housing development and a community land trust. NVP has also successfully organized to gain major improvements in a 300-unit 95% African-American public housing project, to protect the health benefits of thousands of retirees, and to develop job training in the nursing home and screw machine industries and brownfield redevelopment programs.

Merrimack Valley Project (MVP) was organized in 1989 with the support of the NVP, and is made up of 31 member religious, labor and community organizations in Lawrence and Lowell and their suburbs. Its most recent victories are winning job improvements and ESOL classes for 1,000 immigrant temp workers at Gillette’s packaging facility; $500,000 from Gillette to fund an ESOL/Career Ladders Program; agreement by the City of Lowell to hire developers for a city-owned housing redevelopment project which will lead to the preservation of affordable housing units; and the passage of the Massachusetts Fair Transportation Act which caps formerly exploitative transportation fees charged 71,000 temporary workers in the commonwealth. Its additional major accomplishments include saving over 600 manufacturing jobs; the creation of the Merrimack Valley Manufacturing Partnership which helped firms increase sales and create 150 jobs; the resident buy-out of Amesbury Gardens, a 160-unit democratically owned affordable housing development in Lawrence; increased public funding for firefighting, community policing, and after school programs; the creation of the City Commission on Immigration in Lowell and a City Task Force on Immigration in Lawrence; and organizing the Temporary Workers Association which has won significantly increased enforcement by the Attorney General’s office of employment laws against temporary agencies in the Valley.

Rhode Island Organizing Project (RIOP) was organized in 1993 with the support of MVP, and is made up of 21 congregations. Its most recent victory was a successful campaign to increase adult basic education slots for 1,000 new immigrants. It has brought together African-American, working class white Roman Catholic, and Hispanic congregations in Providence, Central Falls, and Pawtucket, and is organizing a new chapter in Woonsocket. Its major accomplishments include successful campaigns to increase the state housing trust fund three-fold; rehabilitate inner city housing; win changes in tax law to deter real estate speculation; and extend benefits for legal immigrants.

Pioneer Valley Project (PVP) was initiated in 1994 with the support of MVP, and is made up of 27 member religious and labor organizations in Springfield. Its most recent victories have been winning school funding for a teacher/home visitation program at 22 schools with predominantly African-American and new immigrant children, and helping pressure the Financial Control Board, appointed by the Governor to take over city finances, to negotiate a teachers contract, ending a 3-year impasse which had led to the departure of 25% of Springfield’s experienced teachers to nearby suburban communities and their replacement by inexperienced, often under-qualified teachers. It has won agreements from the Mayor and Police Chief of Springfield for significant reforms in student transportation and policing issues, and an agreement from the City Council for its civil rights enforcement of the right to organize a union; a project labor agreement which led to the hiring of 50 minority Springfield residents; and the commitment of public and private entities for housing redevelopment in two Springfield neighborhoods. It has also developed a construction job-training program for low-income workers.

Granite State Organizing Project (GSOP) was organized in 2001. It is made up of 26 religious congregations, community and labor organizations in Greater Manchester, Greater Nashua and the Souhegan Valley. Its most recent victory has been winning $100,000 to continue a parent participation program to reduce student drop-out rates among new immigrants and low-income non-immigrant children. It has also stopped school budget cuts in Manchester and Nashua schools which would have disproportionately affected new immigrant and African American children. It and participated with other organizations to successfully win increases in funding for lead paint abatement, removal of requirements that new immigrants travel to the state capital to renew their driver’s licenses, and the creation of affordable housing. It also successfully organized with 500 white and blue collar workers and the community to win benefits and job training in a Tyson Foods shutdown of Jac-Pac Foods in Manchester.

Kennebec Valley Organization (KVO) was founded in November 2006 with the support of IVP. Its initial member groups are 10 religious congregations and labor union locals in Waterville, Augusta and Skowhegan. Its most recent victory was playing a critical role in the successful drive to increase the state minimum wage by gaining the support of key Valley legislators. It has also won the creation of first responder training in 11 police and sheriff departments to reduce the dangers and injustice of wrongful arrest of residents with mental health problems.

United Valley Interfaith Project (UVIP) leaders are building the seventh IVP organization by bringing together congregations from New Hampshire and Vermont communities bordering the Connecticut River, from Charlestown, New Hampshire and Springfield, Vermont in the south to Bradford, Vermont and Haverhill, New Hampshire in the north. UVIP leaders recently brought together 130 leaders from 10 congregations who had conducted 600 individual meetings in a first Issues Assembly. These leaders chose transportation and housing as their priority issue areas as they move toward the UVIP Founding Action in the Fall 2008.