The Love Alliance

The Love Alliance seems to be focused towards getting individuals to lifestyles of social justice, how can individuals impact global issues? 

We believe anyone can make an impact on the world, locally and globally. Every day we make decisions that create a positive or negative impact towards injustice. My favorite example of this is looking at the products we buy. Where was it made and who was it produced by? Is there a chance that a slave picked the cocoa beans that made that chocolate bar? If so, then buy the fair trade option to make a positive impact to fight injustice. 

We also encourage people to look at what they enjoy and what their talents are to find out how they can use those skills and interests to impact injustice. Whether it is a business man making positive changes in his company practices or a bus boy making sure things are recycled in his restaurant. 

How do you transform individuals so social justice isn’t just a trend for them?

The Love Alliance’s approach to transforming individuals so social justice isn’t just a trend for them is two fold: “Educate yourself – Take Action.”

We believe that educating individuals on the issues of social justice is the first step to pushing it past a trend. Trends are based on surface knowledge. We work to help individuals gain a greater grasp of the issues we represent. Through providing easily ingestable insight and education we hope to create a long lasting sustainable tie to these world needs.

 The danger of trendiness within social justice causes also lies withing the false sense many individuals have of not being able to personally  do anything to make a difference towards injustice. It is only natural to feel like you can’t care about something any longer that you have no idea how to do anything about. This is the precise reason why we place such an emphasis on undergirding all of our educational facts with easy ways any person can respond to these world needs.

What types of education do you bring to schools and groups? 

Our main source of education right now is our website, which is a hub with primary resourced facts and ways to get involved with the issues. We have heard from students, teachers, etc. that have used our site as a resource for lessons, papers, presentations, etc. We also distribute educational flyers which each focus on a specific issue and then give several facts and ways to make a difference. We have distributed over 300,000 flyers at various events, conferences, music festivals, schools, and through our groups.

We are also in the process of developing our first curriculum which will focus on the six social justice issues we represent. The curriculum will be used as a resource for our groups and will be developed to be taught in Florida schools, tentatively starting in Fall 2012. Our hope is that we will be able distribute the curriculum to other schools and groups to be used as a resource.

How was The Love Alliance formed?

The Love Alliance was started by my wife, Lauren, and I in June 2007. We had just left our jobs at another non-profit organization and were thinking about what to do next. We looked around to see what the need was and saw that social justice was very trendy. Celebrities were promoting campaigns and giving money, bands were wearing shirts and throwing benefit concerts. It was all great but most people were getting involved and giving because it was trendy and cool, not because they understood the issues. It is a great trend but all trends fade and we felt like most people’s interest would fade as well.

So we decided to start The Love Alliance to educate people on the issues so that they would stick with the issues that were closest to their heart. 

We also saw that a lot people did know about the issues but felt like all they could do is give money and most did not have that money. So their interest eventually faded because you can only feel bad about something for so long. That is why giving easy, practical ways to get involved is the other arm of what we do. 

It looks like you have groups all over working with The Love Alliance in some way, tell me a little about what these groups do?

Our Action Groups are the hands and feet of our organization. Our groups primarily act as clubs and form in schools, colleges, places of worship and communities. They meet once a month and do an Action Project in their community every other month. Their goal is to educate themselves and others on the issues we represent and to make an impact on their own community and the world. 

These groups take on many forms. From our group based in a special needs school, proving that young adults with handicaps can change the world; to high school groups taking a stand that now and for the rest of their lives they will be thoughtful citizens.

How do the monthly action projects play a role in your mission?

As I mentioned, a big part of what we do is to give easy, practical ways to make a difference towards social injustices. Every month we pinpoint a specific issue and then give a tangible way to make a difference towards that issue. We typically aim to make these projects so an 8 year old to an 80 year old can do them. Our groups as well as individuals participate in these projects. We have annual projects like our Fall Cleaning or Community Cleanups to different projects raising money for mosquito nets or collecting canned goods.

How can individuals get involved with the Love Alliance, the Action groups, or start a group of their own?

 The best way to get involved with The Love Alliance would be to check out website, sign up for the mailing and join our social networks. We have a lot of information and projects already available and are continually sending out more information. There is information on our website under the Community section about our Action Groups, including a map of where all of our current groups are, Group Requirements and an application to start your own Action or Focus Group.

For more information visit http://www.thelovealliance.net/