Success Stories

The Sound Alliance has won victories in the areas of sustainable jobs and the environment,  housing, health care and immigrant and civil rights. Though its member organizations, the Alliance:

• Teamed up with the Spokane Alliance in 2012 to deliver key swing votes for a $1.1 billion statewide jobs bill that is creating 20,000 over 3 years in the hard hit construction industry. The package includes $15 million in funding for moderate income retrofits that builds on and is significantly expanding Community Energy Efficiency Program created though a legislative campaign led by the Alliances in 2009.
• Created the policy and financial support infrastructure needed for  IAF Northwest's subsidiary nonprofit – SustainableWorks -  to become one of the most successful examples in the country of the otherwise elusive promise of "green jobs".  As of March 2013, it employs over 240 people, has completed 740 comprehensive retrofits ($7 million of work) and has reduced annual carbon emissions by 1,324 tons.
• Conducted a foreclosure prevention campaign that trained more than 100 people to be more effective advocates for themselves and pressed Bank of America executives to open their first customer service center in Washington state in 2011 to deliver in-person loan servicing support for distressed borrowers trying to save their homes.
• Crafted legislation and led the campaign in 2009 to secure passage of “the most comprehensive and groundbreaking green jobs legislation of our time” (Green for All) - designating $14.5 million for community-based energy efficiency retrofit projects that  that create “green” jobs for lower-income and disadvantaged communities.
• Partnered with the Spokane Alliance to create a nonprofit enterprise –SustainableWorks (see above) to retrofit homes in high-need neighborhoods across the state.
• Negotiated with officials from Red Cross and the City of Federal Way in 2008 to equip St. Vincent’s Catholic Church with an emergency generator and designate it an emergency warming station to serve local residents in the event of disasters or power outages
• Engaged in campaigns to secure a King County ordinance that reduces racial and ethnic profiling by county employees, and restore full funding in the state budget for medical interpretation services.