S2E3: Devan Spear on forcing universities to pay their fair share

Craft of Campaigns

In this episode, we’ll hear about a multi-year fight to get some of Philadelphia’s largest property-owners – nonprofit universities and hospitals – to make voluntary payments in lieu of taxes to fund local public schools. Devan Spear describes how the campaign gained momentum by investing in basebuilding (27:05), created action teams on different university campuses (28:18), and used the momentum of the 2020 uprisings for racial justice to quickly move new supporters into action and push their campaign over the finish line (31:06).

Check out a writeup on this campaign at The Forge
Devan joined Philadelphia Jobs With Justice as director in 2017. Under her leadership, Philly JWJ collaborated with the National Domestic Workers Alliance to launch the NDWA-PA chapter, won a $100 million commitment from UPenn to remediate lead and asbestos in public schools, and launched a new campaign for safety protections for Philadelphia warehouse workers. Devan is the communications vice president for the Philadelphia Coalition of Labor Union Women and a member of the PhilaPOSH board of directors.

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