PEACE AND SECURITY INITIATIVE

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES

The Peace and Security Initiative (PSI) was launched in October 2003 with strategic objectives that reflected a wide range of community needs.  Three years later, in the summer of 2006, the PSI Implementation Team (I-Team) asked the Interaction Institute of Social Change to conduct an evaluation of the PSI that would assess progress made toward the original strategic objectives; review the appropriateness of the PSI's tactics for achieving those objectives; and give participating organizations an opportunity to provide feedback on the PSI's effectiveness.  The results of this review prompted the I-Team to revisit the strategic goals that were articulated for the PSI three years ago. 

The revised strategic objectives that follow represent a refinement - not a fundamental rewriting - of the PSI's original goals.

Please click here to read the revised Strategic Objectives document.

Please click here to read the original strategic objectives document.

VISION STATEMENT

Through the Peace and Security Initiative (PSI), advocacy organizations, grassroots groups, think tanks and funders work together to increase their capacity to influence U.S. policy to promote a more secure, peaceful and just world.  PSI encourages collaborative strategic planning to strengthen the financial health of this community, grow its membership, hone its messages and coordinate its campaigns, thus enhancing its collective impact.

Vision Statement of the Peace and Security Initiative:

“We envision a world in which international cooperation, international law and economic opportunity provide the greatest security for people in the United States and around the world, and the greatest opportunity for all people to live in free, healthy, and just societies.

We envision a world in which nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction are not considered legitimate instruments of political or military power, and a universally accepted regime of rules, norms, and monitoring capabilities enforces legal prohibitions against their acquisition, possession and use.

We envision the United States fully respecting the authority of, as well as actively participating in the creation and empowerment of this enhanced international system for preventing and resolving conflict and achieving disarmament.  To this end, we envision an engaged and informed citizenry with equal opportunity to participate in the political system and with accountable and responsive elected officials.”

CONTACT US

Please contact any member of the Implementation Team or:

Alexandra I. Toma

Director

38 Greene St., 4th Floor

New York, NY 10013

(212) 431-5808, ext. 205

(646) 613-1443  Fax

FAQs

Why was this process launched?

In early 2003, a core group of peace and security leaders brought together more than 50 leading activists, scholars and funders to participate in a collaborative process to develop a long-term vision and three- to five-year strategic plan designed to strengthen the community, increase its impact and assure its sustainability.  The impetus for this effort stemmed from three sobering realities:

• The dramatic changes in national and international security following 9/11 and the end of the Cold War offer new opportunities to reframe peace and security issues and make them top policy priorities;
• Despite apparent popular support for new directions in U.S. military and foreign policy, groups supporting progressive alternatives have been increasingly marginalized by decision-makers and the media; and
• Significant reductions in foundation support for nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation efforts compel reconsideration of how to take advantage of and supplement remaining resources

What are the objectives of the Peace and Security Initiative?

By improving strategic planning, communication and fundraising, we expect that:

• Strategic priorities for both short- and long-term policy changes will guide collective activities;
• More effective campaigns -- involving all sectors of the community -- will be designed, coordinated, and implemented;
• Messages will be refined to better persuade targeted audiences, spokespeople will be trained to deliver them more effectively, and new messengers recruited to reach key constituencies;
• Capacity building tools will be deployed to help organizations develop additional skills to build their memberships, create alliances, influence policy-makers, publicize their work, and attract financial support;
• New funding sources will be identified and mobilized to support programmatic priorities

What are the issues initially being addressed?

There is broad consensus in the peace and security community on the following problems, which provide opportunities to work collaboratively:

• Preventing nuclear terrorism by locking up and safeguarding all nuclear bomb making materials (i.e., cooperative threat reduction, global clean out, etc.);
• Deemphasize the role of nuclear weapons in US security policy by stopping new nuclear weapons and testing, de-alerting and reducing nuclear stockpiles
• Promote an end to U.S. military involvement in Iraq while encouraging stability and reconstruction
• Halt and verifiably ban production of nuclear weapons material (e.g., promote Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, stop resumption of the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, etc.)
• Reprioritize national security spending in order to strengthen homeland defense and non-military alternatives
• Develop alternatives to the use of force by promoting a new and comprehensive national security strategy
• Maintain space as a weapons-free sanctuary
• Promote energy security                                                                                       
• Preventing acquisition of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them by terrorists or new states;
• Promote policies to control the trade in lethal conventional weapons; and
• Advance policies and institutions to promote effective peace building and to prevent genocide

What is the budget for the Peace and Security Initiative and how is it funded?
 
The FY2006-2007 budget for PSI is $163,540; if you would like to see the detailed version of the budget, please click here.  Currently, PSI is supported primarily by the Ploughshares Fund and the Ford Foundation with additional support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Connect US.   No government funding of any form is involved.

What groups have been involved with PSI?

There are over 200 groups that are currently involved with the PSI.  Please click here for a list.