Anthony Thigpenn has worked as a community activist and political strategist for over thirty years, helping to build coalitions between issue movements and striving for social justice. Mr. Thigpenn is the founder and president of Strategic Concepts in Organizing & Policy Education (SCOPE), a social justice organization based in South Los Angeles. Under his leadership, SCOPE has instituted programs that train low-income African-American and Latino residents to participate in public policy formulation, established successful regional community-labor alliances, developed public/private partnerships training low-income residents for jobs in the entertainment, healthcare, and green jobs industries, and conducted statewide and national capacity building training for environmental and economic justice organizations. Mr. Thigpenn currently leads California Calls an ongoing alliance of 31 organizations in 11 counties around the state of California that have help win major policy victories by significantly increasing the civic participation of young people, people of color, low-income residents, and immigrants.