Poverty and Race Research Action Council

THE POVERTY AND RACE Research Action Council (PRRAC) is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was organized in 1999 by major civil rights, civil liberties, and antipoverty groups. The purpose of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council is to set the advocacy of policy positions on poverty and race issues upon a sound foundation of social science research. The goal is to address problems at the points where race problems and poverty intersect.

PRRAC is national in scope and nonpartisan in its approach. It has two missions. It develops, assembles, and disseminates research on the relationship between race and poverty. It also promotes the development and implementation of policies and practices that ameliorate social, economic, and political conditions associated with poverty that are caused by race. The council also brings together advocates and researchers in order to encourage and further their work on race and poverty issues. It also networks with researchers who are working on poverty and racial issues. Moreover it supports social research that is linked to local, state, and national advocacy strategies.

Research is guided by a Social Science Advisory Board, which is composed of scholars at leading institutions who are engaged in poverty research or civil rights research. The major areas invested in are race and racism, poverty and welfare, community organizing, criminal justice, economics and community development issues, education and poverty, employment and jobs policies, environmental issues related to race and poverty, family issues especially involving single mothers, food, hunger, nutrition, health, housing the homelessness, immigration, and rural poverty. Researchers are helped by PRRAC with funding.

PRRAC acts as a notice board for agencies or foundations that issue grants for research. In other instances it provides notices of research or poverty-work job opportunities. Publications include a newsletter (Poverty & Race), which is issued five times a year. Other publications include books, articles, and short pieces for use by poverty researchers and workers, including policy briefs such as “Civil Rights Implications of the 2005 Flexible Voucher Bill.” A board of directors governs PRRAC. Many of the members of the board are the heads of agencies working in the area of poverty or civil rights. Others are attorneys specializing in civil rights law.