Purpose Dignity Action
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Mission Statement
PDA plants seeds for a world rooted in community and care instead of punishment and neglect. We work with people actively seeking to move past experiences of harm and injury, along with neighborhood and public partners. Through compassion, coordination and a harm reduction framework, we create and implement better responses to public health and safety. PDA’s core work is designing and implementing new approaches to real problems that, in the past, were met with enforcement, prosecution and punishment, but respond better to the coordination and care strategies we offer. We build public understanding of and support for these new strategies by ensuring they are responsive to the real problems encountered in our diverse communities. When we’ve designed and implemented something that works, we offer technical support to other jurisdictions locally, in Washington State, nationally and internationally, tapping the lessons we’ve learned and insights we’ve gained on the ground. We don’t teach anything we haven’t used ourselves. Our team also engages in organizing, leadership development and policy advocacy, all drawing on new approaches we’ve helped develop that work better to meet human needs and address serious challenges our communities face. Our team blends professional and technical skill with lived experience of the systems we’re working to change. We constantly examine whether our methods need to evolve to ensure we’re on target to advance public safety, racial justice, and community healing.
About This Cause
With neighborhood and public partners, and in partnership with community members actively seeking to move past experiences of harm and injury, we design and deliver widely supported initiatives that promote safety, restoration, and racial equity. We test and evolve approaches in our flagship location in Seattle/King County, and then share models that are adopted in other jurisdictions seeking solutions for the same problems. Our approaches are scalable models for innovative, effective community-based responses to public safety needs. Formed in 1969 as The Defender Association to provide high-quality legal defense for civil rights activists in Seattle, in 2013 we began to concentrate exclusively on alternative public safety models, when King County created an in-house public defense program. PDA remained independent to carry on the work of our Racial Disparity Project, which had helped to design LEAD, the nation’s first pre-booking diversion model for drug-related offenses. In 2021 we adopted a Co-Executive Director structure, recognizing the value of power-sharing, multiple voices and perspectives at the leadership level. Our multicultural team of lawyers, organizers, project managers, social workers, direct service providers and administrative staff blends professional and technical skill with lived experience of the systems we’re working to change. PDA’s core work is designing and implementing new approaches to real safety and order issues that, in the past, were met with enforcement, prosecution, and punishment. We have a track record of achieving wide and robust support for non-punitive, community-based solutions to public health and safety issues. Programming: We design, implement, and refine effective community-based responses to public safety and order issues. We show policymakers and the public what’s possible. Technical Support: We provide training and technical support locally, nationally, and internationally on the models we've pioneered. We help scale local proofs of concept. Organizing: We provide a home base and support for people directly affected by the systems we seek to change, to organize for transformation. Advocacy: We lift up community safety models and secure policy and resources to scale them. We champion justice through legal and policy advocacy.