About Transform

Since its beginnings, Transform has launched programs, built coalitions, and won campaigns to promote thriving transit, dense, affordable housing, and safe, vibrant streets—always working in authentic partnership with communities. We believe we can face many of our regional and state challenges by reorienting our culture toward better transportation and advocating for equitable policies and investments.

Mission and Vision

Transform works to ensure that people of all incomes thrive in a world safe from climate chaos. We envision vibrant neighborhoods, transformed by excellent, sustainable mobility options and affordable housing, where those historically impacted by racist disinvestment now have power and voice.

Read Transform’s Strategic Plan

Our Strategies

Investing in Climate and Equity

Individual transportation choices are influenced by our investments at every level of government—and California’s past investments incentivize driving. By pushing for much greater investment in sustainable transportation and affordable housing, Transform is creating a future that enables people to live closer to jobs and makes transit, biking, and walking/rolling easy choices.

How we’re advancing green, equitable investments >

Nurturing New Ways of Moving

“Build it and they will come” is not always sufficient when it comes to normalizing new ways of moving. Transform’s programs build people’s knowledge and resources to enable a shift in how they feel about mobility options, with transit, biking, walking, and rolling as viable choices and, eventually, the new normal.

How we’re promoting mobility choices >

Housing as a Climate Strategy

Transform works at the intersection of housing and transportation, innovating affordable housing and parking solutions that encourage sustainable transportation and healthy, active communities so that suburban and urban residents alike can rely less on driving.

How we’re reshaping the transit/housing ecosystem >

Principles that Power Our Work

How we work is as important as what we do. The process is part of the solution.

See Our Work

People-centered climate work

Climate work is equity work. In order to ensure that BIPOC and disinvested communities are not left behind in the transition to a clean transportation system, and that fewer people are displaced to faraway exurbs where the only mobility option is a long drive, we must create a climate-friendly transportation and housing ecosystem that serves everyone equally.

Countering the impacts of racism and making the world better for everyone

We center and amplify the voices of low-income and historically disinvested communities in every aspect of our work. We also know that this approach benefits everyone—reducing carbon emissions, creating world-class transit systems, making our streets safer for everyone, and helping to build a strong and economically diverse region and state.

Intersections and Connections

Transform works at the intersections, not just of housing and transportation, but also as a key coalition builder among different kinds of organizations, forging connections among community, environmental, equity, labor, and advocacy groups. We play a critical role in the power-building ecosystem, bringing block-level groups to tables where decisions are made.

Community Leadership

We ask: who is in the room, and who is left out? Transform’s strength is in building authentic partnerships with grassroots groups and less-resourced communities, and in bringing their voices into the halls of power, and their concerns into wider policy conversations. We listen to communities and center equity not only in the outcomes of our policy work but in the process, fostering community leadership.

Bay Area as Incubator

We see the Bay Area—a dense, highly unequal region with an urgent housing crisis but also a history of progressive policies—as an ideal place to try out transportation and housing solutions that can be replicated elsewhere. Many of these pilots develop into lasting, impactful programs. As longtime policy leaders, the experience and relationships we build through our programs ground our policy work in community knowledge, allowing us to run more strategic and effective campaigns at the regional and state levels.

Who We Are

Our staff and board bring expertise, lived experience, and passion to Transform’s work.

Meet the Team >

How We Work

We empower communities of color, innovate solutions, and advocate for policies and funding—all with the aim of helping people thrive and averting climate disaster.

See Our Work >

Our Partners

Building strong partnerships is at the heart of what we do. Our work relies on collaboration with grassroots groups, advocates, policymakers, corporate partners, public agencies and others.

Meet Our Partners >

Transform’s Impact

More About Our Impact

Winning billions for connected, affordable communities.
Since our inception, we’ve won $22B for affordable housing and better transit. Our current advocacy efforts could raise another $50B for Bay Area transportation and housing.
Building diverse coalitions to combat sprawl.
We co-founded ClimatePlan to push for climate-friendly state transportation policy and the Great Communities Collaborative to fight displacement. Now we’re building a strong coalition to stop widening highways and push for transformative investments in green transportation.
Amplifing the importance of centering equity in statewide and regional conversations.
We’ve had an inclusive approach to policy advocacy since our beginnings. We play a unique role in the advocacy space, bringing unlikely partners together—from grassroots to grasstops.
Pioneering innovative engagement that centers priority communities in planning.
We’ve ensured that communities were authentically included in planning on countless projects. We continue to engage communities to lift up voices and ground our state and regional investments in repairing past harms and helping communities thrive.
Piloting groundbreaking programs and policies to find what works.
Innovative reports, tech tools like GreenTrip, and programs like Safe Routes to Schools and Mobility Hubs have expanded what’s possible. We continue to advance bold ideas at the intersection of transportation and housing, pioneering campaigns for highway disinvestment, road pricing, and greener parking management.