Who We Are

We are Grief to Action (G2A), a multidisciplinary working group at the University of Pittsburgh dedicated to building online platforms to serve marginalized communities. A network out of the Center for Analytical Approaches to Social Innovation (CAASI) at GSPIA, we are composed of Pittsburgh community activists, Pitt alumni, faculty, and staff, and students across schools and degree programs in and outside of Pitt (CMU, WUStL, UCBerkeley, GWU, Tufts, and more) united in our conviction of universities’ public service role.

When the George Floyd protests began in late May 2020, CAASI Director Sera Linardi reached out to the Pitt community and invited students, faculty, and staff to join her in a weekly Zoom call to discuss ways to turn our grief into action. We came together in heartbreak, outrage, and even a sense of helplessness—what could we do? We’ve met nearly every Friday since to discuss this question and currently have two projects under development: 412Connect and Allegheny County Policing Project (ACPP).

412Connect is an effort to engage with the community beyond our university campuses and self-reflect along the way. For Fall 2022, this platform presents a snapshot of the organizational assets within our neighboring community, Homewood, to facilitate our students' interest in becoming cohesive members of the broader Pittsburgh community. We are grateful for the support of community partners such as Anika Jones and Keith Caldwell at Pitt’s CEC in Homewood (Homewood organization recruiters), Jess Kaminsky and Dylan Pollack from CMU’s Center for Shared Prosperity (Student Engagement), Alex Jackson of Data for Black Lives, Herman Johnson of Community Forge (on surveys of BOBs’ needs), Khamil Bailey of Cocoapreneur, Kyley Coleman of Blackowned.pgh (on data collection for a future BOB directory), and David Walker of WPRDC (on technical advice). We also thank Dr. Alex Labrinidis and Dr. Luis de Oliviera of SCI Pitt for programming support through the CS1980 capstones.

CAASI Grief to Action's other project, ACPP, is building tools to help citizens better understand the police accountability process in Allegheny County, which has over 100 police departments. We have approached this by creating a database of contracts and an accompanying search tool. Learn more at www.grieftoaction.org.

G2A is always seeking new members who are passionate about racial justice. We need people with all skill sets: community building, marketing, programming, legal, and research. Whether you are a community member, undergrad, grad student, alumni, staff, or faculty able to spare one or 100 hours, your presence will have a lasting impact on G2A. We meet Fridays at noon over Zoom and begin every meeting with a brief moment of mindfulness. To learn more or join the team, please email caasi@pitt.edu!

Platform Design Team

Our Partners