A major benefit of working with the Appleseed network is the opportunity to participate in collaborative projects, which brings together the talent of major law firms and center personnel nation-wide.  Major funders have responded positively to the joining of grass-roots social justice policy work with the potential of leveraging these projects' impact nationwide.   Education and school improvement, increased health care access, and bettering conditions in Indian country are just a few of our collaborative projects.

One of the most successful recent projects focused on Hispanic access to banking.  In the United States today, more than half of all Latinos do not have bank accounts. The fact that so many Latinos do not use mainstream financial services is a safety issue – with cash-carrying immigrants at great risk for crime; it is a credit issue – with the unbanked not able to establish credit histories or scores; and it is a wealth-building issue – with the unbanked having to resort to predatory pay day lenders and predatory money transferors when sending money back home.  Financial education and literacy is the key to reversing this cycle of poverty.

Washington Appleseed is participating in a national collaborative project concerning impacts and analysis of the federal No Child Left Behind legislation and in a Ford Foundation-funded effort to address the difficulty of linking low-income workers with available social benefit programs.