Who We Are The Ohio Industrial Areas Foundation is comprised of three local chapters: Faith Vote Columbus, Vote Dayton, and Reclaim Lorain. The Industrial Areas Foundation was founded in 1940 by Saul Alinsky, considered by many to be the patriarch of modern community organizing. The IAF has built 56 broad-based coalitions of religious congregations, neighborhood associations, civic groups, and labor unions in 21 states, DC, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom. IAF accomplishments include the founding of the national living wage movement in Baltimore, MD, the construction of over 3000 affordable Nehemiah Homes in East Brooklyn, New York, the creation of Alliance Schools throughout Texas, and the adoption of universal health care in Massachusetts. In the process of experimenting with ways to transform citizen leadership into real political power, the IAF has become a leading innovator in non-partisan voter mobilization. We believe that people in poor communities and disenfranchised neighborhoods have just as great a capacity and appetite for civic participation and voting as do their more affluent counterparts if� if elections are made meaningful by candidates who address their primary self-interests, and if they are invited into a process that values their time, intelligence, skill, and interests. © 2008 Ohio Industrial Areas Foundation