Communities Organized for Public Service (San Antonio, Tex.)

Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS) is an organization of 26 parishes in the predominantly Hispanic, low-income West Side and South Side of San Antonio. Founded in 1974, it is the oldest of the Interfaith Area Foundation (IAF) organizations in Texas and, indeed, in the entire national network. The Metro Alliance, which shares office space and many resources with C.O.P.S., formed in 1989 through a merger of the East Side Alliance, composed of African American and Hispanic low- and lower-middle income churches, and the Metropolitan Congregational Alliance. The latter organized in 1982 and included South, Central, and Northwest area Anglo and Hispanic Protestant lower-middle and middle-income churches.

C.O.P.S. and Metro Alliance are a coalition of over 70 congregations, schools, and unions coming together so that we can effectively act on behalf of families. C.O.P.S. and Metro Alliance work within each of these institutions to identify a diverse, broad-based leadership that can connect to each other in new ways in order to act effectively on behalf of children, families, and neighborhoods. By learning to work together for the public good, C.O.P.S. and Metro Alliance leaders are able to work with the business community and elected officials to make San Antonio a better place for families. The relationships that leaders develop and foster within their institutions and among leaders from the racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse institutions that comprise these organizations are the foundation of broad-based community organizing.

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