Two Strategies. One Integrated Approach.

---

Dalbert Design incubates and supports community-led projects that prepare grassroots leaders to advocate where policy decisions are made. Our work is grounded in a simple but powerful belief: people who live inside public systems hold critical expertise, and policies work better when that expertise shapes both legislation and implementation.

Through two complementary initiatives—the Lived Experience Leadership Initiative (LELI) and Cali Go BIG—we prepare grassroots leaders to engage across the full policy lifecycle, from lawmaking to program design.

Legislative Advocacy & Grassroots Power

Cali Go BIG is a community-led grassroots campaign advancing basic income in California. The campaign organizes residents to engage elected officials, influence legislation, and participate in coordinated state and national advocacy efforts for cash policies. Cali Go BIG is also part of a national cash coalition advocating for a federal basic income.

By organizing people with lived experience of economic insecurity and cash programs, Cali Go BIG builds durable grassroots leadership that drives policy change through legislative action.

Administrative Advocacy & Policy Design

LELI focuses on administrative advocacy. We prepare people with lived experience to participate directly in policy and program design spaces—working groups, councils, and implementation teams—where rules are written, programs are shaped, and access is determined.

LELI equips lived-experience leaders with the tools, training, and support needed to operate at the speed, complexity, and scale of government, ensuring that policies do not fail in implementation because community insight was missing from the design process.

Together, LELI and Cali Go BIG prepare grassroots leaders to advocate across the full policy lifecycle—from legislation to implementation—ensuring that lived experience shapes what policies are passed and how they work in practice.

This integrated approach recognizes that lasting change requires both:

• Winning policy, and
• Shaping how policy is designed, governed, and experienced on the ground