there are a few good organizations out here in the bay area that are both dealing with direct service provision as well as keeping their eyes on larger goals; the ones i'm directly familiar with are working in the environmental justice arena.
a few immediately stand out.
first is Literacy for Environmental Justice, or LEJ (www.lejyouth.org). which works primarily with grade and high school kids on environmental health, quality, and justice education projects through the san francisco schools. what's great is that they combine environmental justice advocacy, with education, environmental stewardship and education, and youth employment. a vast majority of their kids (17 of the first crop of 19) have gone on to 4-year schools and
second is young community developers. they're primarily a job training and placement organization for african-american SF residents, but they also stand up on EJ and development related advocacy when it counts.
third is the SF power coop (www.sfpower.org. i think) which does a lot of energy efficiency stuff for low-income populations and small businesses, but also actively participates in the city's energy planning debates and intervenes in state level processes.
i know there are a few others around the bay but i can't think of who they are right now.
al