The HIRE Minnesota campaign, which aims to ensure that federal stimulus and other public investments benefit Minnesota’s most vulnerable families and children, will be used as a case study to inform workshop participants about how they can use innovative public policy and civic engagement tools and strategies to leverage equitable public investments that directly benefit the families and communities they serve. This workshop is a response to shortcomings of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The implementation of the once-touted act and the distribution of its federal stimulus funds have revealed serious systemic inequities in the way public investments of all kinds are made. Developing tools for addressing these and other inequities is critical to the success of Alliance members’ broader agendas in the public policy and civic engagement arenas.

Presenters: Jeff Bauer, director of public policy and civic engagement, and John Everett Till, vice president of family and community programs, Family & Children’s Service

Workshop objectives/takeaways:

• engaging board members and stakeholders in racial and economic justice issues;
• engaging families in advocating for the equitable distribution of public investments in their communities;
• learning grassroots community organizing strategies coupled with public policy advocacy models for maximum impact;
• gaining effective approaches for working with legislators and other public officials to incorporate equity language into public investment legislation;
• learning methods for building an “unlikely” coalition of allies and avoiding “divide and conquer” scenarios;
• utilizing existing resources and growing organizational public policy and civic engagement capacity; and
• attracting media attention by using “theatrical frames.”

Workshop synopsis:

Since January 2009, Family & Children’s Service has been at the center of the HIRE Minnesota campaign, an effort to ensure that federal stimulus and other public investments benefit Minnesota’s most vulnerable families and children. Having helped build a coalition of more than 70 community-based nonprofit, faith, environmental, and workforce development organizations, FCS has worked alongside its coalition partners to engage hundreds of economically disadvantaged families, including immigrant families and families of color, at town hall forums, public rallies, and legislative meetings and hearings to make sure public investments are made fairly and equitably. Through these collective efforts, Family & Children’s Service has significantly shaped the public and legislative debate about the purpose of public investments, and established an equity framework against which all such investments must be evaluated.

The workshop will be highly interactive, giving participants the opportunity to discuss and develop specific plans and strategies for their home communities.