December 8, 2020
More than storytelling: How community relationships are shaking up the think tank world
By Sarah Keenan, director of executive leadership development at State Policy Network
When Grant Callen started Empower Mississippi, a nonprofit advocacy organization, he initially tried to build an “army of ideologically-aligned” grassroot activists who would rally for the organizations’ policy ideas. He soon found that building the “army” was going to take a lot of work, and it wasn’t very effective. “It’s hard to get a large group of generic advocates fired up about a specific issue that only affects them ideologically,” he said.
Fast forward to a Friday afternoon in late September—a handful of people across the country sit around their computer screens, including Callen. From California to DC to Texas and beyond, participants of SPN’s Community Engagement Forum met to answer two questions: first, “How can we build relationships with individuals in our communities who are affected by policy, especially during a pandemic?” and second, “What does community engagement really mean?”
During the Forum, leaders shared stories of how they met and worked with individuals and families in their communities on policy reforms. They shared failures, successes, tactics, and moments where their perspectives had shifted entirely while working with their communities.
For Kate Trammell, director of policy and research at Prison Fellowship—an organization that works to make America’s criminal justice system more restorative—that moment came when her organization had hit significant roadblocks in their campaign to raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction from 17 to 18.
“Even as a broadly bipartisan issue, criminal justice reform can have hard political battles,” said Trammell. “Throughout this years-long campaign, we met significant opposition from tough-on-crime leaders. So, we gathered a group of pastors from areas most affected by the policy to hear directly from them. Over lunch, the pastors explained that young people being charged as adults is a huge problem in their communities. It wasn’t uncommon for a pastor in Detroit to walk with families through the experience of their teenage son’s arrest, trial, and incarceration. In some cases, parents had no idea their child was detained, since the state isn’t obligated to tell parents of 17-year-olds when they take them into custody.”
If lawmakers raised the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to 18, families and churches would have better ways to connect with the young men taken into custody and help them work toward a second chance.”
With the help of the newly activated group of pastors from the community, Trammell and her team kept working on the issue alongside in-state partners. Eventually, Michigan policymakers raised the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to 18. The experience shaped the way Prison Fellowship approaches campaign strategy. Now, every state advocacy campaign the organization runs includes a roundtable discussion with faith leaders to learn how the campaign issue affects their communities.
Callen shared a similar experience when Empower Mississippi worked with Mississippi families who applied for a special needs Education Scholarship Account (ESA) but were waitlisted for years. These ESAs provide funds for parents to send their special needs children to a school that best fits their unique needs. Callen found that rather than relying on his ideologically-aligned audience, if he went straight to the people who were affected by the policy, he was better able to learn the struggles they faced. Not only that, he was able to involve those communities in policy changes. These parents and families were no longer outsiders, but partners and co-workers in forming a solution.
“It was a much smaller universe of people, but much more motivated and personal. Our Lieutenant Governor said that he looked into the eyes of the group of moms who were waitlisted and said to them, “This isn’t fair, and we have to change it.” He said it was the moms who changed his mind.
Empower Mississippi helped change the law so that ESAs would not be awarded by lottery but in order of application—with priority given to those applicants who had waited the longest. “The best part is that the parents were very involved in what the bill looked like and making sure it met their needs.” said Callen.
Randy Hicks, president and CEO of the Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO), shared how his organization completely changed the way they approached policy reform over the past several years. “As a Network, we need to elevate community engagement to be much more than simply a feature or ornament of our work; it needs to be an essential element of how our organizations operate. In so doing, we will gain new friends and allies, have a deeper understanding of the policies we want to change and the people affected by those policies, and transform ourselves into a network that is valued beyond the comfortable confines of an echo chamber of the ideologically-aligned.”
Building relationships hasn’t always been the strong suit of a Network of policy professionals, especially with individuals who have different preferences, life experiences, or backgrounds from us. Engaging with books can be a lot easier than engaging with complicated humans.
Community engagement helps us build relationships in a meaningful, empowering way. It means creating a shared understanding between those who affect policy and those affected by it—and building a coalition for change in the process. Participants of SPN’s Community Engagement Forum found that not only is community engagement possible, but it’s also crucial for state policy groups as they help Americans change policies in their communities.
The Community Engagement Forum continues—we invite you to join us for the second session on December 8, 2020 and again in January 2021. If you would like to attend or learn more about building trust in your community towards effective policy change, please reach out to me at sarah@spn.org.
