LA Civic Power: Shaping Policy and Building Relationships with All Stakeholders

California Partnership’s (CAP) goal, as a statewide economic justice organization, is to sustain the safety net and ensure low income folks and communities of color have access to adequate health and human service resources. Los Angeles is home to our longest running and strongest chapter. Our LA partnership is made up of community folks, grassroots organizations, policy advocates, statewide organizations, service providers, and labor unions who come together to solve issues impacting our communities.

Our project will build off our work by expanding our efforts in community education and outreach, help build stronger, effective relationships among our different partners and elected officials representing greater Los Angeles, and continue our community-driven strategies and policy advocacy at the county level. By providing these tools and resources, we hope to increase accountability, transparency, and build trust between Angelenos, elected officials, and other governmental stakeholders.

Community Education

At California Partnership, we conduct budget presentations and trainings on county and state systems in a community friendly way. We also provide resources that help break down state and local legislative processes. Our project will continue to foster accessible, shared learning spaces by providing multilingual resources and expanding our reach to communities and organizations all across LA county. Our goal is for our trainings to engage community leadership to take initiative and share these strategies with their own members.

Relationship Building

Through our monthly chapter meetings, community groups and organizations from all over Los Angeles county doing various types of work come together to work through shared values and common concerns. CAP uses a shared leadership and development framework, where our partners help decide what our priorities are as a collective. Our goal is to continue to support our partners’ work and build a common understanding that the work we do is multifaceted and requires an intersectional framework.

It is important that we build relationships with elected officials, staff, and agency leaders so there is an open line of communication established between governmental stakeholders and their constituents.Our proposal seeks to strengthen government and community ties by collaborating on community events and forums, doing one on one visits with officials and their staff, and providing opportunities for open dialogue, where community members can express their concerns and work alongside political stakeholders to create change.

Strategy and Implementation

CAP’s statewide work has been instrumental in our local advocacy efforts because of the state budget’s impact at the county level. Our project looks to further delve into countywide policy advocacy and implementation by engaging both core and new partners in identifying local issues, expanding our tools and trainings, and tracking county policy.

1) We define success as the creation of meaningful and sustained relationships among community members, organizations, and government officials.

-Establish multiple one on one meetings and increased communication between electeds and stakeholders strengthens the communities voice far beyond simply voting.

-Have 8-12 elected officials and their staffers attend our LA Poverty Hearing in 2017.

-Have at least 10 core partners and their members participate and attend our Poverty Hearing, lobby days, and actions.

-Collect 2-3 personal testimonies of partners on their experience working as a collective.

2) We define success as sustaining our relationship with current partners, adding more partners to our coalition, and engaging them in county level work.

-Sustain relationships with 10-15 current core partners.

-Invite 5-7 new organizations to become core partners in our LA chapter.

-Identify 2-3 county priorities and create community strategies with CAP LA partners.

3) We define success providing trainings and resources to community members on how to effectively advocate for policy changes they seek. We can support groups, identify their strengths, and how to leverage their existing relationships and build new ones to amplify their voice.

-Create multilingual presentations and resources for partners and community members.

-Host 5-8 budget trainings in various locations across LA county

-Host 5 community organizing trainings in various locations across LA

Money

Volunteers

Publicity/awareness

Infrastructure (building/space/vehicles etc.)

Community outreach

Network/relationship support

Quality improvement research