Heading to Portland for “Public Money 101’
Training to understand budgets and planning (and TIFs)!
Hey, Civic Neighbors! I’m heading to Portland tomorrow to facilitate a two-day workshop for Unite Oregon called “Public Money 101”! Here’s how they describe this amazing civic training:
Join us on Thursday, October 3rd and Friday, October 4th from 9:30 AM - 4:00 PM at Meyer Memorial Trust to learn how public dollars are allocated to private concerns and how you can influence spending to better serve our collective needs! Improve your advocacy and community engagement by gaining a deeper understanding of how Portland's city budget and programs operate.
This interactive two-day workshop brings together a diverse group of advocates, planners, and professionals to:
Demystify the city's budgeting process and financial structures
Evaluate the impacts of governance changes on community needs
Develop skills to confidently articulate budget and program information
Empower residents to participate in shaping responsive policies
Knowledge is power when it comes to navigating and influencing public resources. Join us to strengthen your ability to advocate for your community's priorities. Plus, there’s an after party!
This two-day workshop will be taking place at an incredible space, the Center for Great Purposes, which is owned by the Meyer Memorial Trust, whose tagline is “Accelerating racial, social and economic justice.” Jealous? Not much 😊 Their purpose and the mission and the space are all exactly what I had in mind when I designed the CivicLab back in 2012. Sigh.
The workshop will give attendees a thorough grounding in how to think about and interrogate the city’s budget and review the basics of the city’s history. Besides myself, presenters include the Interim Budget Director of Portland and two managers from Prosper Portland, the city’s economic development agency. The “Portland 101” presentation will be given by a local professor who has taught on the racial injustice background of the city. The end goal is to equip attendees with the background and data to interrogate current economic development planning initiatives – including the push to create six new TIF districts!
Naturally, I will present a “TIFs of Portland” overview – which, like all the hundreds of TIF presentations I have done since 2013, will make news as it reveals details of all of Portland’s TIFs never before revealed in a public meeting. See https://tifreports.com/tif-organizing-services to get a sense of this and other collaborations.
I designed this experience with Amana Pham Haines, the Anti-Displacement PDX Coalition Director and Unite Oregon Housing Justice Manager. Amanda is an amazing organizer and she is determined to place some serious frameworks and tools in the hands of Unite Oregon’s stakeholders and collaborators.
I am super excited to jump into this training experience as, among other things, it will feature the first offering of what I call “Activist Speed Networking”! In a choreographed rotation set to music, each attendee will meet every other attendee and get to share key points of contact, relationship, and asset pooling.
I have poured everything I know about civic life into this event. I will let you know how it turns out.