2023 Spring Conference Recap

The IAP2 USA Midwest Chapter 2023 Spring Conference was held May 3-5, 2023, near Minnesota’s Twin Cities in Eagan. With nearly 190 participants, the conference drew from 11 of the Chapter’s 12 state footprint (IA, IL, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, SD, WI), three additional states (AZ, NH, PA), and one Canada province (AB). See the conference program here.

Lunch was followed by breakout sessions spanning a variety of topics, and the day concluded with a networking event at a nearby restaurant. Sponsored by Granicus, the evening event provided space, food, and drink for conference attendees to connect.

Breakout sessions resumed Thursday morning, followed by an extended lunch that included an overview of the Midwest Chapter’s Local Network framework, a concept brought forth by a community of practice in Nebraska and formally adopted by the Chapter in December 2022. (More information about this framework to be shared in next month’s newsletter!) Lunch also featured a networking activity that allowed participants to learn about and experience a public participation technique: open space conversations. 

Lunch was followed by another round of conference sessions. With a day full of content, the conference transitioned into a late afternoon on-site social event, sponsored by Social Pinpoint. The social featured four local pop-up vehicles, an engagement tactic that takes “meeting people where they are” to another level.

2024 Spring Conference
On our way to Nebraska!
 

If you are interested in supporting the planning of the 2024 Spring Conference, please reach out to Andrea at agebhart@jeo.com. The type of support needed generally encompasses the following:

• Programming

• All things logistics!

• Communications and marketing

• Membership and networking

• Securing sponsors

The time commitment varies based on the stage of conference planning, as well as an individual’s availability. Please reach out if there’s even a little part of you that’s interested in helping!

STANDING COMMITTEES
Opportunities to Get Involved!

The Midwest Chapter is led by a nine-seat board of directors. Our board is considered a “working board,” as board members actively serve on one (or more!) of several standing committees. Chapter members and friends of the chapter are invited and encouraged to join a committee if they are interested in being more involved with the Midwest Chapter.

The chapter currently has four standing committees:

• Communications, which helps keep members informed of chapter happenings. Following the 2023 Spring Conference, the Communications Committee is looking for volunteers to help author session summaries so we can share some of the key takeaways with chapter members. 

• Membership, which helps provide a meaningful IAP2 membership. A focus of this year is helping establish and support Local Networks and may extend to developing virtual engagement opportunities.

• Conference, which helps plan the chapter's annual spring conference. This committee helps guide the work of conference subcommittees.

• Training, which helps support individuals and organizations interested in bringing an IAP2 training to an area within the Chapter. 

Resilience in Communities After Stress and Trauma (ReCAST)

In August 2014, an emergency call to dispatch was made for a theft from a market in Ferguson, Missouri, a small community just northwest of St. Louis. As part of the police response, Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr. Following a grand jury’s decision in November to not charge Wilson, the city was inundated with angry citizens and protesters, and faced days of massive unrest.

So began the May 2022 conference session about the ReCAST Initiative, a community-driven effort organized by St. Louis County Public Health and funded by a federal grant. ReCAST empowered residents of the St. Louis Promise Zone – a federally designated high-need and high-capacity area – to identify critical issues and prioritize interventions around violence prevention, youth engagement, peer support, mental health, and trauma-informed care. Central to success was overcoming multiple, long-standing challenges to cross-sector partnerships, and building a coalition of community organizations involved in those topics, a community guiding board, and an advisory board of organization leaders committed to system transformation. 

Backed by this strong collaboration, the Initiative launched a five-year participatory budgeting (PB) process, modeled after the typical cycle shown: Design the process, brainstorm ideas, develop proposals, organize residents 11 and older to vote on the anonymized proposal abstracts to fund. The ReCAST project was unique in that the community vote drove the decisions on which organizations were awarded one-year contracts, based on their ability to deliver on the work scope.  

As described in the graphic, project ideas came from community members and were developed into feasible proposals by trained and compensated community delegates. Importantly, ReCAST faced head-on the enormous and understandable challenges around building and maintaining trust by collectively establishing and regularly holding itself accountable for the following: Value long-term relationships, be honest, honor your commitments, admit when you’re wrong, communicate effectively, be vulnerable, be helpful, show people that you care, stand up for what’s right, and be transparent.

In its final reporting back to the community in 2022, over 1,000 people drove decisions on more than $2 million in Promise Zone investments. As team members looked ahead, they left session participants with the following learnings and commitments: 

• Merge engagement infrastructure with civic engagement in areas such as racial equity, transportation, jobs, banking, tax implications and voting

• Connect stakeholders to funders and technical supports

• Create a participatory budgeting toolkit to build and enhance civic engagement in other organizations and/or opportunities

• Create a network focused on ongoing shared data systems/analytics around health disparities and social determinants of health

The Midwest Chapter thanks St. Louis ReCAST presenter program manager Paula M. Southerland, St. Louis County Department of Public Health, PSoutherland@stlouiscountymo.gov; learn more about ReCAST here, and about participatory budgeting here. 

IN MEMORIAM
David Rubedor,  1962-2023

When long-time IAP2 advocate David Rubedor decided in 2018 that he had the bandwidth to run for the chapter board, those of us who knew him were thrilled. David joined the City of Minneapolis from the nonprofit world in 2008 and was the founding director of the Neighborhood and Community Relations department (NCR). By the time he was elected to the chapter board he had already hosted IAP2 trainings, centered the IAP2 three pillars (core values, code of ethics, and spectrum) in the department’s work, and participated in the North American conference. 

Anchored in his deep commitment to equity and inclusion, during David’s tenure NCR established an access and outreach team, including community specialists who focused on engaging the American Indian, African American, Latino, Southeast Asian, and East African communities, older adults, and people with disabilities. The department also overhauled the City's language access plan, created the Blueprint for Equitable Engagement, helped the City to achieve age-friendly community and welcoming city designations, established the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, and began hosting the City of Minneapolis' largest community engagement event, the Community Connections Conference.

Under David's leadership, NCR also formally incorporated neighborhood organizations into the City's community engagement processes through the Community Participation Program, and more recently, the Equitable Engagement Fund and Partnership Engagement Fund. The newest neighborhood funding programs further the City’s goals of supporting equitable neighborhood engagement practices and reaching residents in meaningful ways.

Even as David was serving as the chapter secretary and then president, he was also living with aggressive cancers. When he took early retirement in 2021 and also resigned from the chapter board, the Minneapolis City Council resolution honoring his service, including this language that also captured his contributions to our chapter: “...dedicated leadership guided by a deep respect and faith in community, the commitment to assure broader inclusion, more equitable representation, and the abiding belief that the power of community is stronger when everyone is valued and heard.”