United Way of Pierce County - Poverty Summit Update

Below is a brief update on our collective work being done since our annual poverty summit, From Poverty to Possibilities event, in November 2018.

1. Advocacy – This is critical to address if we are to disrupt systems that are keeping people from getting ahead in life.

 Updates:

• Supported Project Child Success with their advocacy training and their Day on the Hill by informing poverty summit attendees about this opportunity to advocate for policies that will help reduce barriers to families impacted by the benefits cliff.
• Provided an Advocacy 101 training in tandem with the Poverty Action Network in early February. 30 community members attended and benefited from the PowerPoint provided by Poverty Action Network.
• • Attendees asked to continue to meet to create joint training opportunities since so many agencies in Pierce County don’t have a dedicated staff person doing advocacy
  • Attendees stated that they need to ‘skill up’ with this work and it’s easier if we do it together
  • United Way will continue to offer ways to learn more about advocacy or specific components to legislative, business or neighborhood advocacy
• How you can take personal action and get involved
• • Come to United Way’s Day on the Hill on February 28! You can still RSVP to me, Lindsay Morgan Tracy at lindsayt@uwpc.org, to get the agenda for the day and specific talking points for our visits with our state legislators
  • Attend an advocacy training in the local area
  • Host a training and if you need help, reach out and we can connect you to trainers, materials, etc.
  • Open up the attachment and learn about three ways you can advocate for TANF from the Poverty Action Network.
• We have a full 2019 Policy Agenda and a Summary Policy Agenda attached and it will be available on our website as well.
• Continue to give us feedback as we know things change and shift on a daily basis. Here is a Survey Monkey in which we are asking for feedback on what is the one thing we can focus on with our advocacy work addressing systems of poverty (outside of the legislative session) in Pierce County. This should only take two minutes max to fill out. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/UWPCPoverty

1. Information Sharing – Website and E-News – you challenged us to share more frequently and on different media mediums.

Updates:

• United Way is building out a poverty webpage that will offer valuable research and resources that will be live in March.
• We ask that you share new, relevant information and community data so that we can build a central clearing house that ties directly to our work in lifting 15,000 households out of poverty (email Lindsay Morgan Tracy with information and cite the source).
• Sign up for our quarterly e-newsletter so that you can stay in the loop outside of the group communications. Sign up here: http://www.uwpc.org/ subscribe-our-newsletter.

And please save the date for this year’s From Poverty to Possibilities– November 12, 2019, at the Hotel Murano from 8am – noon. We are at the early stages of building out a segment of the event that will include an interactive activity to get solutions in creative, innovative ways to address barriers. Be on the lookout for more information from us in the weeks/months to come.

 Thanks again for your partnership in this work. While I wasn’t inclusive of all of the work we are doing, I hope this gives you a brief highlight of some of the work. Feel free to reach out to me with questions or comments as we know it takes ALL of us.

 In partnership,

 Lindsay Morgan Tracy

 Lindsay Morgan Tracy | VP for Community Impact & Engagement
United Way of Pierce County | 1501 Pacific Ave, Suite 400 | Tacoma, WA 98402
253-597-7318 (direct) | 253-272-4263 (main) | 253-597-7481 (fax)

Heidi Hansen | Executive Assistant
253-597-7490 (direct) | heidih@uwpc.org

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