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Equity Summit 2011… here we come!

This fall, PolicyLink will be hosting their 4th Equity Summit in Detroit. Late last spring, members of the Community Engagement Team (Nexus, the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability and Minnesota Center for Neighborhood Organizing) of the Corridors of Opportunity initiative began planning the coordination of a Twin Cities delegation to attend the Summit.

With initial support from the McKnight Foundation, we began....

In late June, we hosted an event with Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink. About 75 people attended from throughout the region to hear from Angela, generally about regional equity and specifically about the Equity Summit. It was there that we laid out the idea for the delegation and let folks know about scholarships that would be available as well.

As a delegation our theme is Anchoring Equity: Moving From Learning to Practice. Organizing the delegation is more than just about attending conference together, but also about thinking of how we might all collaborate more intentionally to create and move a regional equity agenda in our region.

We began our planning thinking that about 75 folks would want to go. But when the deadline came and went, the demand was more than double that! So we decided as a team, rather than turn folks away, lets get out there and see if we can get more philanthropic support to support a larger delegation.

And we did.

In total we raised $106,000 to support 139 delegates, with an overall delegation of more than 150 people. I think the demand, both from those who wanted to attend the Summit and the support we received from local foundations speaks volumes to the equity momentum building in our region.

Last week we had our first pre-Summit convening at the Capri Theater in North Minneapolis. The energy and excitement in the room was fantastic. We focused on relationships and getting to know each and our work better, with an eye to the Summit and moving from action to learning post Summit.

As organizers we were excited by the turnout, the conversation and the energy of having so many equity advocates together in one place.

Our next gathering is November 2nd, then we're off to the Summit!

Here we come Detroit... watch out!

 

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