In May 2008, the Community Action Partnership received a grant from the Ford Foundation to undertake a two-year project on Racial Equity and Economic Security.  This project examines whether place-based strategies to reduce poverty and enhance economic security are more effective when they take the racial inequalities that are a result of structural racism into account in their program design. 

Structural racism explores the causes of the enormous racial disparities that exist in income, wealth, education, housing, employment, and crime throughout our society.  The term structural racism refers to the system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing, ways to perpetuate racial group inequity.  It points out how the causes of persistent racialized poverty are the result of a complex set of interactions between institutions and policies that have accumulated over time. With greater understanding of these dynamic interactions, we are more apt to identify proper interventions in one area that could have a positive effect across others.  For example, inadequate housing and a weak local economy result in a low tax base which leads to poor schools that do not prepare people for the workplace adequately and thus they cannot make a livable wage in this economy.  These interactions are especially powerful in communities of color.  Using the structural racism lens helps explain why siloed and non-racially conscious approaches to reducing poverty may not reach the goals we desire. 

To learn about this assumption, teams from seven communities attended a seminar on Racial Equity and Society conducted by the Aspen Institute Roundtable for Community Change and now are running community initiatives that will conduct racial equity analyses in their communities, educate and mobilize their communities, and refine and adapt their program strategies based on these analyses.  From this experience, tools are being developed and lessons learned are being captured and disseminated throughout the community action network. 

Through this project we are:

• Developing tools and other materials that will assist other communities in their own analyses and discussions about racial inequalities and their impacts
• Developing tools and frameworks that will assist community-based service providers in identifying the implications of racial equity so that programs and services can be improved
• Documenting lessons learned – positive and negative - from up to ten communities
• Developing specific products by the community sites based on their own analyses and for their community educational needs

An Advisory Committee provides ongoing assistance in identifying technical resources.  The Committee includes representatives from the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change, the Ford Foundation, and the Center for Social Inclusion.   

The National Project Director, Mary Virtue of Cornerstone Consultants, is responsible for the day to day management of the project, designing the peer learning meetings, and preparing the frameworks and tools.