Where do we go from here? — New opportunities for repair and progress
For well over a year, most of us have heard and even repeated a familiar refrain...
“Every day looks the same.”
“It feels like I’m repeating the same day over and over.”
“I don’t even know what day it is.”
And while it’s likely that we’ll still be dealing for some time with both the trauma and languishing created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the days ahead are finally starting to look a bit different than those behind us.
With over 50% of the U.S. adult population now having received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and with the CDC recently relaxing guidelines for those who have been fully vaccinated, the possibility of a return to normalcy— or a “new normal”, at least—is beginning to appear on our collective horizon. Approaching that horizon, the leaders of each of Civic Exchange Chicago’s member organizations are assessing what opportunities, for both repair and progress, lay ahead.
“What has become glaringly clear this past year is that all of the institutions and systems we count on for a functioning society are more fragile than we knew.” Jennifer Brandel, co-founder & SVP Global Partnerships at Hearken, encapsulates well the crises of the past year-plus. Hearken, a consulting and technology company helping companies and organizations engage their audience and community, sees the recognition of this fragility as an opportunity for change. “There is sufficient dissatisfaction with the status quo,” Brandel says, “that now there's an incredible opportunity for visionaries and change-makers to bring their theories and practices to bear and fast-track new ways of thinking, working and being.”
What will drive this innovation? Listening, says Brandel.
“At Hearken, we see that listening and curiosity are core to building the future of our relationships, communities, institutions and society. So we're doubling down on our belief that every individual is worthy of being heard and working to help more organizations get practiced and skilled at listening and responding to their stakeholders. When we started back in 2015, we had to make a case to prospective customers that listening was the key to everything. Now, we don't have to. We're hoping with this new landscape we can serve even more partners and publics so that they can better get their needs met.”
“We are on the precipice of a great change,” says Zareena Meyn, Executive Director of mRelief, the nonprofit startup that’s connected over 1 million households to food benefits by providing a text messaging platform for individuals and families to apply for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Like Brandel, Meyn sees greater opportunity ahead. She says that in the U.S., “we’ve elected an administration that is willing to negotiate for a more accessible front door to the SNAP program. As we continue to collaborate on SNAP delivery with community members who use our tools, we get better and better at implementing technology to meet the urgency of food insecurity in America.
It’s not easy to ask for help, and in the coming years, mRelief will continue to amplify the voices of our users to promote dignity in a process which has, historically, been overwhelmingly difficult to navigate.”
Matt Gee, CEO of Brighthive, knows the role that technology and data play in limiting or creating access to the help individuals and communities need. “The pandemic has dramatically accelerated trends in the digital transformation of how communities, businesses, industries, and government services operate,” Gee says. “Unfortunately, the contours of this rapid digital transformation are making some folks much better off, while making many others worse off.”
But within this challenge, Gee also sees an opportunity. “At Brighthive, we believe the path toward a more inclusive and equitable digital economy begins with changing the power structure around tech’s most valuable asset: our data. By changing the social contract around data through data trusts and data cooperatives, we can increase transparency and accountability, reduce societal harm from technology, and see the benefits of the digital economy spread out more evenly.”
To that end, Brighthive is partnering organizations like data.org, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Research Improving People’s Lives and many others to improve the use of data in addressing disparities in health outcomes, improving how state unemployment systems support those who are out of work, and providing students and workers with greater control over the data which can help them unlock economic mobility. “There’s a lot going on,” Gee says, “but we really see this moment as an inflection point around data and we have a real opportunity to change for the better who controls it and who benefits from its use.”
Also on the forefront of using data to address inequity and inequality, DataMade has recently launched multiple initiatives aimed at bringing accountability, transparency and better governance to policing and the criminal justice system. Derek Eder, DataMade Founder and Partner, explains, “Over the past year at DataMade we have been reflecting on the racial reckoning around police violence as it relates to our work and that of the broader civic tech sector. Who are we serving and how can we do more to support our partners in working toward democracy, justice, and equity?”
Among the initiatives born from this question, DataMade is beginning efforts to explore alternative ways to measure community safety that do not rely on problematic crime report data, but instead focus on resident surveys of perceived safety and victimization. In addition, DataMade also recently launched The Circuit, “a data-driven collaboration to investigate and reveal how Cook County’s courts work using 3 million filed criminal cases.” Partnering with the Better Government Association, The Chicago Reporter and Injustice Watch, The Circuit is an “unparalleled collaborative journalism investigation that explores and exposes decades of overlooked data and their connecting patterns buried in the files of the Cook County courts.”
Eder says there’s even more to do in the days ahead. “We’re excited to continue this collaborative work to bring much needed transparency and accountability to the Cook County justice system. In the coming months, we are planning to train more people, specifically journalists of color, to query, analyze and report on this court data.”
Can journalistic organizations and newsrooms play a role in meeting the needs of local communities? Block Club Chicago believes so.
“Block Club Chicago’s entire mission is to produce journalism that is reflective of the community, and that is exactly what we do every day,” says Jen Sabella, Director of Strategy and co-founder of Block Club Chicago. “We believe investing in reporters who are embedded in the communities they cover leads to a more accurate portrayal of neighborhoods. We also believe truly local news empowers residents to be more informed and engaged citizens — instead of being ashamed of where they live due to nonstop-negative, parachute journalism that too many news outlets practice in Chicago.”
As their embedded reporters have covered the effects of COVID-19 and police violence on the neighborhoods in which they live, Block Club Chicago knows the challenges facing Chicago residents, and is excited about the ways they can help Chicagoans meet and navigate those challenges.
“In the year ahead,” Sabella says, “we aim to do even more of this work — covering more of the city, hosting more events in the neighborhoods and letting folks who may not have heard of us know that we’re out here doing this important work to keep them informed. When people are more knowledgeable about the way their city works, they feel more empowered to participate in the systems that have long oppressed Black, Brown and poor people in neighborhoods across the city.”
Madeleine Doubek, Executive Director of CHANGE Illinois, sees the same opportunity moving forward for broad systemic changes that make a difference in the lives of Chicago residents. And she wants every resident to be represented and able to play a part in making those changes.
“CHANGE Illinois is helping create an exciting new opportunity for Chicagoans by creating the Chicago Advisory Redistricting Commission,” Doubek says. “ We’re supporting the work of a resident redistricting commission to draw a new ward map for Chicago. A 13-member commission we hope will reflect the full diversity of the city will be trained in best practices, engage with residents in neighborhoods through a series of public hearings and draw a map by year end when census data is released. If the commission’s map can gain the support of 10 members of the City Council, then, by law, a special election is triggered and next spring, Chicago voters will get to choose from among that map and any others that win the support of 10 council members.”
Doubek goes on to say that this change is overdue. “It’s time for a ward map for Chicago, by Chicagoans,” Doubek says. “And we’re thrilled to be able to help make this happen so democracy can work better for residents. It’s our hope this commission also will demonstrate for all of Illinois how district mapping can and should be done.”
Another Civic Exchange member organization, Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), is making sure that residents not only in Illinois, but around the country are able to represent themselves by voting. Through their work over the past five years, but specifically in the 2020 election, they’ve seen firsthand what it takes to make elections more secure and inclusive.
“The COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 election laid bare the widespread underfunding of local election departments,” says Nareth Phin, Operations Director at CTCL. "The U.S. election system depends upon thousands of different offices, large and small, rural and urban, to administer fair elections with limited resources. Very few were prepared for a public health crisis that would demand an expansion of vote from home options.”
For the 2020 elections, CTCL helped close the gap between what election offices were prepared for and what was required of them to conduct safe and fair elections in the middle of a pandemic. Their COVID-19 Response Grant Program provided funding to over 2,500 election offices across the country.
Looking forward, Phin and CTCL only see more ways they can continue to help election offices meet evolving election needs. “Federal and state funding offered some relief, but couldn’t offset the cost of running an election during COVID-19, which is why we launched the COVID-19 Response Grant Program,” Phin shares. “In 2021, one of our objectives is to help local election departments secure the public funding they need in order to implement pro-voter policies that make voting easier and safer for eligible citizens.”
One resource CTCL already has in supply? Stories from the 2021 election. Phin says, “The data and stories we collected in 2020 make for a very compelling argument to increase [election offices’] budgets to modernize their infrastructure and prepare for future emergencies.”
