“I am so proud of our community for doing this and proud to have participated. Thank you!”The first round of Community Conversations on Reducing Poverty in the Northern Neck concluded with an Action Forum on March 27, 2010. This was just one of many positive statements made on participant evaluations at that meeting.
In collecting data from participant registrations and from these evaluations, we can make some observations about who chose to commit to this dialog-to-action process – and, more importantly, who was not included.
The registration forms indicated that we had more than 50 people who signed up formally, although more actually participated. About 60% were female, and 40% were male. They ranged in age from 22 to 80+ years, with a remarkably even distribution between the age range of 40 to 60 or more. However, very few participants were younger than 40, resulting in a mean age of 59. In response to a question about racial/ethnic background, about 25% identified themselves as African American and 75% as Caucasian. The religious affiliations were diverse, with 11 different religions or churches represented. Their stated political views also showed variety. “Moderate” views dominated, with even distribution of conservative and liberal stances.
All but one participant had some college or more education, with 14 having graduate or advanced degrees. Many of them indicated they engaged in volunteer and political activities and, not surprisingly, they were very involved in the community.
Most telling of all the statistics was the annual income. Only two reported incomes under $25,000 per year. The largest number of participants came from the range of $25,000 to $100,000 per year. A few even reported higher incomes.
What does all this mean?
It means we need to get more people who actually experience poverty directly into our conversation. It means we need to recruit more African Americans to contribute. And it means we need to hear from younger people.
But it also means that we were able to get about 60 people to care enough about poverty in the Northern Neck to commit 2 hours a week for 5 weeks! And the surprising thing is that many of them said that wasn’t enough time, they wanted more. Their ideas were presented with passion and energy, and many had comments to share about the process and the problem. Most of all, they wanted to see changes.
“I will be very disappointed if some action to ameliorate poverty in the Northern Neck does not occur.”Some sample comments from the evaluations!
What they liked:
• Hearing others viewpoints, ideas and opinions
• Open communication
• Getting to know people they might not have known otherwise
• Enthusiastic, concerned people willing to work on the issue
• The opportunity to discuss a vital topic
• Atmosphere where everyone’s views and ideas were valued
• “Involving so many in this grassroots discussion is excellent for its educational value as well as ‘buy in’ value when solutions are implemented.”
• The intensity of the conversations, the ability to have some really difficult but meaningful conversations.
What they didn’t like:
• Not enough time, not long enough, needed more meetings
• Needed to delve deeper in the issue of race.
• Shock at the extreme level of racism still openly present in our community, on both sides.
• Not enough diversity, not a good cross section. Poor, poorest were not included.
• Did not differentiate between short-range and long-range projects.
• Not enough emphasis on action, need more time to talk about actions and going forward. Strike while the iron is hot!
• Really need a mechanism to welcome and include more marginalized people.
• Need to change the word “poverty” – Very negative and will not attract the voices we need to hear from.
Discussion guide:
In general, they liked the discussion guide, with some reservations. Very few had negative ratings, but many were neutral responses.
Facilitators:
They loved their facilitators! Very few negatives and neutrals, overall agreement that the facilitators did a good job of making them welcome, did not try to influence the group, and explained the process well.
Overall evaluation:
Despite their comments otherwise, they rated the length of each meeting, number of meetings, and number of people in their group “just right” most of the time. The overall rating of the program as a whole was an astonishing mean of 4.4, with 5 being “very good” and 4 as “good.”
