DTF Call March 26, 2008

Introductions (15min)
Why you are a part of this taskforce. What do you hope it accomplishes?

Update/Touch base with committees (15min)
Nominations:
o An area that needs attention, but Board in the process of transitioning and restructuring, so there is reduced interest in inviting an outside person to join.
o Right now there is stagnation, we’ll see what comes out in the next couple of months.
Fundraising:
o An area that needs attention; group has not had recent activity
o Expansion/Best Practices:
o To build diversity in grassroots network in group starts and within existing groups
o Last meeting in October
o Betsy’s work can pilot ideas that have come forward; to set an example for other efforts…
People of Faith Outreach:
o Interest but less activity
o Sammi has many good ideas and could generate additional awareness and support
Student Groups Outreach
o Youth taskforce has a significant amount of committees with energy and action, but have not considered diversity within its structure
Translation
o Incredible work: people were very engaged and dedicated many hours which culminated in the pages were posted in November
o Since the pages were posted, however, the activity has diminished. How to encourage them to get involved? Who can look over the page and get it going live?

Touch-base on taskforce structure; How should we work and communicate? (15min)
· There seems to be a lack of interest lately in the Taskforce…what efforts can we take to regenerate interest? Should we alter the structure?
· Amelia: Logistical issues…people are committed in spirit but not in time. We have to structure this to make the most of people’s time.
· Chris: Communities of color are much harder hit with poverty than white people. Maybe we need to step back and do research and presentations about the dire effect of poverty in these communities. Many people are afraid of venturing out of their comfort zone. People don’t always want to venture into other communities and have had group starts in areas where people of color don’t feel welcome, or don’t have transportation access or childcare.
· Betsy: how can people of color “let me in” in my work to reach out to all communities to end suffering?
· Sammi: educate people so their voice has value on both domestic and non-domestic issues; we all have one legislative voice and we need to empower people
· Amelia: our capacity is reduced; we need to think about practical issues, such as raising awareness, promoting information/statistics for fact-sheets and policy briefs. We should structure the task-force to work all together instead of subcommittees.
· Julie: diversity training, “train the trainer,” anti-oppression training
· Meredith: fundraising first? Limited staffing and capacity
· Chris: youth outreach (which started at the same time as diversity taskforce) has been successful and has grown, has become more engrained in the roots of the organization, regardless of funding. diversity taskforce has not grown the same way. Consider how they are successful and why? Can we utilize those skills and resources for regenerating our taskforce?
· Meredith: we need to learn how to prioritize the diversity taskforce.
· Sammi: are there people of color in RESULTS meetings that we already have that people aren’t aware of? We could do a survey across the board to find out our diversity numbers and then learn how to build on them.
· Meredith: recruitment; we need to reach out to our grassroots network, make announcements on conference call
· Betsy and Chris: it has to become part of the agenda, an inherent part of RESULTS


Next steps:
· Marketing/messaging to incorporate into our campaign
· Sammi: do research project to frame global campaign in connection with issues of diversity; bring out how race and diversity is relates to our current campaigns
· Betsy: important for folks to hear from RESULTS volunteers, so spread the word and help articulate on listserv and inspire people.
· Meredith: will incorporate in conference calls, weekly updates, etc.
· Amelia: culling statistics for racial wealth gap nationally…