It’s difficult to watch the news recently and not feel a sense of despair. We’re angry and pained by violence and discrimination. We want all our neighbors to have homes, yet many are sleeping on the streets. Our friends and family spend days and nights worried about the bills, rather than enjoying their community. We […]
Our words matter
Apply for 2016 Advocates College
For more than six years, leaders from across Oregon have come together to learn how we can change the way we speak about the issues we care about to be more effective in our advocacy with decision makers. We call it Advocates College. Now you too can learn the research-backed techniques for communicating powerfully and […]
The Only Difference Between Me and My Client is that I’m on This Side of the Table
By Nanci E. Luna Jiménez, CPF. I remember one of the times in my life when things felt very economically insecure. I pulled up to a stop light and made eye contact with a woman holding a sign asking for money. I still remember the thought that crossed through my mind at the moment we looked […]
The world’s leading marketing guru shares a valuable lesson on homelessness
I was reading a summary of Seth Godin‘s 2014 HOW conference interview and he shared an anecdote that stood out to me: If you read Patti Smith’s book about her and Robert [Mapplethorpe] called Just Kids … she was homeless for years — HOMELESS! — living on bread from the garbage can, sleeping in the […]
There’s no such thing as chance
The other day I was writing something about “weathering the storm” and Janet, our ED, reminded me: we don’t use weather metaphors. Why? Because weather is out of our control. But the policies we put in place, the words we use and the society we create are a byproduct of our actions and thoughts. And […]
This is why Neighborhood Partnerships is anti “Middle Class”
When I opened my email this weekend and saw a message about Rick Santorum from our Executive Director Janet Byrd I was ready to laugh, scoff or harrumph. What I wasn’t ready for was a genuinely useful lesson that may change how we communicate at Neighborhood Partnerships.