Neighborhood Partnerships, along with Oregon Thrives, the Oregon Center for Public Policy and the Oregon Hunger Task Force were fortunate to be able to collaborate and bring Patrick Bresette of the Public Works project of Demos to Portland the week of November 9th.
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Mr. Bresette presented a lecture, “A Case for Government,” In it, he presented Demos’ research on Americans’ current views of government and strategies to help people think about the often invisible roles of government and a more involved, “citizen – manager” role for themselves.
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The lecture was well attended – over 100 people braved the downpour to hear Patrick speak about the public’s images of government and their declining trust in government. Research conducted by Demos indicates that all too often people think about government as partisan bickering and political theater. He spoke about how to help people rediscover the important functions of government and how everyone can and should play a role in managing those functions. You can download the powerpoint from Tuesday night’s lecture, as well as a two-page handout summarizing the research findings of Demos on this subject.
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Thanks are also due to NW Natural for their assistance in hosting a small reception following the training and their generous donation of space for the event.
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While in Oregon, Patrick also led two day-long trainings. The first training focused on talking about financial asset building, drawing on his background developing the IDA program for the state of Texas. This session focused on how to communicate the importance of asset building as tools to expand economic opportunity. Download the powerpoint from this training.
The second training focused on talking about state and local revenue needs. This training was an extended and more in-depth version of Tuesday’s nights lecture. Download the powerpoint from this training here.