This was written by two members of the Greater Good Initiative: Andrew Lichtblau, Strategic Planning and Public Outreach Fellow & Yukta Ramanan, Co-Director of Strategic Planning and Public Outreach. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue.
The Greater Good Initiative (www.thegreatergoodinitiative.com) is a nonpartisan, youthled policy think tank aimed at writing policy proposals that address the nation’s more pressing issues. The Greater Good Initiative has three sectors: policy, advocacy, and strategy. The policy teams work in the sectors of civil rights, environment, public health, education, and economic, to craft policies on topics ranging from sexual harassment in public schools to prisoner health and equity standards. The advocacy team works to reach out to elected officials, policy experts, and the media regarding policies developed by GGI’s policy team. The strategy team assists in operational functioning, digital outreach, event planning, and managing the budget.
Now that the fall season is on its way in, The Greater Good Initiative is excited to continue our mission of creating policy solutions, lobbying to legislators, and pushing for youth voice in the policymaking process. The Greater Good Initiative has been hard at work over the last month, centrally focusing on three major projects—the Vote for the Greater Good Initiative Campaign, our Time for 9 Toolkit, and the Fall Sustainability Plan.
The Greater Good Initiative’s Development sector has implemented a Fall Sustainability Plan to address the shifting commitments, and responsibilities for our team members as they transition back into school and manage academics, community and civic engagement, and quality time with their loved ones. This plan has been in effect throughout the last several months as our more senior members have managed their return to college and our more junior members have managed a return to high school. As a result, GGI has had to alter its methods of communication to ensure that we continue to hit our goals. The Development Team has worked to achieve this by recommending and supporting vertical leadership stratification, equitable delegation of work, and the formalization of human resources policies and rights. The latter includes expectations of professionalism in the workplace. GGI also aims to put out clear, adaptable deadlines for each sector’s projects- rather than use an informal precedent. GGI is a resilient and youthful group of dedicated leaders, and the return to school for all of our members will breed more new ideas and a better GGI.
The Greater Good Initiative dedicated the last few months leading up to the 2020 Election to its Vote for the Greater Good Initiative campaign. The campaign launched on September 21 via live stream on our social media channels, featuring our founders Adam Ashley and Tarina Aduja. Arthur Lieber from Civitas Associates and Sydney Stewart and Uma Kalkar of 18by.vote also spoke at our kickoff event. The central focus of our launch event—and this initiative as a whole—was to empower young voters through education and emphasize the importance of youth participation in voting. Since then, young voters have been able to regularly attend Greater Good Initiative-sponsored events to learn about voting and participating in the election. Social media outreach initiatives, including tweetstorms, Instagram story takeovers, and social media infographics have provided a cycle of information for the voting procedures of various states, starting in our home state of Virginia but extending all over the country. Further, The Greater Good has sponsored webinars, town halls, and released policy briefs on a weekly basis. These efforts will continue for the next two weeks, in the lead up to the November 3rd election.
As the nation continues to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of effective state and local policy responses have exposed themselves. This spurred the Greater Good initiative’s next major campaign: the Time for 9 Toolkit. On July 24, our event launched via live stream to Facebook and YouTube. A recording of the event can be accessed here. Over the last few months, the toolkit has received bipartisan endorsements from policymakers in Virginia and Maryland. Among those to endorse the toolkit are Lashrecse Aird, Sam Rasoul, and Suhas Subrmanyama, each Democratic members of the Virginia House of Delegates from the 63rd, 11th, and 87th Districts, respectively. On the Republican side, Carrie Coyner of the 62nd District has endorsed the toolkit. Ghazala Hashmi in the Virginia State Senate also provided an endorsement. In Maryland, Mary Pat Clarke of the Baltimore City Council endorsed the toolkit. Finally, the Virginia Director of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Luis Angel Aguilar and Executive Director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) Marla Dalton also endorsed the Greater Good Initiative’s Time for 9 Toolkit. The nine Recommendations made within the TimeFor9 Toolkit’s thusly titled plan each have specific applications for communities that have been hurt the worst by this pandemic. Among the issues highlighted in these recommendations are testing equity, improved communication and partnership efforts, and access to resources.
Our testing equity recommendations are as follows: Access to disability-friendly and schedule-flexible walk-up testing site within range of public transportation; COVID-19 testing options that do not require the presentation of government-issued ID, health insurance, or other traditional administrative processes; and Cities should establish a department of neighborhood-familiar officers to trace viral transmission and assist infected persons in seeking safe quarantine.
Our communications recommendations are as follows: create relationships with trusted leaders in minority communities; prioritize third-party involvement and funding; and provide understandable and effective communication materials across minority populations.
Our resource recommendations are as follows: ensure that minorities on food stamps have easy access to online grocery shopping; prioritize the allocation of safe-sheltering alternatives for homeless communities; and assist renters who are ineligible for direct rental assistance through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
As with all of the Greater Good Initiative’s proposals, the ideas put forth in our TimeFor9 Toolkit are nonpartisan. Our proposals—while they are pressing and need dedicated advocacy to bring them to fruition—do not align with any party nor political identity. The Greater Good Initiative focuses these recommendations on pragmatic solutions that both parties should reach common ground upon. Through social media, email, or phone, the Greater Good Initiative encourages motivated advocates to use the templates published on our website to encourage their legislators to put these recommendations into effect. More comprehensive information, including the full plan, can be found here.
