Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Social Equity Strategies

During the many years I've been working in the media and in political advocacy and organizing, I've often said; "There are so many great groups doing great work when it comes to social equity, economic justice, environmental and environmental justice and other related areas. Unfortunately they often don't have the staff, the time, the money or the abilities to tell their stories and promote what they're doing to the general public in order to gain political and financial support."
In addition, many times these great people and their organizations don't really understand the importance of doing this type of publicity and public relations work.
As we all know however, the opposition fully understands the need and utility of doing effective propaganda.
They spend lots of money and time doing it and when you couple this with the ability to hire lobbyists and make political contributions, it isn't hard to see why they so often win, even when they are clearly on the wrong side of each and every positive aspect on any given issue.
I'm hoping to do what I can to have an impact on this (in the Sacramento and Northern Sierra areas) by starting a new endeavor that I've called "Social Equity Strategies" (www.socialequitystrategies.com)
The idea is to use the expertise and skills I've developed over my years working as a news director, producer and reporter at KVMR-FM Radio and my organizing and advocacy work at the Sierra Fund to provide assistance to these great organizations doing great work at a price they can afford.
I also think that my many years of working in mental health and social services and my own years of being "on the streets" give me a perspective and knowledge that most people in the
"Public Relations" and "Advocacy" fields just don't have!
I hope by doing this and beginning to write about these issues here (and in other places), we can all be part of building the people powered, progressive infrastructure needed to win these battles.
I certainly don't pretend to have all the answers and so I hope that we'll have an interactive discussion as we look for ways to help each other in what seems to me to be no less than a battle for the future.

1 comment: