COMMUNITY ORGANIZING AND FAMILY ISSUES

COFI has a single overarching goal: to increase the civic leadership and engagement of low- income parents of color across the nation to shape the public decisions that directly affect their families’ lives and, in so doing, increase racial (and gender) equity in education, economic, and social outcomes. COFI understands that our nation’s soaring inequality a) is the product of public policy choices (we do not have to have families of color mired in poverty in the US given its rich but maldistributed resources) and b) the voicelessness and powerlessness of low-income families of color in public decision-making ensures this continuing maldistribution of resources. COFI understands that structural racism is embedded in every major institution in the US, public and private, and the lens through which we tackle it is by increasing the voices and power of low-income families of color to gain places at tables in public decision-making. COFI’s operational goals are thus:

• To increase the numbers of low-income parents of color actively participating in the civic arena, with a current focus on Illinois but with an eye to the entire nation;
• To demonstrate, document, and evaluate the efficacy of its organizing approach – called The COFI Way -- in achieving this increase in civic leadership and participation; and
• To share learnings and experiences with others across the nation to encourage them to adapt this approach in increasing the civic engagement of our nation’s most disenfranchised.

COFI has developed a unique civic leadership development model that specifically speaks to the needs and strengths of low income parents of color. The COFI Way of model is comprised of:

• Self, Family & Team Leadership Training and Team Building: a 7-session course that begins with a community visioning exercise and moves into what kinds of leaders and leadership skills are needed to achieve these visions. The training then turns to goal-setting, breaking goals into achievable objectives, asking for and providing mutual support, and balancing personal, family, and public responsibilities. At the conclusion of the 7-week training, the group forms a Parent Action Team and continues to work together to support one another and to improve their schools and communities.
• Community Outreach & Action: five workshops to help Parent Action Team members learn the art of the one-on-one interview and community surveying. Each team reaches out to at least 100 other parents to gain their perspectives on and engage more people in tackling issues that will improve the community’s response to families. The process includes a public meeting such as a Town Hall to build public awareness and support of one or more issues prioritized by outreached parents.
• Policy and Systems Change: workshops and focused trainings that build cross-community power around a wide range of policy and systems change goals set by the parent leaders. Workshops focus on working cross-culturally, the legislative process, strategic planning, public speaking, media relations, alliance building, balancing leadership and family demands, effective meetings with remote technology, and other topics.

COFI implements The COFI Way model through three programs:

• Leadership training and support in local communities, reaching out to parents, training them in the Family Focused model, supporting them in forming action teams and networks of teams to reach evermore parents, and taking actions to improve schools and communities.
• Supporting and facilitating the work of POWER-PAC IL, a statewide membership organization of COFI-trained parents that builds the voice and power of low-income families by uniting parents across race and community around issues of importance to children and families, such as early learning access, educational equity, and family economic security.
• The Center for Action and Learning trains staff of other organizations in Chicago and nationally, trains interested parent leaders as Peer Trainers and Advocates, develops descriptive and evaluative communications about The COFI Way model, and distributes these communications via the website, social media, and press releases. COFI also is lead agency and fiscal agent for a new national network of parent leaders and parent leadership organizations, United Parent Leaders Action Network (UPLAN).

Having 'invented' The COFI Way and the strategies to implement the model, COFI is uniquely capable to achieve its mission and meet its goals. It has encoded the model in three training curricula, recruited and trained staff who can implement it, developed internal evaluative methods to continually fine-tune it, and instituted resource development and communications capacities to sustain funding for the work from individuals, foundations, corporations, and units of government. Today, COFI has a committed, skilled staff of thirteen full-time people and over 50 part-time staff who are able to collectively carry out administrative, programmatic, fundraising, and evaluative work.

Evidence of capability lies in its 26+ year track record, in which over 5,000 low income parents of color – from across over two dozen African American, Latinx, and multi-ethnic communities - have become involved in civic life for the first time in their lives. These parent leaders have, in turn, won:

• 100+ ‘community schools’ (after school programs) funded by Chicago Public Schools, the city, and private philanthropy
• Recess restoration for 266,000 Chicago Public Schools children, and, as of 2021, for all Illinois school children
• Dozens of safe passage patrols, playlots, bus routes, and school facilities improvements benefiting thousands of school children
• The replacement of zero tolerance school discipline policy with restorative justice, first in Chicago and later in Illinois, shutting down the school to prison pipeline for low income children of color
• Outreach to tens of thousands of low income Illinois parents to make them aware of the importance of enrolling their children in quality early learning programs, combined with advocacy for a streamlined early learning application system, generating thousands of new enrollments
• Significant increases in state funding in Illinois for child care assistance, quality early learning programs, and developmental screenings and early intervention for at risk 0-3 year olds
• A Children's Savings Accounts program for Illinois families
• Safeguards in law and regulation to ensure that low income families can afford electricity and avert cutoffs
• Public awareness that low income families of color bore the brunt of public fees and fines, miring them in debt, resulting in significant "financial justice" solutions to reduce/eliminate certain fees
• Town Halls, parent trainings, and parent-to-parent outreach on school improvement, appropriate school discipline, access to health and nutrition resources for low-income parents, child development, and family economic security, reaching tens of thousands of families

COFI has created, tested, encoded, and evaluated The COFI Way model, bringing (as described in Capacity) over 5,000 low-income parents of color into civic leadership and life in the process. COFI has supported these leaders in achieving significant family, community, and public policy changes, briefly noted above. COFI has carefully documented all this work, producing several publications that have been widely circulated, including Policy and Systems Change: The COFI Way, Ask the Experts, and No Decisions About Us Without Us (all found ay www.cofionline.org). And COFI has introduced this model to nearly 600 others nationwide from nonprofits (agencies and community groups), public systems, and acclaimed policy think tanks like the Aspen Institute.

In so doing, COFI is significantly helping change the narrative on the strengths and needs of low-income parents of color, and the imperative of involving them fully and meaningfully in community, school, and systems change. COFI has demonstrated that the authentic voices, experiences, and perspectives of low-income parents of color can appreciably help move the needle in gaining social changes that can and will reduce racial inequality. For example, COFI trained parents were the first significant stakeholder group in the metro area to raise awareness that:

• No recess was harmful to children’s health and a barrier to their learning and social-emotional development
• Mainstream marketing and advertising was ineffective in reaching low income parents of color about child development and early learning, but parent-to-parent outreach was effective
• Low-income children of color were being pushed into the school to prison pipeline via zero tolerance a lot earlier than understood, beginning in pre-school pushout
• Low-income families of color were denied employment and often drowning in debt from noxious fees and fines they could not pay.
Once issues surfaced via the perspectives of low- income parents of color, COFI-trained parent leaders have consistently come up with practical, affordable policy solutions to problems once seen as intractable. Among them:
• Ambassadors, parent leaders trained in outreach who can go door-to-door and to laundromats, grocers, and clinics to help other parents gain access to resources of benefit to their children
• Parent leader seats on community collaboratives, municipal and state level family service and policy initiatives, as full decision-making partners with professionals
• Fee and fine repayment plans based on parent leaders’ research of best practices elsewhere

A final note: last year during a sixth-month period, COFI parent leaders received 168 invitations from think tanks, policy advocates, professional conferences, and provider groups to present their work or bring their perspectives on issues and solutions. Such demand affirms both the accomplishments to date of COFI as well as the need for its growth and sustainability.