Nonprofit
Mission Award for
Advocacy
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Criteria
This
award recognizes advocacy as one of the most effective
and unique roles of nonprofit organizations. Nominated
organizations should:
- Implement
an effective advocacy strategy;
- Demonstrate
success in its advocacy efforts; and
- Have
a significant impact on the organization's constituency.
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Finalists
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Finalist
Profiles
Brain Injury Association of Minnesota
The Brain Injury
Association of Minnesota is dedicated to enhancing the
quality of life and bringing the promise of a better tomorrow
for all people affected by brain injury.
Three years
ago, the Mayo Clinic Traumatic Brain Injury Model System
(TBIMS) asked the Brain Injury Association of Minnesota
to take the lead role of the Minnesota Advocacy Project
(MAP), a pilot project funded by a federal grant awarded
to the Mayo Clinic. The idea behind MAP was to create
a comprehensive program that provided mentoring to individuals
interested in becoming advocates for brain injur issues.
MAP participants train to be self-advocates, advocates
for others and community organizers to maximize personal
access to quality services, increase public awareness
of brain injury issues and solutions, and affect change
within their community and state. MAP participants are
required to attend four bi-monthly weekend training seminars
as well as the Brain Injury Association of Minnesota’s
Brain Injury Basics 1 class.
Participants completed field
assignments designed to teach advocates how to navigate
public policy and advocacy specific to brain injury, and
ended their training with a mock hearing at the State
Capitol in which actual legislators provide real legislative
setting for trainees to apply their skills.
The MAP pilot
program proved successful. It was able to provide enough
information during the first phase to expand the project
further. The project, now called the Midwest Advocacy
Project, seeks to identify the most effective methods
of imparting advocacy skills to individuals after brain
injury, their families and significant others and disseminate
these methods to Brain Injury Associations and other nonprofit
organizations nationwide. In addition, the project now
includes the Brain Injury Assocaiations in Iowa and Wisconsin.
The Midwest Advocacy Project looks more closely at advocacy
training and facilitated support groups as community interventions
and will attempt to measure the effectiveness of this
advocacy training model. It will also assess the clinical
trial’s impact on advocacy skills and advocacy activities
of individuals and the broader population in each state.
 Another of
the Association’s successes is its work with Traumatic
Brain Injury (TBI) and inmates in the Minnesota Department
of Corrections, on the TBI in Correctional Facilities
project. The project, which has a three-point goal of
screening for TBI in the corrections population, educating
corrections staff, and developing intervention and release
strategies, found a high percentage of Minnesotan inmates
that experienced a TBI prior to incarceration: 82 percent.
By developing a brain injury training curriculum for correctional
staff on the local, county, state, federal and tribal
levels, along with parole officers, police officers, lawyers
and other professionals who may interact with offenders,
the Association has made great advances in the treatment
of inmates with TBI.
The Association’s
central role is to directly provide education about brain
injury, information on services available, and connect
individuals to community-based health resources and organizations.
These two projects exemplify its achievements in providing
a voice to those with brain injury and their loved ones.
Brain
Injury Association of Minnesota Web site: www.braininjurymn.org
Minnesota
State College Student Association
The Minnesota State College Student Association
(MSCSA) works to ensure accessible, quality and affordable
public higher education while providing students with
representation, leadership development and communication
across the state of Minnesota. MSCSA represents over 100,000
students that attend the 46 public two-year community
and technical colleges of the Minnesota State Colleges
and Universities System—the largest population of
nontraditional students in the state.
MSCSA
advocates on behalf of students on both the state and federal
level. As the costs of post-secondary education have gone
up, many people have found it increasingly difficult to
further their education. Since 2003, tuition has gone up
over 100 percent within the MnSCU system. By limiting the
increase to four percent last year and two percent this
year, MSCSA successfully made the student voice heard at
the Capitol and within the Legislature and the MnSCU board
of trustees.
Students
made the case of why it’s so important to keep Minnesota
tuition increases low, shared stories of student debt and
spoke of students who aren’t making it to college
or have to drop out because they can’t afford it.
Due to their efforts, tuition increases for 2007-08 and
2008-09 were the smallest they have been in more than a
decade, despite a massive budget deficit of nearly a billion
dollars.
Another major MSCSA achievement is a
$500,000 appropriation to create pilot programs to reduce
the costs of textbooks. For some students, textbooks are
a huge expense, costing upwards of $500 each semester.
MSCSA students worked with textbook publishers and constituents
to lead the charge on the topic. Though textbook publishers
sent lobbyists from Washington, D.C., to kill the bills,
the students drafted the language, lobbied and fought
for the legislation, which included pilot programs like
rental programs, educational strategies and used book
exchanges.
 Additional MSCSA accomplishments include
protecting student privacy rights from automatic disclosure
of sensitive information and lobbying for two-year college
access to the MnSCU revenue fund in order to gain additional
funds for student facilities, such as student unions and
residence halls. Finally, MSCSA successfully lobbied to
include language to return the state to the “two-thirds,
one-third” funding formula for public higher education
within the next eight years, calling for state funding
of two-thirds of instructional costs and funding of one-third
from tuition.
MSCSA’s success has shown that students
can be effective advocates. Participation in MSCSA leadership
development trainings, civic engagement efforts and advocacy
efforts has increased dramatically since the group’s
initial successes. Whether meeting with administrators
about tuition on their campuses or testifying at the capitol,
students are increasingly becoming their own best advocates.
Minnesota
State College Student Association Web site: www.mscsa.org
Transit Partners
The Transit Partners coalition is a diverse
alliance of organizations that joined together to call
for a new direction in Minnesota transportation policy:
a balanced transportation system supported by a reliable
source of funding for transit. Convened by Transit for
Livable Communities (TLC), Transit Partners is a diverse
coalition of the following business, environmental, faith,
labor and transportation groups: Alliance for Metropolitan
Stability, Amalgamated Transit Union: Local 1005, Fresh
Energy, ISAIAH, League of Women Voters Minnesota, Minnesota
Center for Environmental Advocacy, Minnesota Environmental
Partnership, Minnesota Public Transit Association, Minnesota
Senior Federation, Sierra Club: North Star Chapter, and
Transit for Livable Communities. Together, the coalition
has a statewide reach with tens of thousands of constituents.
 Until recently, the Legislature funded
one new transit line at a time and TLC was concerned that
a population influx would create problems for the current
transportation system. TLC believed there was a significant
need to secure funding for a transportation system that
would address its concerns about economic competitiveness,
climate change and traffic congestion but would also connect
the Twin Cities region and shape communities that residents
are proud to call home. TLC convened the Transit Partners
coalition in 2003 and introduced the “Transportation
Choices 2020” initiative at the state Legislature
in 2004. The initiative was designed to fully fund a region-wide
transit system that would include eight new transitways
(i.e. light rail, commuter rail and express buses) and
would double bus ridership. Using examples of other similar
initiatives across the country, the coalition recommended
using a region-wide sales tax to fully fund the transit
system upfront.
To accomplish its goals, the diverse group
of partners created a broad-based, grassroots network
of residents committed to take action on transportation
decisions that would impact their communities. Today they
number nearly 10,000 people.
 The end result of the Transit Partners
coalition was a groundbreaking, bipartisan victory for
a balanced transportation system during the 2008 Legislative
Session. Broad-based support from diverse constituencies
ensured that the bill included a 1/4 cent region-wide
sales tax dedicated solely toward transit, which will
generate approximately $100 million per year for transit
needs across Minnesota, including those defined in the
initiative and others like a new Park & Ride facility
and providing revenue to local governments for bicycle
and pedestrian projects. The Central Corridor light rail
transit line received $70 million in state funding, which
helps ensure that the project remains competitive for
federal matching funds and can open on time in 2014. Transit
Partners’ ultimate goal is a transit system that
truly connects Minnesota, ensuring that the great majority
of residents have alternatives to driving.
Changing Minnesota’s transportation
patterns to include more opportunities to take transit
will create jobs, stimulate our economy and help address
air quality, water quality and wetland protection issues
in our state. Increasing transit options will reduce car
travel in the region by one million miles by 2020, helping
to protect Minnesota’s great quality of life that
is the ongoing mission of the Transit Partners.
Transit
Partners Web site: www.tlcminnesota.org/Events/2007/Legislature/TC2020/TC2020TransitPartners07.html |
