Revitalizing Civic Engagement through Racial Equity

Collaborative governance—or “co-governance”—offers a model for shifting power to ordinary people and rebuilding their trust in government. Co-governance models break down the boundaries between people inside and outside government, allowing community residents and elected officials to work together to design policy and share decision-making power. Cities around the world are experimenting with new forms of co-governance, from New York City’s participatory budgeting process to Paris’s adoption of a permanent citizens’ assembly. More than a one-off transaction or call for public input, successful models of co-governance empower everyday people to participate in the political process in an ongoing way. Co-governance has the potential to revitalize civic engagement, create more responsive and equitable structures for governing, and build channels for Black, brown, rural, and tribal communities to impact policy-making.

Still, co-governance models are not without challenges. The hierarchical and ineffective nature of our current governing structure is difficult to transform. Effective collaboration between communities and politicians requires building lasting relationships that overcome deep distrust in government. So far, effective models of co-governance tend to be local and community-specific—making it critical that we share stories of success and brainstorm ways to scale.

In this series, we share stories of co-governance in practice. For this interview, New America’s Hollie Russon Gilman, Sarah Jacob, Amy Eisenstein, and Alexander Fung spoke with D’Artagnan Scorza, Executive Director of Racial Equity at the Chief Executive Office (CEO) of Los Angeles (LA) County, about equity and community engagement. Scorza currently lectures in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. In 2008, he founded the Social Justice Learning Institute and served as its Executive Director until 2020. He also served on the Inglewood School Board from 2015 to 2020. Scorza earned a PhD in Education from UCLA in 2013. He also served as a personnel specialist in the U.S. Navy between 2001 and 2006, completing a tour of duty in Iraq.

Could you please share a little bit more about your background and how you began working with this innovative office? We would love to hear how you think about your work and engaging with stakeholders.

Absolutely. I come to the County having worked in the community and having founded a nonprofit organization. I have also served as an elected official and as an appointed official on the University of California Board of Regents and on the school board in Inglewood Unified School District. I also served in the military for five years, and after 14 years of working on various health, educational, and economic justice initiatives, I decided to transition from my nonprofit role and scale-up many of the successful efforts I engaged in prior to the County. I learned early on that my purpose in life would be dedicated to help improve conditions and outcomes for folks who come from my community. Although I grew up with many of the socioeconomic challenges that we see in our communities today, I wanted to bring an equity-based and anti-racist framework to the work that I had done in my organization and, subsequently, here in government.

In July 2020, after the death of George Floyd, the Board of Supervisors passed a motion to create an organizational unit and initiative within the CEO’s office to help guide the county’s commitment to fighting against structural racism and bias in all of its forms. As a result, they created an Anti-Racism, Diversity, and Inclusion (ARDI) Initiative to address these issues.

The County declared that racism is a matter of public health—especially for African-Americans—but more broadly for many communities within the county. ARDI has done a lot of incredible work to bring people together to develop a strategic plan, which centers on improving life outcomes and developing strategies to improve conditions throughout LA County.

Within the county, ARDI is helping to facilitate equitable resource investments and program design; the integration of anti-racist principles within our recruitment, hiring, and promotional practices; advancing inclusion and belonging within the workplace; and advocating for equity in policies. The Board of Supervisors directed the CEO and my office to help support the implementation of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) by applying an equity lens and an equity funding formula. Our direction was to support our departments and their ability to make sure that those dollars went to those who were most impacted by the pandemic.

The Board wanted to ensure that ARP funds were used to address the needs of communities that have been historically divested in.

Could you speak more about how this fits into the county’s governance structure?

ARDI lives within the CEO’s office. The CEO has authority over the County’s budget, has day-to-day operational management, and carries out the Board’s directives.

How do you think about community engagement, and how do you work with folks who may rightfully feel distrustful of the government after negative experiences?

In Los Angeles County, where there are more than 10 million residents; it takes a lot of effort to reach everyone. We have 38 departments, many that have multiple programs or projects. We’re trying to target outreach for specific communities and address disparities. For example, we want to use data to help close the digital divide or coordinate to offer laptop rentals at County libraries or Wi-Fi access through the Parks Department. Another way we do this is through hosting community events and bringing people together in places like community-based organizations to build partnerships. Our departments have aimed to tailor their community outreach efforts to specific groups that need those programs in addition to a generalized outreach approach.

On the CEO ARP website, we increased the level of transparency by sharing which programs are being funded and who they serve. We also created a digital dashboard where members of the community can identify program designs and the languages with which residents can access services.

Our communications team developed a hyperlocal ethnic media outreach campaign where they’ve hosted multiple media briefings for foreign-language media members to attend. The CEO offered translation and live transcription to enable members of the media to ask questions in their native languages and communicate as trusted media outlets helping the community receive information. In addition to targeted outreach, there is county-wide branding for the ARP, and the CEO communications team publishes information on program grants, contracts, and services.

Finally, we developed a grants management system enabling various departments to submit their program designs into a centralized system where they detail their community engagement plans. For example, if a department hosts town halls and community meetings, the system helps them report on their efforts. Departments are also able to report on their efforts drawing from previous Board reports, ongoing outreach efforts, and studies focused on the populations most in need of resources and/or services. Depending on the program, some departments hired technical assistance providers to help them conduct outreach in communities and to make sure that people have adequate access to programs and services. Finally, our departments are working to expand language access and offer programs in various languages.

Can you tell me more about your participatory mapping?

ARDI developed the equity explorer mapping tool to ensure that the funds allocated under the American Rescue Plan Act were equitably distributed. This tool allows users, primarily County department program leads and others, to locate the geographical areas within the County with the highest need, using a variety of measures including poverty, COVID vulnerability, homelessness, CalFresh use/eligibility, child welfare cases, and so forth.

Since the tool is primarily used to assist with the delivery of place-based services and investments (i.e., to identify areas with medium, high, and highest concentration of households in need), one of the gaps that we are looking to address is around non-geographically concentrated communities, which include American Indian, Pacific Islander, and certain immigrant communities. As such, our participatory mapping project is about understanding the needs of non-geographically concentrated populations so that we can develop strategies to better deliver resources and services to these communities. This project involves collaborating with residents to determine the indicators that will help us identify the communities in which these families and individuals are located. Our end goal is to augment the County’s Equity Explorer tool with the information we obtain from this project so that we can enhance the use of the tool and ensure that all communities have access to the County’s resources.

How do you work to address disparities?

We’ve worked hard with our departments to ensure that they are embedding Guiding Equity and Budget Principles in their program designs and set goals that close disparities. Departments have to identify their own equity principles that serve as guideposts to help them know whether we’re headed in the right direction. For example, our departments go beyond saying that they, “want to run a program for elder nutrition.” Instead, they’re asking questions like, “Okay, who are the elders that need the support the most? Where are they located? How can we use our resources to target the needs of those who are most impacted by the pandemic or most disparately impacted? How can we make sure we’re addressing population-level outcomes for folks who are dealing with inequities within their communities?” Because the departments know they will be evaluated at the end of their programs on the basis of the principles and goals they selected, they are committed to demonstrating the efficacy of the work.

What are you all doing very well, and where do you think others trying to do this work miss the mark?

The work we’re doing to operationalize equity is incredibly important. It’s often an area where I believe there is a need to deepen skills within the field. Sometimes, there are pronouncements about what equity practitioners need to do to advance our priorities, but in practice those pronouncements don’t always translate into meaningful organizational change. Instead, we incorporate changes in policies, practices, and procedures to enable departments to deliver their programs in an equitable way. This looks like changes in the program budget strategy, use of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data for outreach and recruitment, and modification of the program application procedures so that we eliminate unnecessary questions and burdensome barriers.

Is there anything else you want to share with us?

It is incredibly essential to involve people with lived experiences and to co-create solutions with the people who are most impacted by the problems we face in our communities.

One question that I sometimes get is: What if people don’t want to show up to co-create solutions? I sometimes hear that people are tapped out from being asked to participate in collaboration with the government, and that is sometimes true.

However, if we want people to show up, we need to make sure their time is compensated. We need to provide food, day care, language services, and support to ensure that people can participate and that our spaces are accessible. We should not assume that people should show up to carry out activities just because we ask them to. Instead we should compensate their time and partner to ensure that we implement the feedback we receive.

The bottom line is that by listening to folks in our communities, we can co-create solutions that improve people’s lives.

We would like to thank D’Artagnan Scorza, Amy Eisenstein, and Alexander Fung for their incredibly helpful comments and editing support. Thank you also to Jodi Narde, Joe Wilkes, and Kelley Gardner for their communications support. This would not have been possible without them.