 Welcome everyone. I'm Megan Dugan-Adel from New America, Chicago and I'm really pleased that you could join us today. We'll be sharing the results of a new report that provides new insights into how all of us together can help our city recover from the pandemic. And they are certainly generalizable to, you know, some other parts of the country as well for joining us from somewhere else. Mass mandates are ending and we're all really tired of hearing about COVID-19, I know. But for those of us who are focused on the future of our city and our country, we really don't have the luxury of ignoring the long-term impact that this pandemic has had. In particular on Black and Latinx communities, recovering economically requires that people have recovered enough to work at full capacity. And that really takes concerted support from community leaders and politicians and really everyone in our community together to help guide our work with the trust and we rise together to push for equitable recovery policy. New America, Chicago Commission, this report from DeCum to really listen to how the pandemic has affected several key Black and Latinx areas of the city, as well as to learn more directly from community members about what their communities and families need not to just recover but to thrive. So for the next 15 minutes, 25 minutes, we'll share more about the We Rise Together initiative, which is one of the most exciting recovery initiatives that I've ever encountered. We'll also learn about the findings and community priorities for recovery from our research partner DeCum. We'll share how this information will be used going forward, as well as share some analysis from the trust policy team about how recovery dollars have been spent, and where there are still opportunities for equitable recovery investment. Finally, we'll wrap with an open question and answer discussion session. So I'll turn it over now to my esteemed colleague, Gloria Castillo, who will share more about We Rise Together. The best part of the pandemic will come when we never say you're on mute again. Thank you, Megan. And thanks to all of you for joining us today. A very special thanks to those of you who helped promote or participated in the seven community conversations that provided the basis for this report. The voice of community is invaluable to our work. We Rise Together and the Chicago Community Trust were pleased to collaborate with new America Chicago to commission become to facilitate community conversations in the fall of 2021. We Rise Together is an accelerator towards equitable economic recovery to help ensure that the region and everyone who lives here is on track to reach its full potential. It's important that for the economy to recover, people must recover. And that's why everything we do is grounded in community. Our approach, and we'll pull up a slide just to make it a little bit easy for you to to kind of visualize that we rise approach. Our approach is to bring together philanthropy, business, community, nonprofit, and local government. What we'll see as squarely in the center is authentic community engagement. We leverage three intervention tools to advance change philanthropic investments, business practices and public practices and policies. Community conversations are one way community voices are helping to shape our strategy, but it's really only one way. We'll continue to facilitate community conversations as part of our ongoing evaluation of how we're doing. Your voice is also represented in our working groups alongside of business development finance and philanthropy. I just think it's really important that people read the report. It's very rich. And as we as we move on, my colleagues are going to go into detail and you'll learn so much more about this work. Thank you. Thank you, Gloria. And good afternoon, everyone. So my name is Gabriela Garcia. And with me is also my colleague Lisa Sargent. We're both community advocate and co-creators for a nonprofit organization that's located in Chicago called Become as has already been mentioned. And just really quickly Become is a movement building organization that facilitates authentic community leadership and co-create strategies and solutions to help communities actualize their collective liberation. And next slide. So our work is grounded in what we call culturally responsive practices where we partner with the people with the community of focus and we are aware and responsive to the surrounding context and culture of the of the projects that we work on. And so in a nutshell, that is how we approached this research, much more of course nuance and much more details in terms of the culturally responsive practices framework that grounds our work. And so the goal of this research, which actually began about a year ago, or at least the partnership with Become, began about a year ago in March of 2021. The goal was to provide an in-depth nuance understanding of how people living in Chicago neighborhoods that have been hardest hit by the pandemic, how they were affected by the pandemic, and in particular, in what ways were they affected financially. And so in partnership with the trust in New America, we worked on recruitment and outreach for the community conversations. And then between September and November of 2021, we virtually facilitated community conversations in the seven neighborhood areas that you see in this slide here. Next slide. And to help further frame who participated in these conversations, out of the 56 participants, close to half identified as African American black, and about a third identified as Latinx or Hispanic, also close to half of the participants identified as cisgendered women. And in terms of the household income, there was more of a variety there with the highest percentage being 24% and that representing participants who reported having an income between 50,000 and 74,000. Next slide. And so now I want to briefly talk through the six key findings that we learned from the community members, along with just echoing what Gloria said. I want to say or we want to say thank you again to all the organizations who supported with recruitment, who hopefully some are on this event listening in, and as well thank you to the residents who participated in the conversations. Who I also hope are here and learn and receive the report and read through it and just want to acknowledge just how much those conversations were filled with a lot of emotion, pain, loss, but also a lot of hope and resilience. So just want to acknowledge that. Next slide. Moving through the COVID-19 pandemic profoundly impacted or affected the emotional and well-being mental well-being of participants. And this was something that was heard loud and clear across all of the community conversations. Participants talked about feeling a range of negative emotions from fear and anxiety desperation and pure sadness, which were tied to living through things like physical isolation. Balancing working from home while at the same time taking care of family taking care of children, helping their children virtually learn. It would, it was also tied to not knowing what was going to happen next with the pandemic. And so here on this slide is one of the many powerful quotes from participants that we hope captures some of the distress that we heard that was being experienced. And so I'll go ahead and read it quote having to experience both seeing what's happening to people around you, people losing their life in retrospect was the hardest issue. It was a period of uncertainty. I never knew what was going to happen to the people I knew just being tied up and staying in the house all day was just miserable for me. And so this finding highlights that in order to holistically recover from the pandemic, the mental and emotional well-being of Chicago residents needs to be prioritized. And I know that's something that Gloria also mentioned as well. Next slide. The second insight elevates how the pandemic rocked the financial stability of participants. And so some of the stress and anxiety that participants talked about experiencing or even hearing about from loved ones or neighbors was also due to changes in employment. So things like temporary or permanent job loss, reduction in work hours or having their salaries cut. Participants also talked about doing what they could to make ends meet. And for some depleting their savings, taking out high interest bank loans, asking family members for money or working multiple and or low paying jobs. But it wasn't enough for participants as illustrated by this quote here. I experienced the hike in my water bill as well as my electricity tariff, considering the fact that I don't get even more from my job because I don't work more as I used to before the pandemic. It's quite difficult meeting up with these bills when the wages are not sufficient. And so this finding really emphasizes the nuances of employment during the pandemic in the sense that even as some were employed and they were working, it still wasn't enough to survive and make ends meet. Next line. So building on the second insight, this third insight really emphasizes how the pandemic greatly impacted the ability of participants to meet basic needs. So like having food to eat or a place to live in. Participants shared how they consistently worried about feeding their family or hearing about neighbors just going without meals and experiencing malnutrition. And all of this being exacerbated by the lack of local grocery stores or limited access to quality food in the neighborhood. But participants also acknowledged that how local organizations and churches were working hard to meet the need for food. And so here's a quote from an Austin resident who talked about working towards putting up fridges in the neighborhoods. And that through these efforts, quote, we've been able to help a lot of people. I remember seeing people with their bags ready while I'm stocking the fridge so they can get some food for themselves and their family. We launched more than a year ago and the demand is still there. We have 20 something fridges now. So and close and quote. And so in terms of the housing security, what we heard from participants was more around what they've seen with their neighborhood or in their neighborhood. So seeing people having to move in with family, seeing people or neighbors that they know having go from house to house trying to find shelter, or some neighbors having to move out of the city just because it just wasn't affordable to live in the city. Next slide. And so when we asked what in your neighborhood has been the most impacted by the pandemic, participants talked about first how local businesses, especially small owned businesses were the were one of the most impacted areas in their neighborhoods. Second participants also talked about how social life had changed due to the things like the restrictions to stay at home order, the fear of getting COVID and businesses closing. And so as echoed in this quote here on this slide, in my neighborhood life has changed from the social standpoint, because quite a quite a number of social activities that have been going on prior to the COVID-19 period has stopped. The crowd and the population we used to have in the malls have reduced in the cinemas have reduced even in churches. And so as COVID changed, changed and impacted the sense of community and sense of safety for some participants. Participants also noted seeing an increase in local crime. So things like carjackings, drug activity, gun violence. Next slide. The fifth insight draws attention to how being undocumented being an undocumented immigrant in the US intensifies the impact of the pandemic. And so it's important to remember that undocumented individuals live in constant fear of being deported or detained. And as a result, there's often a lot of fear or hesitancy with speaking up. And so this fear was really intensified during the pandemic. And so participants who live in Cicero and in Cicero or South Lawndale, which both have a large population of undocumented immigrants, shared how more and more employers are asking for citizenship status. So that's impacting employment opportunities for undocumented people. They also shared how undocumented individuals didn't receive a stimulus or weren't able to apply for other resources. And then they also talked about how undocumented people are having to come to terms with what this community member said on the slide, quote, I know that when you don't have a piece of paper to back you up for a job, you get paid less. But there are times when I tell the person, it's this or nothing. Yes, they are getting paid less, but at least it's a job. So while this finding only came up or this insight came up only within two of the neighborhood conversations, it's still crucial to attend to and thinking about what does it mean to develop an equitable recovery from the pandemic for the city of Chicago. Next slide. And last but certainly not least, amidst all the hardship participants acknowledged some silver linings from living through the pandemic. And this was something that was very prominent from the beginning of the conversations and throughout the conversations. Participants were able on their own to put things in perspective. And so as exemplified by this quote here, quote, I also believe that this pandemic has taught us to value each day. Every morning is a new opportunity because we don't know now we are living on the strength of a string with this pandemic and quote. And so it's important to continue to build on that strong commitment for survival and unity as shown by all of the participants here. And so with that, I'll turn it over to my colleague, Lisa Sargent, who's going to talk through the recommendations that came from the community conversation participants. Thanks, Gabby. So we really want to highlight and honor that these recommendations. Next slide please. That these recommendations did not come from us. They came directly from community residents. So this first side of suggestions here center on what individuals expressed they and their loved ones would need to significantly recover. One of the recommendations is for the city to work with businesses to provide employment opportunities for folks who either lost their jobs or had their work hours reduced. There is also a desire to help individuals successfully digitize their jobs, which would essentially help them shift their professional careers and skill sets into the digital space. By helping folks incorporate technology into their business operations or hosting trainings on setting up websites or other platforms so they can still work and thrive when in person is not a viable option. The second recommendation was providing financial support for folks at risk of losing their jobs. An example that folks provided was that the city could do a great deal in supporting individuals basic needs by mapping neighborhoods where low income folks are at greater risk of homelessness and providing them with emergency rental assistance. Financial counseling and guidance was also mentioned specifically trainings on budgeting, saving and investing. The fourth recommendation spoke to receiving financial assistance for fees associated with transportation for those who are required to go to work in person, as well as financial assistance for grocery delivery services for those who now work at home. The last recommendation here is a call for the city to increase awareness of resources that are already available for individuals and their families to tap into. And some examples that were given include childcare for parents returning to work and youth centered resources like apprenticeships and scholarships. Next slide please. So moving to recommendations for local businesses and organizations. This set of suggestions focuses on what participants, a few of whom were also business owners see as potential solutions to help their neighborhoods recover. So these recommendations here pretty straightforward, but they include tax breaks provided by the city, which was a huge recommendation that came up across our conversations. Another recommendation was offering free advisory services that are designed to really help business owners and staff talk through and solve some some challenges that they're facing in real time. Third recommendation voiced was providing grants and incentives that promote entrepreneurship, especially for new business owners. The next recommendation was around providing staffing support to meet the various needs of the community to ensure follow-up is done as they continue to service their communities through the pandemic. And a really important last recommendation here we heard was the need to invest in and build infrastructure for local businesses to collectively support and problem solve together. Now I'll pass it on to Chris and Wiggins to discuss how the We Rise Initiative will use these insights and recommendations to build sustainable movement forward. Thanks so much Lisa I really appreciate this we can go to the next slide if possible please. And, as you can see, and we'll take I'll take one more progression in the slide if possible. Thanks so much. I wanted to share how we had the opportunity to receive these recommendations back in the late fall, as soon as these conversations were finished and got to see really and read how the pandemic had affected our communities and was creating an ongoing impact for our communities. So, I'm just going to revisit as Gloria mentioned earlier today, we have three different levers of change we have philanthropy, we have our inclusive business practices and public policy. And through philanthropy we do grant making in three different areas we do grant making to spur development in under invested neighborhoods through what we call neighborhood anchor projects for strengthening small small businesses and businesses of color in communities that were hard hit by COVID. And we're working to increase quality resilient employment in those same communities. I'll go to the next slide. So I just wanted to share some examples of how we really read the conversations that were provided to us by become and the report provided us to us by become, and really dug into think about what should the implications be for our grant making what should we do to make sure that we're really honoring those insights from our community. So I'm going to give you three different examples of some projects that we funded that I think really demonstrate how we listened. The first is around our neighborhood investment grants. And these we've to date we've made $14.3 million in investment in 17 different projects that are spread through 13 different Chicago communities and one suburban Cook County location. These are all places that had really high COVID impact but have also been experiencing historic just investment for years. They're going to leverage a total of $191 million worth of investment in the same communities. And one of those examples is Esperanza health and pediatrics in West lawn. So this project came to us it's a it's a health center that is trying to expand on an existing pediatric clinic and one of the important ways that they wanted to expand was to make sure they were providing mental health opportunities for both kids and adults, but in the setting where you would get all of your other health care. So that meant the meant the stigma around receiving mental health can be diminished because you're at a regular clinic with with regular doctors and we're not differentiating between your physical health and your mental health and this was the real concept behind the build out of this project. We felt like it really honored what we heard which is that people need to recover emotionally mentally and physically in order for the economy to recover so we were excited to see this project come across our radar just as we had read these conversations and we're able to really think about how this honored that that intention of the community to the next slide if you would please. We've also done grant making around inclusive workforce and thinking about how to really make a resilient long term workforce that will really build build our economy in the long run but also help people in the short run. So having just read the conversations and we were putting together our request for proposal, one of the things we wanted to ask these different organizations that we're applying is, how are you supporting the whole needs of folks who are re re entering the workforce how are you really thinking about them as full people and Revolution workshop one of our one of the grantees and not round, really epitomized what it looked like to supply wrap around services in a way that was thoughtful. It's an organization that helps people enter the construction trades. But they really think about how to support folks who need flexible scheduling because maybe they have childcare issues or drop off issues. They provide financial literacy trading so people know what to do and how to use their money in a smart way. They also offer really easy on ramps and off ramps to their programs recognizing that people will have bumps in the road as they get back into the workforce. And so people can come and go and enter and exit the program as they need to. They provide coaching and mental health support services for everyone and they do this on an ongoing basis, not just during the project, but for the whole first year of a person sort of graduation. And we again we felt like this really honored that that learning that came out of these community conversations that it's going to take more than one thing and more than one kind of support to really help people get back into the full of the economy in a way that they can support their families in an ongoing basis. And I'll take the last slide here we want to give a one third example. I want to highlight what Gabby said about what we heard really around the sense that there is something lost in community and that sense of community where people just weren't out anymore and businesses were closing and people weren't walking around and it just changed the sense of the of how their community came together. And we wanted to think about some of those recommendations around supporting small businesses and local small businesses. And one of the projects we supported in the second round of neighborhood anchor grants is called out in comments in North Lawndale and on the out in comments is is a building that has health care businesses on the second and third floor, but the first floor is filled intentionally with retail to support community in community amenities, and to really create some foot traffic and a sense of vitality around that that street in North Lawndale and on the first floor of this building there's a new bank branch, there's a coffee shop, and there is a new locally owned restaurant called job grill. And so this is the kind of opportunity we think we'll start to bring people out back into the community walking around doing things that make the community feel both more vibrant but also just safer because there are more eyes on the street and more activity on the street. So one of the three examples we wanted to share back with everyone and that how we really used the information that we heard, and we will continue to use the information that we're hearing to make grants that really meet the needs of our community residents and community leaders. And I, one of the things I love about what you were talking about this. I, one thing I'd like people to know is that this work is a continuation of work that we did at the beginning of we rise together, where we released a report report called thriving after the pandemic that's on the new America website and we talked to leaders around the city, particularly in black and Latinx communities. And people said, like, we want a vibrant community like we want to live somewhere where we can walk places where we don't have to go miles and miles to get to entertainment and grocery store and you know just the basics of having a vibrant full life So I love that you guys are thinking about this. Thanks. No problem, thank you. With that I will turn it over to Yana Couturis from the trust. Thank you Megan. I'm Yana Couturis I lead the policy and advocacy work at the trust and do a lot of work related to relief and recovery in partnership with the we rise together team so really happy to be part of this conversation. And we wanted to talk a little bit about the potential that the federal dollars that are coming into the region present in actually meeting and addressing the needs that have been lifted up in the conversation community conversations and highlighted by Gabby and Lisa leading up to this portion of the conversation so if we go to the next slide. I want to present a little bit of a picture for folks about the federal funding that's coming into the region that can be used towards an equitable and inclusive recovery. And this slide is not yet been released but it's part of some data and analysis that the Urban Institute is doing for us and through a partnership that we have with them. That's looking at mapping where those federal dollars are going and how those federal dollars can be used. I want to share that because we hear a lot about the federal dollars that are coming in and there's a lot of money. Chicago was allocated almost $2 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act which is just one piece of what's presented here in those black bars, and the county received about $1 billion in the state and local fiscal relief and so these dollars actually present provide some more more flexibility than traditional federal funding flows. So there's an opportunity to really think more creatively about how to use those dollars. And, but there's, I want to note that there's also almost another $1 billion coming to Chicago, and about another 700 million coming to Cook County for things like transportation housing infrastructure workforce development etc. So we don't come with that flexibility but there are opportunities that it presents to really kind of leverage and to that end, if we go to the next slide. The trust, and we rise together and through partnerships that we have with grantees like New America we're really thinking about how do we leverage this once in a generation investment for more long term transformative change, and that responds to the needs that communities have identified. And we are really focusing our efforts at the trust, thinking about how can we support the coordination across all levels of government part of the challenge that that federal funding flows presents is that they're coming from myriad sources multiple layers of government, different funding programs and to achieve maximum impact, and to make sure that we're responding to community needs there needs to be a level of coordination there so how can we support that through our grant making through advocacy etc. And then using our voice in the platform that we have at the trust to really make sure that the communities that have been disinvested for generations, and that have been particularly hard hit in the pandemic, that those investments go to those communities and to those people those businesses, and those who are hardest hit by the pandemic and who have been most likely to be left behind in prior recoveries and certainly this recovery is different or this this recession is different than others but how do we make sure that Black and Latinx communities in particular are not left behind in the recovery. And so we ourselves in the are engaging in some advocacy, but to be able to do that we really want to understand how the city the county the state and the federal government are distributing those resources. So if we go to the next slide. We've spent a little bit of time mapping where those American Rescue Plan Act dollars are going mapping to the insights that were lifted up by Lisa and Gabby and the report and kind of bucketed them in a few areas. One around employment opportunities and we see that the city and the county and the state has already been doing some of the resource allocation, but how those dollars get distributed we really want to understand where those where we can help influence the conversation around how those dollars are administered because policy advocacy isn't just about passing legislation and a budget is of also about how those dollars are implemented. There's, you can read what's what's on the slide but really thinking about support for local businesses and the city has spent some time thinking about start shuttered into entertainment venues and we know those entertainment venues are critical for vibrant communities. And how do we make sure that those businesses and those struggling in the pandemic and to get, get off the ground again in the recovery have the resources the grants that are needed. And then finally we spent some time also advocating for the direct cash assistance programs that both the city and the county are now have now announced and are thinking about. And we've put on the advisory board with the city, along with several other folks to help advise how to design that cash assistance program and invest in evaluation efforts that will help us understand what we can learn from that pilot, and apply those lessons to other public assistance programs to reduce barriers and make sure that more people have what they need to be successful in life. And so I will pause there and head it over to me again. Thank you. Yeah, and I just want to fly for people these three buckets that you know it hasn't a slight employment opportunities support for local businesses and support for basic needs are kind of the buckets of policy recommendations that are in the report so those came directly from community and those were kind of that in summarizing what came from those community conversations, those are the three top buckets that people raised in the community conversations. I will briefly, some of you are not very familiar with New America, Chicago, and the work in America is doing in Chicago so I want to talk a little bit about that, why we're here what what our role is in this. But then I want to talk a little bit about what's next so what are opportunities for doing continue continued advocacy in this space. And at the, at the beginning of the pandemic or early on in the pandemic the trust asked us to help them as they developed we rise together and it's just been an incredible opportunity to really think really strategically and prioritize how recovery happens to make sure that it's equitable and a big part of our role in the early planning for we rise together was really continuing to elevate, which really started in 2020. Continuing to elevate community voice and sharing what's happening in different communities so that we're not just guessing based on what we see but we're taking a more holistic view and listening to multiple communities that may or may not have a voice in our, in our political processes and in our city. So this work really listening to communities and advocating for public change that works for people is really at the heart of what New America Chicago does and it's really at the heart of our work with the policy team with the honest team at the trust and with the rise together. So those of you for who aren't familiar with us just really quickly new America as a thinking do take. We do extensive work in civic cohesion democracy education global studies. And the new America Chicago works in two of our other verticals which are in the technology in the public interest and our family and economic security work. And we're really working closely with local community on issues of economic equity and particularly from a racial equity standpoint. We do original research that really explores innovative policy ideas, and we're really trying to make sure that our public policy and our public programs that are meant to support communities are really grounded in community voice. They're really grounded in the lived experience of residents and we usually use public interest and tech approach on some of those projects. One of the reasons that we worked on this is because a driving force behind our work is really creating better feedback groups between local communities and policymakers. I think all of us have seen ways that sometimes government programs and policies just don't work well when they come against the reality reality of people's lives. So we're bringing something called the new practice, which is modeled after user experience research and tech and design in the tech and design world to public policy. There's a number of sprints to help uncover pain points and solutions to improve access to different programs, like foster care and Rhode Island and fixing racial inequity that's baked into unemployment insurance. The partnership with you rise the trust and become represents one of the first projects in our new community policy team. And that joins work that we've done on trying to eradicate predatory lending in the Illinois in Illinois and Chicago, as well as trying to improve access to tax credits. So our goal is really to change the way that laws and government programs are designed in Springfield in Washington by starting with communities. It's a totally new policy design and delivery approach that's really grounded in the wealth of experience. It's already in our communities to make sure that government works better for people. Public policy works but only if it gets to people and so we find ways to open the gate or create other ways to access that support for people. So what's next. The research would become really allows us to peek into how recovery dollars are actually reaching communities because we did this research in the fall. You know, there's quite a bit of research or recovery dollars that have already come out. And we really heard that, you know, the stimulus checks and other supports, like the renter the moratorium on evictions and those kind of things did make a difference for people but there's still need and I think it can be really easy for those of us who are in white collar jobs to, you know, we still have our jobs and maybe we saved money during the pandemic. So for people who had to work out in the community, you know, some of them were too scared to go to work because they're afraid of getting sick, you know, others, maybe we're out of work if they were in the entertainment industry or in transportation. They might have been out of work for 10 months and that is very hard to come back from when you have when you're not earning a lot of money in the first place and you don't have a lot of resources. So, next slide. So I just want to before we switch over to question and answer I just want to flag for people like some of the key areas identified in the community conversations that residents and community members said, Listen, these are the things that we that people in our community still need to recover that we, you know, there's still a lot of challenges. So people still were looking for financial assistance and emergency funds. People were still struggling, you know, as people know a lot of mothers have left the workforce, people don't have a place to take their children. That's just, you know, they can't go back to work. So people still needed help with rental assistance that there were more homeless, you know, people who are really struggling with homelessness or we're on the on the verge of that. And that the increased costs from from inflation was making it really hard for people to pay basic costs and they're already behind they've already spent up their savings they've already run up their credit and so people don't have as much of a question. People also talked a lot about mental health support and how as Gabby talked about and I won't belabor that but just reminding people that people can't get back to normal and work at their best selves if they don't have help with that as well and we've all faced a lot and there's been a lot of trauma people faced. And then I won't go into detail on all these there. These are all in the report and also in our executive summary, but that we really need to think about how do we support undocumented individuals in our community that have that have really been hit extremely and then people are more open than ever to new technology and they're using technology to do things in new ways and so people were asking for help to be able to really capitalize that on that to start new businesses find work in new ways and really change the way that work happens so I think these are all really exciting things that as a community and I think I'm specifically thinking of policy advocates and people who work in the policy space these are things that we can be advocating for to really see change in our community and support these communities. So over the next few months we'll be working with we rise in the trust to make sure the findings from these conversations and get to the people to make the decision so for example right now. There are recovery dollars that haven't been allocated at the state level those budget negotiations are happening. Yeah, so we're working with the trust to get those lessons learned and policy recommendations out to state legislators and agency heads to make sure that this can inform how they allocate those dollars you can help with that by talking to your legislators. Over the next year will also be building out the infrastructure for our community policy work and we're looking for partners so please let us know if you're interested. And with that I want to turn it over to Maria for our question and answer. Thank you so much Megan and thank you for your leadership. Your, your work at New America is is incredibly impactful, and we depend on you for your very honest and forthright voice. It's so necessary to have someone who will always be ready to speak truth to power. I did have a question in the in the chat about tax breaks and and while we didn't hear specifically from community about, you know, kind of into the nitty gritty of the tax breaks. I am interested in just Yana if you could help us think a little bit about how, how do when we hear from community about what they need what does that look like when we make policy recommendations. Let's try the scenes a little bit because most of us don't know how that, how that might play out. So that's a good question and I don't think it's something that we do particularly well. But when we have an opportunity, like, for example, with the cash pilot I really want to applaud the city and the way that they've approached and that they've invited community members experts into a conversation about how best to design it so saying, so taking the conversation around okay we're going to give $500 a month to households to meet their basic needs, and how are we going to do that Well, when that really comes down to it, it is, you know, the cash is one thing but how do we also make sure that they have access to other supports and other access let's say the information around eviction prevention and things like that. So making sure that that perspective is considered as we are designing who is able to participate in a pilot like that, recognizing that undocumented folks in particular are not able to avail themselves of things like the economic impact pain that came very early in the pandemic cash that came from the federal government, or the child tax credit assistance those kinds of programs are not available to undocumented folks. So making sure that where those dollars can be flexible, making sure that undocumented folks are part of that pilot eligibility. So setting those tables making sure that you're hearing from folks in the community as you're developing or considering legislation or lots of pieces of legislation that are out there right now in Springfield thinking about how do we meet folks need child care is another one there are a couple of proposals out right now to expand child tax, the child tax credit at the state level as the federal expansion has lapsed and making sure that as that legislation is written that it considers who the eligibility and the way that families need that cash assistance or that that child tax credit to hit their bank account when those when those child care bills come in and so really looking at that legislation and so Megan made it mentioned another how to make sure that your legislators are hearing from you, and really thinking about it so there's there's there's multiple ways that we can make sure that community voices in the conversation. Thank you and I think one important thing is that we all need to realize that at this inflection point in the recovery. We're all learning. We're working as quickly as we can, but we all continue to learn. And I think it was interesting Megan that you looked at a number of currently critical needs, and we rise is really designed to look at how, how will we be resilient when the next economic crisis hits. We know that the economy is cyclical, we will come out of this crisis will get strong and then another crisis will hit. But what we've seen over decades is that the same communities get hard hit hard over and over again so we are really thinking about. Yeah, fortunately the trust has the capacity to along with many other funders to look at current critical needs, and we rise is trying to think about how do we become more resilient in our communities over the long run. Kristen, you mentioned that community voice was important as you selected the projects or as we as a as a group in our grant review team selected but could you talk a little bit about how you thought about constructing the, the request for proposal. I mean, really from the beginning of the stage to to ensure that what we heard was reflected in the proposals will be received. That was really an intentional component after we had a chance to read the community conversations. And I really did sit down and think, Alright, what is community saying that they need and so how do we elicit that response from the nonprofit community that will be applying for this so I think I mentioned you know when the questions are how are you planning to holistically support applicants for jobs or people reentering the workforce. We actually did ask questions like are your funds available for folks who are undocumented and if not what's the plan to try to make sure that those folks can also use your services. We liked some of the things we looked for in responses were these connections to other basic needs providers so recognizing that not everyone who does workforce training can also do be a basic needs provider, but they can help create those links. Between the folks that are coming in through their doors, and the folks that need that support for basic needs so we did ask questions to try to tease out where those connections to other social service providers in the ecosystem were also. The other thing is I just want to highlight that this is not a one and done kind of thing where we listened to one time and we're going to just keep using that same information going forward. We've really designed we rise together to make sure that we have places where we hear back from community and multiple different ways at multiple different intervals whether or not it's through our working groups that are built around some of our businesses, whether or not it's our upcoming partnership with map core to have the youth go out into communities and ask questions on an ongoing basis. There is, there is continued work that we're going to be doing so that as we develop more RFPs were building and listening and listening for changes right listening for how the economy is changing how the recovery is changing. And I sat here about a year ago we kind of thought we would be at a different place six months after that and so you know we've maybe stopped trying to just predict where we're going to be, and instead build a really good system for listening to community and being nimble to be to be responsive to what we hear. Thank you Kristen and speaking of listening to community. Dr Garcia and Lisa you are critical in this in Chicago in helping many organizations listen to community. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're seeing across the city, how are people really, you know, particularly in the wake of George Floyd's murder I think people determined that it was more important than ever that we are intentional about listening to community about where their pain points are and also where their hope is. What are you seeing that maybe you didn't see a year ago. And I'll start with Lisa and then come to Dr Garcia. Are you able to unmute Lisa. Not quite yet. All right, how about if we switch that up and we go with Dr Garcia first and then Lisa you'll have time to get come up with you. So your question was in terms of what are we seeing now with community engagement versus what we weren't seeing before. I think I can I can also speak in relation to our evaluation and research work where we're seeing that community engagement be such an important and critical component to to the work that we do right and being more mindful and I think something that there was a lot of learning with something that we did it's in the report but we didn't mention during the presentation is being really intentional about hosting community conversations in Spanish right and then having those resources in order to be able to do that from the beginning from the recruitment from the development of the protocol. All the way to facilitating the conversation to having it translated transcribed I mean and then working through how are we going to disseminate this both in English and Spanish right so I think that's definitely I think something that we're becoming much more mindful of the importance of those paying attention to the different languages and I think I mean the the other thing that comes to mind that was also the facilitating these conversations in in virtually right and what that meant in terms of engagement and thinking of you know who who we didn't hear from versus who we did hear from and how that would be different and we were able to do those in person or not in person. But we're definitely I think seeing a much more intentional awareness of the power of community and that communities have the solutions to the challenges that they face right and so we're seeing a lot more of those organizations being attentive to that and prioritizing that within research strategic planning evaluation. And so yeah I don't know please if you want to add anything else to that. I would also say being flexible in our outreach and engagement strategies. So knowing that even though most will initially these conversations were supposed to take place in person really doing that shift making that shift thinking about should it be hybrid should it be virtual and thinking about safety choosing these to be flexible. When it came to the outreach there are a lot of folks that did not have email or there were older folks, participants that were using family members emails. So really making sure that we're trying to touch point, whether it was like fires in the community, or it was me texting folks and making those calls instead. We just really were flexible in terms of how we were engaging with folks in a digital space for those already a divide. We do have a question in the chat that I'm not, you know I'm not sure exactly who's going to have the right set of expertise to to respond to this but it's it's really about how do we connect workforce and housing, so that those who are living in particular communities have new opportunities and so I'll ask if anybody wants to speak to that specifically, but then I'll turn to, to Kristen to talk a little bit about how we're layering our anchor investments, our workforce investments, along with our small business to to help to transform communities. So I'll just start with. Does anyone have a real clear picture of a table where workforce and housing are working together. If not, we'll try to find that information. In the Chicago Jobs Council has a lot of different working groups and I think that sometimes there are housing providers that are kind of doing dual duty so that might be a good place to start. But I don't, I can't think offhand of like a specific table where it's housing and job development working together workforce development. So that's an important, it's an important point and here's another opportunity for us to listen carefully about something that perhaps needs to be coordinated in the near future. Kristen, can you speak to the kind of layered approach that we rise is taking. Absolutely. And we recognize that no single grant changes community or changes the trajectory of the economic recovery it requires that the these communities be coordinated and be layered together. So in the places where we're making neighborhood anchor investments which are our real estate community facility investments. We're going back and looking for opportunities to layer in support for the workforce, and, and, and, and, you know, good jobs and preparing people to get connected back to the workforce and those same communities. And again and looking for opportunities for the existing businesses to grow or to nurture the small businesses that are there or to support small businesses as they try to get into space or or to buy the space that they're renting. And so it's all those things together. And we are, we are doing some working groups in three different communities to build out that conversation but we're also looking for places that have existing tables where they're having those conversations about how these things intersect already to build off the work that folks are already doing so I know there are some communities that have made the connection between housing and workforce and there's some communities where maybe that table doesn't exist. But I think it's a great point to keep asking how do we knit these initiatives together how do we bring together the variety of investments to make sure that they're all pulling in the same direction and building and one another. But we've got about three minutes left and so I'm going to take the prerogative to ask one final question of Dr Garcia. Dr Garcia you mentioned that there was hope in the community as you even began the conversations. And I would just wonder of, as you went through the conversations, what struck me as giving you the greatest hope for the future and seeing the resilience of our members of our community. You said what struck me sorry you cut off there for a little bit so struck me as as the most helpful as the most helpful. I think I'm honestly what comes to mind is there was one participant who talked about seeing the humanity really throughout this pandemic and that really stuck with me in terms of really the importance throughout these conversations that we heard about the importance of just we're all human beings trying to get through this pandemic. Right. And so we need to support each other, regardless if you're undocumented regardless if of your color of your skin right like we're all human beings in this together. And we need to do what we can to support one another. And that really struck me is that, you know, as they talked about losing family and friends, this fear of getting infected which all resonates with me right. I have a three year old son who I'm constantly worried about him just getting sick. And, but I think that's what just the importance of, yes, you're like it's just so important to keep in mind just the humanity and all this and that we just have to help each other out and continue to help one another out whether that's I know there was some community members who talked about themselves cooking for their neighbors in order to provide them with food and meals right and so little things like that when you help, you know, somebody you help everybody in your community and so I think that's what that particular person and her and she without a lot of prompting that she mentioned that I think it was like an icebreaker at the beginning of the conversation and that's something that she just naturally brought up and I was like, wow, that's something really important to positivity right and the possibilities that are out there. You know, amidst all this that's that was going on that's still going on but yeah, thanks for that question. Well, thanks to all of our speakers today, it's, you know, an important conversation, and to all of the participants. Your, your insights, your knowledge of what can really help communities thrive is what motivates all of us to continue to do our work and really thank each of you for for your contribution to our work. Have a wonderful rest of your afternoon. I think that's it.