Equitable Engagement Plan will guide board outreach efforts in coming years

The Waite Park Community Council has completed a draft plan that will guide the board’s efforts to improve community engagement with historically underrepresented populations in the neighborhood.

As part of the City of Minneapolis's Neighborhood 2020 Program, each neighborhood is allocated funds to support projects and programs that engage communities with a focus on equity (known as the Equitable Engagement Plan, or EEP). 

A team of WPCC board members has been working on the plan, and we have been focused on how WPCC can facilitate better community engagement within the neighborhood, specifically with historically underrepresented populations in Waite Park. Throughout the process we have asked who is missing from the conversation and how we can involve those voices so our EEP reflects all of our neighbors.

The committee met weekly to discuss the plan and held two public meetings to hear from neighbors about what's on their mind and how we can listen. We submitted the draft EEP to the City on September 1 and have since been updating the EEP with suggestions and more neighbor input.

The draft Waite Park EEP seeks to engage renters, age 55+, and Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. This will be done through surveys and focus groups for each demographic. The demographics were chosen based on census data and input from a neighborhood meeting held on Aug. 17. 

WPCC initially included (as a group for outreach) folks who get around through transportation methods other than cars but was advised by the city to integrate this in with the other demographics groups that will be included in the EEP. WPCC still needs to determine a contractor to conduct a survey and focus groups as well as analyze the data. This will be done at a later date.

WPCC will submit it's final draft to the city by October 15 and funds will be dispersed on January 1, 2022. Neighbors can share insights on implementation of the EEP by emailing WPCC and attending WPCC meetings.

—Megan Ausen