Historic and current policies and practices designed to shut the door on Black, Latino, Asian, and Indigenous people also often shut out low income white communities. The reverse is also true: Policies and practices that increase access and opportunity in communities of color also tend to do so in low-income white communities when they are universally accessible.

At North Star, we draw heavily on john powell's groundbreaking approach, Targeted Universalism, in our work to identify and develop policy tools that can support progress for white, Black and brown communities. Targeted Universalism focuses the policy debate on measurable outcomes — both of specific communities and for our whole society.

Much of our focus is action-oriented research and policy development, but we also seek to build civic strength in our community as part of our mission. We recognize that intergenerational poverty weakens our democracy itself. Strengthening our democracy requires fostering a shared sense of belonging and connection in our community. We work to cultivate this sense of belonging and connection for everyone.

We bring our full selves to our learning related to racial equity and to building belonging in our community. We don’t view ourselves as experts or leaders in this space. We know that we have more work to do.

We observe that our community is learning and evolving, too — and that our engagement as a civic organization will both shape and be shaped by what’s happening in our community. We will take risks and may make mistakes. We hope that we’ll have the courage to find our humanity (and perhaps even some laughter) in those learning moments — and keep showing up with our full selves and full commitment

How we include racial equity in our research

RESEARCH

We trust data-supported solutions. We invest in research to bring new information to solution-oriented efforts. Within our research, we analyze impacts on equity over multiple generations, and across all races—white, Black, and brown—whenever possible. We recognize that many policy tools that create equal opportunity for people of color tend to also result in the broadest democratic participation and shared prosperity for the full community.

Our research team is led by Marina Kaminsky, a Honduran-American policy analyst with training in economics and a masters in public administration from the Evans School at the University of Washington. Marina’s research has focused on understanding how to support under-served and marginalized communities in both the United States and developing countries. Her experiences with research projects in academic, global NGO, and advocacy environments have clarified for Marina how bringing together different research modalities, including quantitative and qualitative research, can help policy groups and policymakers develop important — and sometimes surprising — policy insights, and lead to more effective and responsive policy solutions.

We recruit volunteer research teams that are intentionally diverse across race, gender identity, and age, and seek out feedback and guidance from community partners at every phase of a research project, from scoping to final presentation.

COLLABORATION

We believe that the most effective and promising new ideas arise from groups that are aligned around values of equity and belonging and bring diverse (even conflicting) perspectives and experience to the table. Our work relies on productive and collaborative relationships with leaders in business, labor, community advocacy groups, philanthropy, and elected leaders — all of which require a basis in trust around our approach to equity and belonging.

COMMUNICATIONS

We make our values clear. In our work and in the organizational spaces we create (our website, publications, office and social media), our values and our commitment to equitable outcomes and inclusive problem solving are clear and direct. In our communications, we talk about race and equity using the language of everyday people and avoid using academic or polarized jargon that creates confusion or an unproductive focus on terms.