Proposal detail and background

The Council approves $40,000 in ongoing funding to educate all City of Minneapolis enterprise employees about systemic racism and white supremacy culture, how it manifests in and outside of the workplace, and how to create a more inclusive environment for staff of color, as well as a more racially equitable city for Minneapolis residents. Funding will go towards community engagement and supporting curriculum facilitation.

Description of the change

The Racial Equity Curriculum will be a first of its kind, anti-racism training for enterprise employees. The recommended funding includes $5,000 to support the engagement of community members during the design phase. While the bulk of the curriculum content will come from the Race and Equity team, we want to make sure to tailor the content to be community specific to assist enterprise staff to tailor their knowledge and skills to fit the community. The additional $35,000 of funding will go towards contracting for the facilitation of the curriculum for enterprise employees.

The following steps will be performed upon receiving this funding:

• Consulting existing frameworks
• Identifying learning resources (articles, books, etc.)
• Developing each unit and the facilitation guide
• Allowing community members to provide input on the training
• Amend the units based on feedback
• Reach out to possible facilitators
• Secure facilitators
• Develop training schedule with facilitators
• Implement training
• Evaluate training

Equity impacts and results

This ongoing funding will reduce racial disparities based on anecdotal data. City of Minneapolis staff will be impacted by the training. It will be important to collect racial demographic data for training attendees, as well as what department attendees work in. This training will foster a more inclusive and hospitable environment for staff of color, and therefore aid in their retention at the enterprise. Additionally, employees can take the knowledge from this training and apply it to their everyday work, which ultimately impacts Minneapolis residents. Stakeholders have not been consulted at this stage, however, stakeholder engagement—particularly will communities of color—is a priority during the development of the curriculum.

Goal: Enterprise staff are provided with skills and knowledge to participate in active anti-racist ways

Objective:

• Enterprise staff complete the full curriculum.
• Departments engage in a resetting of stated department mission values.

Metric:

• Percent of quality REIAs submitted by enterprise staff.
• Black staff retention/promotion rates.

Proposal detail and background

The Council approves $30,000 in ongoing funding to support a wide range of events and activities during Black Business Week. August is the national Black Business Month. Economic recovery and small business development is critical for thriving neighborhoods and communities. Activating, uplifting and investing in black businesses and connecting these businesses to programs and resources is critical to their success.

Description of the change

In 2022, the City of Minneapolis is hosting its second annual Black Business Week event through the support of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding. This recommended ongoing funding will allow the City to continue hosting this annual event on an ongoing basis. The Minneapolis Black Business Week Kick Off Summit and other Black Business Week events takes place during the last week of July, calling attention to and support for the nationally recognized Black Business month in August.

These events will focus on business retention by providing technical assistance, prioritizing black/ minority owned business and entrepreneurs, engaging youth and immigrant communities in workforce opportunities, and assisting with inclusive economic solutions that will reimage public spaces to include black business; support black businesses/entrepreneurs and celebrate black businesses/entrepreneurs success.

Equity impacts and results

While there’s been growth in black entrepreneurs and businesses over the years, these business owners still face disproportionate inequalities that hinders their abilities to gain financial support, receive equal wages, and find employment within their local communities. Between February and April of 2020, Black business ownership dropped more than 40% due to lack of access to financial relief and funding during the COVID-19 pandemic. Systematic inequalities have hindered Black Americans for decades and as a result, the wealth and wage gap between Black and white families is vast.

Goal: Provide tools and resources to Black owned business to support their economic growth and sustainability.

Objective:

• Provide access to resources to help launch, sustain, and grow local Black businesses.
• Provide opportunity for Black Businesses to connect with local leaders.
• Provide opportunity for Black businesses to network with City and other vendors.
• Activate Cultural District small businesses.
• Share up to date information and resources with residents, entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, and Black business owners.

Metric:

• Number of events.
• Event attendance.
• Number of businesses engaged.
• Number of surveys completed.

Proposal detail and background

The Council approves $197,608 in ongoing funds to be used for the design of the Minneapolis Equity Report, and the expansion of technical support and management of the SREAP and REIA processes. This change will immediately make the REIA and SREAP programs more functional and effective for all enterprise staff.

Description of the change

The Annual Minneapolis Equity Report will provide the enterprise and community with an annual measure of equity in the city. While the enterprise has varying levels of control over certain racial equity domains, all our work exists within the same system and therefore it is necessary for us to take a wholistic view of equity in all domains. The $30,000 operating budget designated for the report will fund the design, printing and distribution of the report.

Expanded REIA and SREAP technical support and management is necessary to increase the effectiveness of these two programs. SREAP and REIA’s are arguably the two most valuable tools for producing racially equitable work, enterprise-wide but as they are currently existing, we are not maximizing their potential. $40,000 annually will allow for the development of tools to streamline these programs and better measure their effectiveness. The additional FTE for both REIA and SREAP management and support, will move the division and enterprise closer to being staffed at levels that will provide all departments with the support that they need to consistently provide high quality REIA’s and SREAP updates, that will in turn allow us to better hold ourselves accountable to our racial equity goals.

Equity impacts and results

This ongoing funding will reduce racial disparities based on anecdotal data. In the immediate, enterprise staff will be impacted as they receive unprecedented support towards creating actively anti-racist policies, programs, and budget items. Following this upcoming year, we will have access to an expanded ecosystem of racial equity metrics, that will better inform our work. This funding will impact all enterprise work and reduce existing racial inequities on a year-to-year basis.

Goal: Expand the quality and quantity of completed REIAs by enterprise departments. Maintain steady progress on a quarterly and annual basis toward operational and policy priorities. Receive an annual update on racial equity citywide.

Objective:

• Departments better incorporate the REIA process into their operations and proposals.
• All stakeholders, remain actively informed and engaged in and on all stated priorities during a given SREAP period. 

Metric:

• Quantitative and qualitative analysis of REAIs submitted annually.
• Overall enterprise racial equity level year-to-year (new metric). 

Proposal detail and background

The Council approves $15,000 in ongoing funding to help cover the cost of the annual Trans Equity Summit in order to consistently ensure a more accessible Summit with equitable compensation for community members planning and/or performing.

Description of the change

This funding will address programming growth and is in response to community feedback. Of the current $15,000 of ongoing trans equity funding, approximately $7,500 each year funds the Summit. The remaining $30,000 of Summit costs (for a total of $37,500) are covered by external funding sources. An accessible Summit with equitable compensation for all community members involved would cost $58,000, but we have had to reduce both compensation and our venue options to fit within the budget that current sponsorship levels allow.

The Summit is the City’s second-biggest public-facing event after the Community Connections Conference, serving over 400 attendees and growing annually. It provides an opportunity for the City to reach community members that it otherwise wouldn’t, building trust and offering opportunities for continued community engagement. This funding will help secure more accessible venues, provide accessible virtual and in-person options to access the event, and compensate community members at their actual rates. Since venues and other details need to be confirmed before sponsors provide their contributions, City funding allows staff to budget for event accessibility from the beginning.

Equity impacts and results

This ongoing funding will reduce racial disparities based on anecdotal data. Sustainable funding to compensate the Summit presenters and planning team will ensure equitable compensation for predominantly trans/GNC and BIPOC community leaders, a key debrief theme from the past three years of planning. We have regularly had to turn down other debrief suggestions (more accessible venues, more culturally appropriate and allergy-accessible food, etc.) due to budget constraints.

Community members attending and helping shape the Summit will be impacted; we ask optional demographic questions on post-Summit surveys and can collect data on the impacts via those surveys. Survey responses have been low for the past two years due to virtual programming, so we do not have recent racially disaggregated data. However, the debrief suggestions mentioned above have been primarily from BIPOC attendees or planning committee members. Stakeholders involved in the development of this proposal include Summit Planning Committee members, Transgender Equity Council members, and community members.

The trans equity work can be measured by its alignment with both department goals presented at the May 11th Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting and the Transgender Equity Council recommendations presented to the Policy and Government Oversight (POGO) Committee in September 2021. This project was recognized as a priority in both of those contexts.

Proposal detail and background

The Council approves $70,000 in one-time funding to work with an external contractor to develop a public-facing, comprehensive, holistic directory of providers who offer affirming services to LGBTQ+ communities and communities with HIV.

Description of the change

When consulting healthcare providers and community leaders on how the City could best address potential gender-affirming healthcare bans in neighboring states, the Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Department heard a clear ask for resources in addition to legal solutions. Current residents, as well as potential future residents fleeing healthcare bans elsewhere, struggle to find accurate, holistic, and easily accessible information about competent healthcare providers.   

This appropriation will fund one year of an FTE at an external organization. This FTE will collaborate with all local healthcare organizations serving LGBTQ+ communities and communities living with HIV. They will work to centralize existing, internal-facing and incomplete databases, plus collecting information not yet included in those databases. This resulting directory will serve both the needs of those organizations and of Minneapolis residents not yet connected to any resource providers.  

This work will complement legal protections for gender-affirming healthcare currently in development on the Executive side. As the Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Department has already been in conversation with most of the relevant organizations that would be involved in this directory, both to receive their feedback on its necessity and to develop the above-referenced legal protections, this work will continue these partnerships. The work is intended to be implemented in Q1 2023. 

Note: “Gender-affirming healthcare” means all services, supplies, drug therapies, and other care that an individual may receive to support and affirm the individual’s gender identity. This directory will both include licensed providers who provide gender-affirming healthcare, as well as those who provide other healthcare services (primary care, other specialties, holistic healthcare, etc.) in a way that supports and affirms the patient’s sexual orientation and gender identity. All providers will be required to stay in good standing with licensure.

Equity impacts and results

This funding will reduce racial disparities (supported by anecdotal evidence).

Nationwide data from the 2015 US Trans Survey shows that respondents of color were more likely to have avoided seeing a health provider in the past year due to fear of mistreatment (37% of American Indian respondents, 34% of Middle Eastern respondents, 28% of multiracial respondents, 26% each of Black and Latinx respondents, 24% of Asian respondents, 22% of white respondents). 2021 Voices of Health data, while not racially disaggregated, showed that 18% of LGBTQ+ Minnesotan respondents had been refused care in the last year because of their LGBTQ identity, and 17% had had a provider be physically abusive – proving that these concerns are still relevant six years later. Qualitative data (via conversations with providers and community leaders) also shows that BIPOC residents are less likely to have access to formal or informal networks helping them find competent healthcare providers.  

 This appropriation has been developed in collaboration with external stakeholders (including the Transgender Equity Council), and in response to 12 organizations that co-authored a letter asking for this funding. One-third of those organizations are BIPOC-led, all serve multiracial LGBTQ+ communities and most focus on BIPOC LGBTQ+ communities. 

Proposal detail and background

The Council approves $152,000 in ongoing funding for a Program Manager to support equity work related to sexual orientation, gender expression and gender identity including community engagement, external-facing programming, policy advising, and internal consultation for departments’ internal and external facing equity work.

Description of the change

These funds will help to prevent burnout of staff and Transgender Equity Council (TEC) members, provide capacity for community engagement with effective follow-through, and help prevent staff from having to pause all other projects in order to plan the Summit or collaborate on other REIB work.

These funds will cover the following:  

• Increased internal support on department equity work, including but not limited to the following needs echoed by departments: 
  • Increased support for HR DEI strategic plan implementation 
  • Partnership with CPED on equity opportunities within Housing & Economic Development 
  • Increased support for Health Department partnership with LGBTQ+ leaders 
• Increased capacity for community engagement, including but not limited to: 
  • Continuing listening sessions & community roundtables, which have had very positive feedback, and ensuring we can implement recommendations 
  • Increasing City responsiveness to equity concerns relating to sexual orientation, gender expression and/or gender identity brought by constituents 
• Continue (paused) work building out REIA to integrate other facets of identity, and other intra-REIB collaboration 
• Increased staffing for the TEC. Some appointed boards, especially those with significant policy interest, have multiple staffers. Current staffing limits the TEC’s impact and therefore increases member turnover 

Equity impacts and results

This work will reduce racial disparities (anecdotal evidence).

Trans and gender non-conforming (GNC) communities, particularly BIPOC trans/GNC communities, will benefit from increased capacity for community engagement and policy development. Increased staff capacity to integrate equity and racial equity work will benefit BIPOC trans/GNC community members whose specific needs are not yet explicitly incorporated into City frameworks like the REIA. Community members involved on the TEC or in listening sessions regularly ask for more staff capacity to do community outreach, support TEC research goals, and turn policy recommendations into action. The specific internal policy and external programming work enabled by this increased staff capacity includes work the TEC has advocated for in their annual recommendations. Racially disaggregated data on the groups (TEC, listening session attendees, budget testifiers) listed above has not been collected, but they are multiracial, with primarily BIPOC listening session attendees primarily BIPOC. Feedback on efficacy of specific policies consulted on by this FTE can include racially disaggregated data moving forward.  

Values prior to 2023 reflect the former Race and Equity program within the City Coordinator's Office.

Values prior to 2023 reflect the former Race and Equity program within the City Coordinator's Office.

The Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging department was formerly a program, Race and Equity, within the City Coordinator's Office. 2023 and 2024 staffing levels reflect the transfer of Race and Equity, Human Trafficking and Administrative staff to the new department as well as the change item positions listed above and an administrative addition using department non-personnel funds.

See detailed information on department staffing in Schedule 5.