Social Policy Advising to the Oregon Business Community

Since 2013 ECOnorthwest has supported the Oregon Business Council’s (OBC’s) poverty reduction and economic mobility work. In earlier years, the Poverty Reduction Task Force provided in-depth strategic and tactical advice to business leaders advocating for public policy to reduce poverty. The Task Force was, to our knowledge, the first and only of its kind for a mainstream business organization in the United States. It collaborated with social service providers and other organizations to develop and advance short- and long-term policy agendas aimed at interrupting intergenerational poverty and mitigating poverty’s disproportionate effects on communities of color. Task Force efforts helped lead to changes such as state-level reforms in TANF and childcare tax credits and an increase in the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for families with preschool-aged children. A long-term agenda—developed with input from national and local experts—foresaw a long-overdue update to the definition of poverty and a redesigned safety net that better responds to a dynamic 21st Century economy. From 2019 to 2021, ECO managed a collaboration between Oregon partners (OBC, Governor Kate Brown, and the Oregon Community Foundation) and Opportunity Insights, a leading national research institute. The goal of the partnership was to increase upward mobility of Oregon’s children from low-income families and children of color. The Oregon Business Plan’s current economic mobility imperative grew out of OBC’s poverty reduction work.