Boise, Idaho - United Vision for Idaho (UVI), a coalition of non-profit organizations formed in 1995, is pleased to announce a five year organizational focus on building its grassroots base county by county. UVI has a four-pronged mission statement* and this decision to make base building a multi-year priority allows us to meet the fundamental premise underlying the existing mission – real people engaged in real change in every community in Idaho.
Said Delmar Stone with the Idaho Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, “Many of us grew up in small communities. We hear from people in Challis and Rigby and Hayden Lake who want to know who else in their communities wants to work on state legislative or local issues from a more progressive perspective. Too often they feel their voices are not being heard by state law makers and other elected officials.”
Annually in January as the legislature convenes, UVI has held dinners recognizing people who serve as socially responsible community and organizational leaders and volunteers from all across the state. Pat Kubicki, long time UVI Board member commented that, “This January we believe the dinner will be bigger than ever. When we gather you can palpably feel in the room the power of the many amazing voices that our state is not really yet hearing. We include nurses, social workers, students, people who have lived downwind from nuclear accidents, mine workers, first generation immigrants starting new businesses, long time small business owners, people with disabilities, to people with HIV, parents, teachers and low income seniors. The dinner will be a great time to update our supporters on the county by county base building focus. We know we need to make this change and with more people involved we know we can.”
On Saturday, May 30, forty community organizers representing thousands of Idahoans from labor organizations, human rights and environmental organizations, faith, low income, Latino, education and other non-profit issue advocacy organizations gathered for an unprecedented meeting in the small community of Garden Valley located in Boise County, Idaho. These community leaders from across a wide array of backgrounds and geographic areas in the state, determined to focus more on a county-by-county organizing model, helping to break the isolation that people feel in being a genuine part of policy changes that build a more socially responsible Idaho. The group set in motion the new focus of United Vision for Idaho.
The coalition members decided that because of the centralized office and Boise-based structure of some of the member-groups, too much emphasis was being placed on the Boise area. “It is too hard to ensure that law makers know that people in Glens Ferry care about an issue unless our organization is every bit as much based in Glenns Ferry as it is in Boise,” said Betty Beck with The Interfaith Alliance.
Graciela Fonseca from Mujeres Unidas de Idaho added, “We have to be more creative and innovative. We have to go to where the issues and the people who care about them live. The individual members of our member groups already live there. We just need to do more to ensure that UVI is in each local community with them when they need us or when UVI’s resources might be helpful.”
United Vision for Idaho has incubated many successful faith based, human rights and other organizations such as the Idaho Center on Budget and Tax Policy, which has been a well respected source of information on complex state legislative issues. With our rich history of successes fueling us to do more even better, the group agreed to relocate from a central office and use donated sites across the state to allow UVI to be a tool for each community.
A steering committee composed of representatives from more than eight statewide non-profit advocacy organizations will spend several months reorganizing. Within twelve to eighteen months a more formal re-structuring will be in place so that the coalition can make connections and begin to grow strong in all of Idaho’s forty-four counties.
“We are excited and anxious to involve even more people from all across the state. We hope people will contact us and for the first time we will encourage formal membership from individuals where in the past we had only non-profit organizations as members,” added Chuck Vogel with the East Idaho Central Labor Council.
* The Mission of United Vision for Idaho is to: Promote education and understanding of public policy which allows every person in Idaho to live with dignity and security in a healthy environment;
Build lasting relationships and open communication among coalition members at the community level;
Promote dialogue on the common values of coalition members; and,
Help coalition members empower their constituencies to participate in democracy.
To become a member got to www.UVIdaho.org
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Community organizers from all over Idaho get together to plan for the future.