For over 25 years, LIFT has known one thing to be true – listening to our communities gets results. We listened to our families by partnering with them to achieve the economic goals they set. We partnered with community organizations, governments, and higher education to help them respond directly to families so that they can thrive no matter where they are. We have seen time and time again that when we trust families, amazing things happen.
The adage goes that when it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Listening to our families hasn’t failed us, so we aren’t changing that formula. We can use this formula to fix what is broken – our systems. Our families are surviving despite rising housing costs, unjust raids, slashes to basic needs, and the further criminalization of poverty. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can build a society where all families can thrive. We have the means, and we have the brilliance. That brilliance is in every single family. It is our responsibility to do what we can to support families to amplify that brilliance, by eliminating barriers and creating a system that works just as hard for them as they do for their children.
It is why it is with great pride that I present LIFT’s first National Policy Agenda, Radical Imagining: A Family-Driven Vision for Economic Justice. This agenda takes what works best, what our evidence and data has shown time and time again, and uses that to reimagine what systems can look like when we listen to families and what they need. This reimagined future is possible, because our families have the power and the expertise to tell us what is needed. All we have to do is listen.
We invite you to reimagine what’s possible, imagine the radical transformation that we can make with families. Explore our first policy agenda and join our webinar launching it on December 4th. Partner with us to make this vision a reality – a reality that every family deserves.
Khadijah Williams
LIFT Senior National Director, Policy and Advocacy