Central Coast Regional Equity Initiative: Co-Creating and Actionizing a New Community-Led Equity Framework

Kathleen Knight, Morgan Love (), Jonnie Williams and Marcos Vargas
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Kathleen Knight: The Fund for Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, USA
Morgan Love: Evolve Equity Psychology, Inc., Carpinteria, CA 93013, USA
Jonnie Williams: Evolve Equity Psychology, Inc., Carpinteria, CA 93013, USA
Marcos Vargas: The Fund for Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, USA

Social Sciences, 2023, vol. 12, issue 8, 1-17

Abstract: We present a community-led equity framework as a foundation for promoting equity on the Central Coast of California. We discuss the key elements of a participatory, community-led evaluation and planning approach for the Central Coast Regional Equity Initiative, which aims to advocate for social, health, environmental, and economic equity through region-wide cross-sector collaboration, community and research-informed action, and an indigenized and decolonized approach. Through a systematic mixed-methods evaluation and planning approach, including Community Consultations and Strategic Action Planning, we found that our community’s lived experience contributes to a deeper understanding of inequities, and that engagement in cross-sector collaboration empowers our community to bridge data with action organizing. The findings demonstrate that engagement in community-led evaluation and planning contributes to a greater readiness for cross-sector collaborative action and a sense of community ownership of solutions to equity issues, and sets the stage for deeper-rooted, long-term success built on genuine reciprocity and trust. We present our community-led equity framework inviting others to adopt systematic community knowledge-base-building that values community wisdom, identifies power imbalance, promotes trust-building through healthy discomfort, and encourages reflective action.

Keywords: community-led approach; equity framework; participatory evaluation; regional equity; indigenous approach; policy advocacy; community organizing; strategic action plan; strategic planning; social justice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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