2021-22 Project Grants

Eugene Weekly
Eugene Weekly will publish a year-long series exploring the labor movement in Oregon during a global pandemic, including consequential unionization efforts, legislative action related to working Oregonians, and challenges that the labor movement may experience. The series will cap with a cover feature and a public forum.

Family Forward Oregon
FFO will incorporate the voices of impacted mothers, caregivers, and child care providers (including Spanish speakers) along with the organizational members of the Child Care for Oregon coalition, into strategic, coordinated advocacy for short and long-term policy solutions to Oregon's child care crisis. The coalition will also assess progress in the 2021 Oregon legislative session and work together to create care policy infrastructure proposals before the 2022 legislative session.

KLCC Public Radio Foundation
KLCC will produce a documentary series featuring stories with people of color and / or people from marginalized communities whose jobs have been transformed due to recent social and economic changes. Each feature will profile an Oregonian’s work story and then probe into the broader local, state and federal policies surrounding their particular situation and/or industry. The project will culminate with a special one-hour program that will highlight a major issue of “Making Work Work” revealed while producing the series.

NEED Fund dba Northwest Workers' Justice Project
NWJP will join with Voz Workers’ Rights Education Project to launch the Workers Defense Clinic in Portland. NWJP will provide legal advice and support to day laborers and domestic workers, as well as technical support to Voz. The collaboration uses a wage-theft legal clinic as a transformative organizing tool for supporting leadership and empowerment for Portland’s day laborer and domestic worker communities. It seeks to give low-wage, immigrant workers in precarious work – some of the original “gig” workers – the resources and support to have the agency, power, and leadership in the resolution of their own workplace disputes.

UO Sociology Department
This participatory research project is a partnership between UO's Department of Sociology and the Scholars Strategy Network (SSN) Oregon Chapter. Working directly with in-home childcare providers with extended hours, workers with irregular and unpredictable schedules, and policy advocates, researchers will examine how policy could support workers with unpredictable schedules who need childcare, culminating with a series of briefs on Oregon childcare policy. Findings and briefs will be publicized through existing networks, including the national Scholars Strategy Network.