To: Transparency Subcommittee, Seth Borgos

From: Drew Astolfi, former director of FACE a CCC partner group

Date: 7/11/16
Re: Thoughts on how CCC supported/interacted with a local organization

As the Spring committee prepare for our conversation about resources and transparency and as
Seth and Lynn think about how the Center supports groups I was thinking about several ways
the Center supported FACE over the years. I am offering this partial list in the hope that it
helps people see where and how CCC engaged a group in real time over more than a decade
from the perspective of that group. Moreover I hope it is clear that the relationship was often
driven by me the director of FACE, and not always by the CCC staffer involved. This is
important to note because a CCC review of the FACE/CCC relationship might miss some of the
value added.
Also note the CCC primary staff for FACE was David Kimball who staffed us over a long
period of time. He and I both believe that this longevity helped him manage the relationship
well for the Center. Also the much discussed pole of transactional vs. transformational
relationship is not visible as a distinct thing here. I am starting to get suspicious of that
dialectical frame since neither edge was really part of the work.
Finally, please note this is different than the way I think CCC could engage partners. I have a
lot of ideas about thatbut this might help contribute to the current conversation.
1. Direct Startup: This was the most profound element of the FACE/CCC relationship
although it occurred before I arrived. FACE was initially organized by Center staff
Wesley Woo with a little help from Don Elmer. At one point CCC felt it was part of its
mission to seed the creation of new organizations. Today I think we are doing that in N.
Carolina, and with MH Action. This seems pretty peripheral to the way we operate these
days though.
2. Money: For some reason CCC seems oddly uncomfortable about talking about this
internally (we are like New England WASPs from the 50s finding the conversation
about money a little distasteful). But CCC was a significant funder of FACE aside
from the Mott foundation, our own dues/direct fundraising and the denominational
funding it was the biggest funder we had. Money was much more campaign driven than
not which frankly is harder to digest as an organization unless you are pretty thoughtful.
We also got money for experiment and innovation that we used to build a big electronic
list (about 7,000 on Oahu, and 4,000 on Maui). This was very helpful in the minimum
wage effort (itself part of a multi-year sectoral strategy).
Moreover CCC credentialed FACE to funders, and introduced us to other program
officers and in one case an individual wealthy donor in effective ways.
3. Big Campaigns: FACE participated in campaigns, something the Center has run a
number of times. We were prominent in the campaign for Community Values, I was on
the steering committee and acted a bit like a whip in those meetings. The first 100 days
actions, the Heartland Forum, and the Realizing the Promise events were all watershed
moments for FACE leadership, and this campaign built our confidence to enter the
electoral arena - more on that below.
We also were in HCAN not only leading it in our own state but also coordinating with
Gamaliel (then our network) and leading actions for them in several states. (Washington
DC, CA, MI, and GA specifically). HCAN was the first campaign we took money in
exchange for specific deliverables. Note we got significant money during both of these
campaigns, one from CCC directly, the other steered by CCC.
FACE is involved in Immigration but were a bit off the beaten path on this issue. Still
we were pretty useful several times and we ran successful local campaigns (drivers
licenses, translation for drivers tests, organized a Dreamers group, worked a lot with the
different consulate offices and did the majority of the DACA sign ups in the state). We
got very little immigration money, but still felt pretty connected to this campaign. Our
connection to CCC helped us in crafting our own leadership role among allied (and often
competitive) immigration rights groups in Hawaii by keeping us ahead of the curve vis-a-
vis local in state competitors.
4. Building camaraderie and identity among community organizations: Many of the
contacts FACE staff met came to us via CCC meetings. The south west regional
meetings were the best example of this, but other CCC gatherings served this function
too. These meetings were a way that groups plugged into the Centers priorities,
especially immigration, but they also built professional on the ground relationships in a
way that was much less elitist than Rockwood or other similar efforts.
At the Southwest meetings FACE first planned its electoral strategy (with Rudy and
Marvin); learned how to build a service/organizing model from CHIRLA, CAUSE and El
Centro, taught others how to do public housing organizing, hired a fund raiser jointly
with CAUSE etc. We brought leaders to this and sent new staff. It was also reenergized
the people that participated. CAUSE and EL Centro both sent staff to Hawaii to train our
immigration team and assist us during the raids (Maui county was one of the worst for
this per capita in the United States at one point).
The Campaign for Community Values Steering Committee was less relationally minded
but it too contributed to our work via connecting us with others FACE began releasing
NWFCO reports in Hawaii after my time on this group.
5. Thinking about moving into Governance: FACE had real power in Hawaii for some
of the years I was there and CCC staff helped me think about the different things
governance meant for the work of the organization. This is a whole separate piece for
 reflection, but suffice it to say that Seth, Mary D., Marissa, and especially Gabe and
David K were very helpful to me during this time. Center staff also connected me to Josh
Hoyt who had struggled with some similar things at his organization. Eventually we
developed a theory of governance and changed the way our organization
operatedvarying our model of organizing to meet the new more rarefied atmosphere
were found ourselves (temporarily) in.
6. Policy: We got a lot of help on policy matters from Steve Savner directly not only did
he help FACE staff think through our Equity Summits (these summits were annual
thought leader - meets grass roots leader conference) generally, he also helped
specifically with jobs related issues. Our whole Sectoral Strategy on home health care
a multi-year effort that included a set of linked issue campaigns stemmed from a set of
conversations I had with Steve over a period of about a year. In addition Steve helped
introduce us to NELP during our minimum wage fight which led to very specific policy
papers supporting aspects of our work as well as regranting. Finally Steve attended our
second Equity Summit in person and added a lot to it directly.
7. Public Relations: FACE still uses the community values framing guide that Jeff and
Seth (I think it was them) produced for the campaign for community values. This is a
great way to get leaders to move form single issue or narrow neighborhood concerns to
standing for the whole.
Separately I think that the handful of times FACE got into magazines Forbes,
Shelterforce, Affordable Housing Finance, Labor Notes, Sojourners and In These Times
were all significant events for our leadership and powerfully credentialed us to funders,
policy makers, and elected officials. I mention this b/c CCCs highly skilled PR team
easily made articles like this happen during the recent events I worked on and I think we
could be more strategic and regular about it without breaking a sweat.
8. Electoral Work: CCC introduced FACE to electoral work, CCC staff acted as co-
strategists, and looked over our electoral work to ensure we met legal guidelines. Our
most powerful intervention was based on debranding candidates (that we knew already),
but we also did voter registration, identification and education all learned through CCC.
FACE worked ballot initiatives at the county and state level, and also ran its own
members for office (1 staff became a State Representative, two leaders became city
councilors, and 1 leader became the Senate Labor and Judiciary chair. In addition
another staff was appointed as Honolulus housing commissioner, and a leader became
the chair of the state housing Authority). All of this was done wo/ any serious investment
of money, and minimal investment of time on the part of CCC and had far reaching
impact for FACEs work.