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Project Management
Cultivo Consulting can help with the management of public policy and advocacy programs. Our training, management and policy development and advocacy experience make for a successful combination to move any policy advocacy program forward.
Political Strategy
Cultivo Consulting believes that politics go hand in hand with public policy. As such, we can help our clients understand the political dynamics, from a simple vote county analysis, to understanding whom the stakeholders and key players are around certain public policy issues.
Coalition Building
Cultivo Consulting believes in enhancing and working with advocates with similar goals and vision. Coalition building with likely and unlikely allies, and sustainable partnerships are the key to long-term public policy success. Cultivo also has experience in managing and continuing to engage and build capacity, membership and activity of coalitions.
The issue of health care reform is a heated issue in California's public policy debate. As such a coalition was set up in 2007 to address the health care reform needs from the perspective of communities of color across California. Given the special needs, geographic challenges and social context of farmworkers and rural California, Cultivo Consulting helped develop relationships and alliances with Central and Coachella Valley advocates to ensure they had a voice and a place at the table with the only coalition of health care advocates representing communities of color in California. As a result, the coalition's steering committee provided greater capacity to local organizations to ensure that groups in rural California were able to actively participate and engage their constituents. In the summer of 2008 at the height of the budget crisis in California, advocates in the central valley built on their work around health care and advocated for a humane budget. The relationships and participation in the coalition have enabled groups to learn about related policy issues, build internal capacity, and provide community with a meaningful way to participate.
Strategic Advising
Cultivo Consulting can help provide balanced and comprehensive information to allow you to make the right decisions at the right time when it comes to your public policy and advocacy needs.
After another series of deadly accidents in California's Central Valley where farmworkers lost their lives, the legislature took action and appropriated $20 million dollars to expand a farmworker vanpool program that could provide a safe and affordable alternative form of transportation to/from work. After its first grant cycle, only $5.2 million were awarded. Despite the need for such a vanpool, many local and county entities were not informed on the funding opportunity nor the successful demonstration vanpool project. Partnering with CALTRANS and the Kings County Agricultural Industries Transportation Services, we were able to identify counties and cities that could benefit from the project, bring stakeholders together and as a result application rates increased and grant awards doubled reaching $10.1 million. Cultivo has been able to facilitate conversations, match resources with needs and forge working relationships with partners across the state all seeking to provide safe and affordable modes of transportation for farmworkers and rural communities.
Statewide Advocacy
Cultivo Consulting has extensive experience advocating for "tough" issues from Sacramento to the local community level. The Partners of Cultivo Consulting are respected and experienced when it comes to advocating for non-profits, labor unions, and coalitions across the state.
In rural communities across California, environmental health issues are of great concern, from air quality, to water quality to illnesses caused due to ones environment. The issue of pesticide exposure and its health effects on community residents resonates across regions. Working with community advocacy organizations, community residents and other unlikely allies, together we have been able to elevate the conversation around pesticides into a public health issue that affects all residents - in the fields, at home and in the community. With leadership from legislators, significant legislative victories such as the Pesticide Drift Protection Act of 2004 have been passed, and community has played an integral role in the development of regulations around pesticide applications/use and drift prevention.
Policy Research
Cultivo Consulting can offer a balanced, and comprehensive approach to research providing all the information necessary to make sensible policy and strategy decisions. Our background in politics, along with our public policy analysis experience provides all the information you need to support viable policy solutions and obtain a balanced perspective of policy implications.
Policy Development/ Policy Coaching
Cultivo Consulting can help organizations and coalitions through a process of identifying priority issue areas leading to policy development. Cultivo complements this approach through policy coaching serving as an advisor/ facilitator through the process, as well as helping to develop and implement a public policy strategy.
In 2008 Cultivo worked with A group of non-profit organizations across two neighboring agricultural regions came together to work collectively on promoting economic development opportunities through entrepreneurship of local businesses owned by immigrants, people of color and women. While mostly serving as direct service providers, these CBOs engaged in a process of evaluating their work, identifying the policy "fixes" that would facilitate expansion of their work and through a series of conversations with legislators, elected officials, community leaders, business leaders, entrepreneurs and community members, they were able to present an alternative perspective on local economies and the role for businesses of color. Through the process new relationships were forged and a platform to begin engaging policy changes was developed.