Wednesday morning I went to United Front 2010, sponsored by United Way and General Mills. The event was a half-day conference focused on the nonprofit sector in the new economy. Tom Stinson, the state economist, was the keynote speaker. The good news: The recession is over. But the Great Recession and demographic changes are going to change the economic landscape in Minnesota as far into the future as we can see. Stinson (and others) are calling this the New Normal.

The demographic changes include the aging of our population (we are going to see large increases in the 55-75 age group in the next 10 years) and very slow growth on the part of the labor force. What this means for the near future:

• More retirees
• Less consumption, more saving
• Slower economic growth
• Higher interest rates
• More uncertainty about the future

In 2020, the number of Minnesotans age 65+ will outnumber school-age kids—this is a huge demographic shift which could lead to some challenging funding priorities between health care (age 65+) and education (ages 5-17). Overlay a $5.8 billion budget gap (expected for Minnesota in 2012-2013) on that challenge and it doesn’t take a crystal ball to see exceptionally rocky roads ahead.

But all is not lost, and according to Stinson, this New Normal plays to Minnesota’s strengths. Education has been the key to Minnesota’s productivity and prosperity, and if we make the right decisions and investments now, they will help us weather—and perhaps even prosper in—the New Normal.

You can view Dr. Stinson’s complete powerpoint or, if you’d rather see and hear the presentation, check out the video.

Dave Ellis, United Way Impact Manager, Domestic Violence

Today’s blog post is an interview with Dave Ellis, our Domestic Violence Impact Manager who was also involved in PeaceJam over the weekend.

Liz: What is PeaceJam?

Dave: PeaceJam is a Youth Leadership program of youthrive—the Upper Midwest Affiliate of PeaceJam International. PeaceJam engages youth leaders from Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa with a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate that the youth have studied using the PeaceJam curriculum. Each featured Laureate focuses on a specific theme relating to an important global issue. The event combines learning sessions on peace building in schools and communities, discussions with Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, and a host of hands-on service-learning activities in a selected community. At the PeaceJam conference, participants talk about service-learning projects that they have carried out in their local communities.

The theme this year was Healing Communities Torn by Racism and Violence.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Rigoberta Menchu Tum of Guatemala

There were 600 youth involved, completing more than 15 service projects over the weekend in the host community of South Minneapolis. They also presented more than 50 projects they had worked on in their local communities to featured Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum from Guatemala. The service projects represented all 10 of Greater Twin Cities United Way’s goal areas as well as Diversity and Inclusion.

Liz: When does it happen?

Dave: PeaceJam is a year-round program that begins in November with PeaceJam Slam, hits its midpoint in the spring with PeaceJam Conference, and wraps up in the fall at the Slam.

Liz: Where does it happen?

Dave: It happens at the University of Minnesota and in the community. Programming at the U of M includes family groups and service-learning projects.

Liz: What were you most pleased with from this year’s event?

Dave: There is a fantastic mural on the corner of 25^th Street and Chicago Ave. S. that was done by the youth.

Peace Jam mural at 25th St. and Chicago Ave. in Minneapolis

Liz: What surprised you?

Dave: That an agency with only two paid staff can pull of an event like this every year for the past 12 years (with many volunteers). The conference this year was twice as large as previous PeaceJams.

Quarterly Economic Pulse - April 2010

The most recent edition of the Quarterly Economic Pulse has just been released.

There are glimmers of hope. Unemployment has probably peaked (though all of those discouraged workers out there could re-enter the labor market—which is a good thing—and drive the unemployment rate up a bit further, which is generally viewed as not such a good thing). People are saving more (good for community stability) and they’re paying down their debt (good for individual stability).

But we still have eight unemployed workers for each job opening, poverty is growing in the suburbs even faster than in the central cities, and the suburbs are now home to the lion’s share of low-income people. (See Brookings report for more detail on suburban poverty). Consumer confidence remains low, and will probably stay that way until the job market improves.

Housing sales are increasing, and there are still a lot of foreclosed properties on the market, keeping housing prices low (which also makes housing more affordable). Median sales price for a Twin Cities house in February was $159,000. One in six Minnesotans owe more on their homes than they are worth. One in three Minnesota students are eligible for free or reduced price school lunch.

So, we’re starting to emerge from the recession but we still have a long way to go, and a lot of people will be facing hard times for the foreseeable future.

Today we have a guest blogger, Dave Ellis, an impact manager in the area of Domestic Violence, responding to the recent spate of incidents across the state.

Dave Ellis, United Way Impact Manager, Domestic Violence

All I remember that morning in July, was waking up in complete darkness to cries for help. “Where is she?” a young voice called out, over and over. I jumped up and looked at the clock — 3:00 a.m. What’s going on, I thought. Peering outside, I saw a young girl pacing in the rain outside my window.

I quickly threw on my robe and ran outside. When the young girl saw me, she backed up and repeated again, “Where is she? My mom is missing,” she said. “There’s blood on the back door and a window is broken.”

By now neighbors had gathered, and stood, staring at us in the rain—at me in my bathrobe and the young girl who, I’ve since learned, lived across the street.

She was sobbing now, saying again her mother was missing. “Mom’s boyfriend came to visit, but now she’s gone. And there’s blood on the door, everywhere.”

My next door neighbor, Deborah, stepped forward to console the young girl. I called police.  We all waited in the rain for them to arrive while the young child continued to cry.

The police came and took her away. A few days later I heard that they called the incident a “domestic” and that the girl’s mother was in the hospital where the boyfriend had dropped her off. The mother’s story? No harm was done to her by the boyfriend. She had slipped and cut herself and miraculously, he “showed up” soon after, and drove her to the hospital.

This terrible incident happened almost 15 years ago. Since then I’ve worked all my life to prevent these incidents from happening to more women and children. For this is only one of countless other violent incidents I’ve heard about.

Fast forward to this past week—a roller coaster ride of bad news and some good news that efforts are being made to stop the violence:

Bad news:

• A Mankato woman was shot by her ex-husband, in the face, 3 times, in her car, in a parking lot, in front of their 3 children.  He takes another vehicle and leads police on a chase.
•  A woman is stabbed 70 times by her husband. Three of their children watch in horror.  He says she was driving him crazy. That much seems obvious—stabbing someone that many times can only reflect the level of rage he had must have felt at the time. But the larger question remains about what the impact will be on these children in their future without a mom or dad.  The oldest daughter, Brittany, called 9-1-1 while the 13-year-old took the knife and ran into the yard.

Some good news that will hopefully put an end to this violence:

• In early April, 2010, the City of St. Paul unveiled its Blueprint for Safety—An Interagency Response to Domestic Violence Crimes.  This is St. Paul’s unique collaborative response to domestic violence.
•  On April 7, 2010, Hennepin County introduced its Co-Parenting Courts to respond to concerns that unmarried parents need to have the same rights as married couples who are divorcing.

United Way and its partners are working on responses to these issues of domestic violence.  We know that children who witness these violent incidents are the unintended victims—they suffer from lasting physical and emotional harm. 

A recent national survey found that more than 60% of children have been exposed to violence, either directly or indirectly.

In Brittany’s words to the media after watching her father stab her mother, “I think this is a dream,” she said. “It don’t seem real to me.”  All too often, it seems like a dream.  When will we all wake up from the nightmare?

I just finished reading the winter issue of Contexts, one of my favorite magazines.

Contexts has much to recommend it. One of the more interesting articles in this issue was on hunger, wherein I learned that for the first time in human history, the world is home to more than one billion hungry people. Interestingly, the article suggests that hunger has less to do with a shortage of food than with a shortage of affordable or accessible food. In other words: We have plenty of food, it just isn’t going where it’s needed (or if it is, the people there can’t afford it). Population has grown, yes; but food production has grown even faster.

In Minnesota, more than 1 in 10 households are what is called “food insecure,” meaning that they have difficulty obtaining enough food for all their members due to a lack of money and other resources. One of the things Greater Twin Cities United Way is doing to help address hunger is working with food shelves and food banks to make systems more efficient—primarily by increasing capacity—so that we can get more food to hungry people. You can read more about these efforts on our Website.

A few other things that caught my eye in the winter issue:

• Ageism in the workplace
• Sexism in food advertising
• Civility in U.S. society (going downhill)
• Redefining retirement

And then, when I went to get the links for this blog, I found the most interesting thing of all: Sociological Images. As you might guess from the title, it focuses on interesting visuals—maps, graphics, etc.—that viewers/readers submit. (You know, I wouldn’t have thought that you could even get 2,800 pigs in a square mile.)

While some of the visuals focus on advertising (truth in advertising, silly advertising, misleading advertising), many are simply good depictions of data, like this age pyramid: such a good way to see where we’re going over time in one graphic. Look at all those 85+ women—by 2050, they will be the largest age demographic!