|
2022 Membership Survey and Results
By Vicky Estrada-Bustillo
One of the priorities of our newly elected Fuerzas Unidas Caucus Leadership team was, and continues to be, to involve our membership in identifying priority issues and concerns for the caucus to address. This input has been critical to identifying our short team efforts and activities, and will serve as the basis for more long-term and strategic organizational planning by the caucus leadership.
While this was the first survey of our membership, it will not be the last. But I
think it is important for all members to learn what we heard from our membership at this point in time.
Membership Survey Questions
This survey included four questions:
1) What Fuerzas Unidas region do you live in;
2) Which forms of communication do you use to get information about Fuerzas
Unidas Caucus and Caucus events;
3) Which Four Issues within your region would you like Fuerzas Unidas to work on; and
4) Which Four state-wide issues would
you like Fuerzas Unidas to address?
Membership Survey Results
A total number of 39 persons participated in the survey, with the majority of
participants residing in Central Metro and Northern Metro areas. At this point in
time, membership relies primarily on Email from officers, Fuerzas Unidas Gmail,
Newsletter and Monthly Meetings to receive information related to the caucus
and caucus events. Website and facebook page are the least used.
Majority of those surveyed (69.2%) identified Get out the Vote as the top issue within their region to address. There was a tie for second (48.7% of surveyed) for interest in the caucus engaging in Hispano Community Organizing and Climate Change/Environment and Renewable Energy efforts. Fourth issue prioritized by members surveyed for their regions was Health Care, receiving 41%.
Survey response to this same question, when considering the entire state, was slightly different. Get Out the Vote was still identified as priority issue for 69.2 % of the surveyed participants, however, Climate Change/Environment and
Renewable Energy efforts moved up to second highest priority with 53.8%
identifying it as an issue that the caucus needed to address. Candidate
Recruitment and Education was considered more important to address when
looking across the state (35.9%). Early Childhood Education Legislation and
Hispano Community Organizing rounded out the top four issues identified with
both identified as top issue by 33.3 % of those surveyed.
Conclusions and Follow-Up
Given the fact that this is an election year, it is not surprising that Get Out the
Vote was identified as a top priority by the majority of members surveyed.
Having Hispano Community organizing rank in the top four issues for both region and state-wide areas, highlights the concern many of us have that Hispanos are not participating and/or are disengaging from the Democratic Party. As a Caucus, we want to support efforts state-wide to establish, develop and maintain relationships in our Hispano communities.
It is not clear if the high ranking of Climate Change/Environment and Renewable Energy efforts as an issue is due to the historically large fires of this year, or if it is tied to concerns about our long-term drought and diminished water availability state-wide, combined with increased pressures for fracking, and/or awareness of climate change in general and our states efforts to transition to renewable energy. Regardless, we know this an important issue and will work to inform our membership.
Given that Healthcare is a top issue at the regional level, we need to work through our regional representatives to further explore what specific items need to be addressed in our Hispano Communities. Candidate Recruitment and Education and Early Childhood Education were top issues at the state-wide level. Both of these are areas that should be addressed in our long-term strategic planning.
Candidate recruitment starts with educating our youth in civics, informing them about the need and opportunities to run for office, providing essential training and education and then supporting them in the campaign and election process. Early childhood education also requires long-term investment.
However, in the short-term we can support and encourage others to
support Constitutional Amendment 1 to provide for additional annual
distributions of the permanent school fund for enhanced instruction for students
at risk of failure, extending the school year, teacher compensation and early
childhood education.
For additional graphic information, please click here
| 
