We’re pleased to announce that we have selected finalists for the Equity Illustrated design contest. Entries came from Southern Oregon through Central Oregon and around the Portland Metro region, from artists aged 10-63, and in mediums as varied as pencil, photography and computer animation.

In all, we received 47 artist submissions — 29 adult entries and 18 youth entries. We are very grateful that so many people took the time to think about equity in a meaningful way and invest their creativity into the Equity Illustrated contest. The word equity is often used interchangeably with equality, but Meyer Memorial Trust and Northwest Health Foundation see a big difference between the two.

Our judging panel was made up of 11 folks from local nonprofits, social justice organizations, youth leadership groups and other foundations, as well as experts in design and art. The judges reflected Oregon’s diverse communities of color, sexual identity and disability, along with a range of age, socioeconomic backgrounds and privilege. It was deliberate: to ensure that the voices of Oregonians helped decide the youth and adult finalists.

Thanks again to everyone who submitted artwork to help illustrate the difference!

Click here to preview the Equity Illustrated finalists

Each of these images said something unique about some facet of equity. Please stay tuned for a message announcing the winners in both adult and youth categories.

 

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“Everyone has a voice, no matter who they are or what challenges they have,” wrote Carol Bryan, 14, of Corvallis, Oregon, when she submitted her winning entry for the 2016 Equity Illustrated Youth Design Contest.

Carol’s illustration acknowledges that everyone starts from a different place. Although everyone has a voice, some voices might be softer or louder than others. Some voices might struggle to be heard. Equity is when each person has the tool they need to amplify their voice.

Meyer will announce the first round of grants to be made under our new portfolio framework.

This spring, Meyer received 675 Inquiry Applications, requests totaling more than $95 million under our Building Community, Healthy Environment and Housing Opportunities portfolios.

In November, Meyer anticipates announcing awards made under our Spring Funding Opportunities as well as under our Affordable Housing and Willamette River initiatives, Chalkboard Project, foundation collaborations, legacy programs and additional funding opportunities to support leadership development and capacity builders.

Every day since January, Matt Kinshella has created an illustration depicting something he’s grateful for, from Italian architecture to Mexican hot sauce to a baby that sleeps through the night.

Equity Is About Resources: Matt Kinshella, (he/him), placed third in the 2016 Equity Illustrated design contest sponsored by Meyer Memorial Trust and Northwest Health Foundation.

The exercise hones the San Diego native’s graphic artistry. Spurred by an interest in illustration as a method of social change — and explored during his 3 a.m. wake-ups with his newborn — Matt decided to enter the Equity Illustrated contest in January with an animated GIF showing how inadequate resources separate equality from equity. 

“You see it driving around Portland, which has a national reputation as this place where young people come to retire, where it’s all about food carts and stuff. But there are so many barriers in the Portland that isn’t on the national radar,” Matt says. “We all get to learn and have more enrichment when these barriers in business, in our neighborhoods and in schools are removed.”

The two-frame illustration focuses on deep structural, systemic and historical disparities between some communities. It placed third in the Equity Illustrated design contest sponsored by Meyer Memorial Trust and Northwest Health Foundation. 

Matt’s own equity journey began after settling in Portland in 2008. Over the next six years, he worked for 211Info, a Meyer grantee, and at the Chalkboard Project, an initiative of Foundations for a Better Oregon, a collaboration of six Oregon foundations, including The Collins Foundation, Ford Family Foundation, Oregon Community Foundation, JELD-WEN Foundation, The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation and Meyer Memorial Trust.

Now 30, Matt is the communications director at Neighborhood Partnerships, a statewide nonprofit focused on bringing opportunity to all Oregonians through housing and financial stability initiatives and advocacy (and a Meyer grantee). Working with people from a range of backgrounds on poverty, housing and education reform opened his eyes to issues facing people from different backgrounds and income levels, he says.

“It wasn’t like I was born knowing about equity. I am really grateful and privileged to be exposed to people who get this in a deep and rich way. And I learn from them still.”

His winning equity entry reflects a clear understanding of equity.

Two frames, two communities. On the first frame, one community has many assets: a school, buildings, a hospital, solid housing. The other community has no school, no hospital and buildings in disrepair. A pipeline delivers equal resources to both. This is equality — and it’s not working, Matt says. 

The second frame shows the two communities receiving resources that meet their needs. Now the two communities thrive. Equity, in a word.

“Bottom line, people should not have less opportunity because of the color of their skin or the ZIP code where they are born.”

Check out more of Matt’s designs from his yearlong project to illustrate something he’s grateful for every day in 2016 (#365gratefulillustrations) on Instagram, @mkinshella.

If you're seeking permission to use Matt's equity illustration, please email Meyer communications: communications [at] mmt.org (communications[at]mmt[dot]org) or Matt directly: mkinshella [at] gmail.com (mkinshella[at]gmail[dot]com).

A PDF version of Matt’s winning illustration is available here.

Matt Kinshella, Equity Illustrated 3rd place winner

Turns out a collaboration born of a deep understanding of equity, an appreciation for urban planning, and diverse skills, can be a successful one.

Kathryn Hartinger, 39, develops zoning code for the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS). Marc Asnis, 29, works as an urban designer at the city agency.

Over lunches and a few weekends of brainstorming, their “Oregonians Are All Connected” illustration took shape. Together, they partnered to turn a concept into a tangible representation of how equality and equity differ. Their efforts earned them second place in the Equity Illustrated adult design contest.

“I had an idea but I had no graphics skills. But I knew Marc did. So we just started chatting,” says Kathryn, a native of Springfield, VA. She uses a masters in Urban and Regional Planning from Portland State University, a PhD in conflict resolution from Syracuse University, and a background in mediation to turn arcane policy into the rules that guide growth and development in Portland.

“We started with the idea that equity was a key to success,” says Marc, a native of New York City. A master’s degree in architecture from the University of Oregon and a knack for visualizing ideas helps Marc turn dreams into brick-and-mortar reality.

The colleagues learned about the contest about a month before the deadline, when Desiree Williams-Rajee, BPS’ equity specialist, announced the contest at work.

Their four-panel submission makes the case that education, healthcare, housing, the environment, government and philanthropy are gears in the machine that is Oregon. Applying identical, cookie-cutter resources to the needs of different Oregonians and institutions doesn’t work. But when resources are applied equitably, addressing our unique needs, the state functions.

“Equity isn’t about some people getting something and others not getting something. It’s about people just needing different things,” Kathryn explains.

In city planning, Marc and Kathryn watch different needs and resources play out in neighborhoods across Portland.

“Some neighborhoods don’t need new sidewalks,” says Marc. “Some need paved streets, some need stormwater mitigation, others need tree canopies or need to remediate pollutants in the air. A major guiding principle of our City’s newly adopted Comprehensive Plan is to create a more equitable city.”

Kathryn says they are no easy answers on the road to making a more equitable Portland.

“We do a ton of public outreach and engagement with communities, business groups and coalitions to determine what each neighborhood needs. People have different opinions so we have to balance those. But equity really is about tailoring those solutions and prioritizing resources where they’re needed most.”

Split down the middle, Kathryn and Marc plan to put their prize money to good, but different uses.

“Kathryn is going to fix her roof,” says Marc.

“Roof or tires,” she agrees. “But I would also probably do something with my kids.”

Marc says he’ll take his prize money and apply the resources to a different need: “I am hoping I can finally have some money saved away. This could be my nest egg.”

Kathryn Hartinger & Marc Asnis’ winning image:

A PDF version of Marc and Kathryn’s winning illustration is available here.

Oregonians Are All Connected: Marc Asnis, (he/him), and Kathryn Hartinger, (she/her), placed second in the 2016 Equity Illustrated adult design contest sponsored by Meyer Memorial Trust and Northwest Health Foundation.

To Salomé Chimuku, already a veteran of social justice and public policy reform at age 25, equity is a familiar concept. 

“It’s just a new label,” says the first prize winner of Equity Illustrated, a design contest sponsored by Meyer Memorial Trust and Northwest Health Foundation

“Equity is the biggest safeguard against fear,” she says. “The more you understand equity, the more compassionate you become. You’re understanding where someone is coming from.”

Salomé’s family immigrated to the United States from Angola after generations of armed conflict: a 42-year long fight for independence followed by a 37-year civil war. Both her grandparents and parents were born into war. The idea that inequities lead to strife was drilled into Salomé at an early age.

“My dad really tried to instill in me the idea that fear is the easiest thing to build, but it’s unsustainable. Love is the hardest thing to build but it will last you forever.”

In her first place entry, Salomé sketched a series of faces in a comic-strip style, each of them talking about a facet of equity. The comic is based in reality: The people are her friends, the words, their own. When family dinner conversations revolve around equity, and what you do for a living is focused on equity, and your friends also work for social justice, equity becomes a frequent topic of conversation, explains Salomé.

The contest was her first, although she’s been creating art for many years as a coping mechanism for complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“It’s a good way to express all the things that are going through your mind,” she says.

As a first-generation immigrant who is black, female and queer, Salomé believes the best equity conversations happen “when you remove pressures and folks can really be honest with themselves.” Sometimes those conversations happen at work, over drinks, or at a show. “You can be having a very deep conversation about equity and then (club music) comes on and you start dancing,” she says.

Salomé hopes the images help people understand how disparate resources can lead to unhappy outcomes.

Her professional work toward equity began during an internship at age 18 in the office of then-secretary of state Kate Brown. There, Salomé helped craft a program that registers new citizens to vote at their naturalization ceremonies — a policy now being adopted by other states. Since then, Salomé has worked on local legislation as the Director of Public Policy and Advocacy for Unite Oregon (formerly the Center for Intercultural Organizing), a Meyer grantee, and as a Politicorps Fellow for the Bus Project, an initiative funded by Meyer, NWHF and Brainerd Foundation.

Now her current assignment managing Oregon’s Law Enforcement Contacts Policy and Data Review committee (LECC) brings equity to law enforcement at the Criminal Justice Policy Research Institute, a governor-appointed committee charged with assisting Oregon law enforcement agencies with stop-data collection and analysis training, improving community relations and policy recommendations. Their tagline: “Using data and experience to influence policing policy that will create equitable outcomes for all Oregonians.”

“In a training, law enforcement officers may sit in a room and describe how they feel they’re being put in a box because of the actions of a few of their kind; but they don’t see the connection to groups that have been profiled who feel exactly the same way,” she says. “People don’t see their own bias, even at the micro level. I felt like Equity Illustrated was a good way to get people to think.”

View more of Salomé’s work on her Facebook page: https://m.facebook.com/ArtbyEsoko

A PDF version of Salomé’s winning illustration is available here.

 

What is Equity?: Salomé Chimuku, (she/her), placed first in the 2016 Equity Illustrated design contest sponsored by Meyer Memorial Trust and Northwest Health Foundation.