Tired of hearing the Inland Empire reduced to crime, homelessness and warehouses, three community-led nonprofits have launched the Our IE campaign, using polling, canvassing, billboards and roughly 900,000 digital ad impressions to shift how residents see their 49-city region — and their power to change it.
The campaign brings together Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement (COPE), Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice (IC4IJ) and Starting Over Inc., a Riverside-based organization led by formerly incarcerated people. The three groups teamed up after attending a narrative change convening in Long Beach as part of a Million Voters Project grant and its MVP Echoes Academy, deciding to build a regional effort focused squarely on how people talk and think about the Inland Empire.
“Our participation in this, Our IE, is really to combat the negativity that circles around San Bernardino, Riverside counties, the totality of the Inland Empire,” said Stanette Dixon, civic engagement project manager at COPE. “Knowing that there are resources here, there are services here, there is a community here and advocacy here, we wanted to just be part of shifting that narrative for folks so they could see the beauty and the things that we get to experience every day.”…