Niketa Brar

Co-Founder / Director of Policy and TA, Sustainable Cities | Chicago United for Equity / PolicyLink

Pronouns: she/her

Niketa Brar is a policy strategist and civic systems organizer working to grow community power in policymaking. Niketa organized Chicago’s first public Racial Equity Impact Assessment, which set national precedent for stopping a school closure on the grounds of racial discrimination, designed the Vote Equity Project, an award-winning citywide voter guide built by thousands of residents, and co-created the People's Budget Chicago, a popular education model and community budgeting process. Niketa's approach comes from her experience working in communities harmed by top-down and ineffective public policy, as well as advising government leaders in school districts, city government, and state agencies.

Presentations from Facing Race 2024

From Civic Trauma to Civic Healing: Mobilizing People Power to Win Real, Progressive Change

What is the role of civic trauma in our political reality? And how can this frame offer us a way to build new coalitions that catalyze the power we have to win and govern in unapologetically progressive ways?

This workshop will start with the concept of civic trauma, how we measure and map its impact, and how it offers a frame to unite communities across different histories. Participants will then dive into two projects that build civic healing to activate community power in elections and governance:
-The first, a voter guide co-created by over 1000 residents who debated hundreds of ideas to center the election narrative on what mattered most to them.
- The second, a community-led budgeting process launched in the midst of the uprisings to disrupt the public discourse pitting residents against each other.

In illustrating these case studies, participants will engage with real-life examples that offer countless adaptations to fuel progressive change and build wider frames of belonging in civic systems. Built and implemented in Chicago, these examples offer lessons that apply to electoral and issued-based organizing in both widely progressive and deeply divided communities across the country.

Speakers: Niketa Brar

Presentations from Facing Race 2022

Inside / Outside Strategy: Building the Long Game for the Future We Seek

What does it take to build a long-game strategy to organize policymakers, mobilizers, and narrative shapers, in the city ranked dead last for civic trust? In 2017, Chicago United for Equity started as a question, asking what was possible if trust could be kindled between organizers, policymakers, artists, and researchers who shared a commitment to community-led policymaking.

In the five years since, the CUE network has grown in both cultivating community-led policymaking outside of government, while simultaneously working to open up government from the inside. This session will start with the story of origin for CUE’s work, and the CUE Fellowship model that began in 2017. Participants will dive into two stories of change that have emerged inside and outside government: a community-led budgeting process launched in the midst of the uprisings, and a government-led process to engage community leaders in responding to the crisis of the pandemic.

In illustrating these case studies, participants will engage with models for cross-sector collaboration, lessons learned for the challenges along the way, and what foundations are necessary to sustain relationships across the inside/outside game.

Speakers: Niketa Brar, Candace Moore