A law on the books is only as good as the way it gets carried out. That gap, between what a policy promises and what people actually experience, is where inequity keeps finding room to live.
For the past year, BECOME has been sitting with that question alongside the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). We wanted to know what it really takes for communities most affected by a policy to hold real decision-making power over how it’s implemented, not just a seat at a table someone else built.
Chicago gave us two powerful places to look. The Chicago Office of Labor Standards shows what happens when co-enforcement is written into law and funded, with a worker rights organization standing beside the city as a genuine partner. The Co-Governance Initiative led by Chicago United for Equity and the Office of Equity and Racial Justice shows what it looks like to define co-governance together and then test it, in real time, through three community pilots.
We talked with 20 people close to this work, mapped both systems, and brought what we heard to a room full of RWJF grantees. What came back reshaped our Theory of Change: co-governance and co-enforcement aren’t one step in the process. They’re the whole point, and trust-building, visioning, experimentation, and evaluation are how you get there.
The full report is linked below. We’d love to hear what it stirs up for you!
