I Can't Help Myself: One Woman's Fight for Justice and Democracy with Beverly Stein

Beverly Stein retired in 2016 as a Senior Fellow at the National Policy Consensus
Center (NPCC) in the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State
University. At NPCC she served as Director of Oregon Solutions and as Director
of Research and Development. Her focus was on working on projects aimed at
addressing poverty, including staffing the Oregon Business Council Poverty Task
Force.
Prior to her work at NPCC, she worked for 10 years at the Public Strategies Group
(PSG), headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, serving as President and co-owner.
PSG’s mission was to work for public purpose organizations across the country
committed to innovation, customer-focus and results-based governance.
Beverly served as the elected Chair of the Multnomah County Board of County
Commissioners (Portland, Oregon) and as its Chief Executive from 1993 to 2002.

In that position she administered a government with 5000 employees and a
billion dollar budget. Multnomah County won the Oregon Quality Award (based
on the Baldrige Criteria) in 1999 and Stein was designated by Governing
Magazine as Local Official of the Year with Portland Mayor Vera Katz in 1996.
Beverly was elected three times (1989-1993) to serve in the Oregon House of
Representatives, worked as a Legal Aid attorney and in a solo private law
practice, and has extensive experience as a strategic planner and facilitator for
non-profit and government organizations. She ran for Governor of Oregon in the
2002 primary election.

Beverly graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1970 with a
degree in urban studies. She was awarded her law degree from University of
Wisconsin in 1976.

A member of the Tillamook County Master Recyclers, Beverly led the effort to
ban single use plastic bags in Tillamook County. She taught “Facilitating Effective
and Enjoyable Meetings” at Tillamook Bay Community College in 2019 and
“Collaborative Governance” in 2021. Beverly organized the Tillamook Democracy
Project in 2020 to support progressives in local and national elections. She is
currently the President of the Cape Meares Community Association.

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Transcript

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Jan: Are you looking for an inspiring listen, something to motivate you? You've come to the right place. Welcome to Women of the Northwest, where we have conversations with ordinary women leading extraordinary lives. Motivating, inspiring, compelling. Welcome to this episode of Women of the Northwest. Ordinary women leading extraordinary lives. So glad you're joining me. It has been a while since I've had an interesting person to interview, so I'm kind of excited today to have this privilege to have Beverly Stein here today. She retired in 2016. Let's see how many years. That's like almost 10 years. 11 years ago, as a senior fellow at the National Policy Consensus center in the College of Urban and Public affairs at Portland State University. There she served as director of Oregon Solutions and as a director of research and Development. Her focus was on working on projects aimed at addressing poverty, including staffing the Oregon Business Council Poverty Task Force. She also served as the elected chair of the Multnomah County Board of County Commissioners in Portland and as its chief executive from 1993 to 2002. In that position, she administered a government with 5,000 employees and a billion dollar budget. Multnomah county won the Oregon Quality Award based on the Balditch criteria in 1999. And Stein was designated by Governing Magazine as Local Official of the Year with Portland Mayor vera Katz in 96. She's been elected three times to serve as the Oregon House of Representatives, where worked as a legal aid attorney and in a solo private law practice and has extensive experience as a strategic planner and facilitator for non profit and government organizations. She organized the Tillamook democracy project in 2020 to support progressives in local and national elections and she is currently the president of the Cape Mayors Community Association. Okay, that's a lot of things. I'm seeing a couple of things that we overlap. Homeless, non profits, caring about people, little democracy. So tell us about you. What are the things that motivate you or have motivated you to dig your fingers into some of these things?

Beverly: Well, I think it really started when I got involved in the women's movement in 1970. I was a smart girl and I didn't feel like I fit in. And when the women's movement appeared on the scene, I was just out of college. I had gone to college at Berkeley and I realized that there was nothing wrong with me. It was something wrong with society that made me feel like I didn't fit because I was a smart girl and was trying to do things so that just in, in sort of I created a. I had a Passion for then making change in the world for women, which then extended later to making change for. For everybody. So it just started like that. And then I ended up going to law school to be a women's rights lawyer. But in law school, I kind of expanded my thinking to, hey, I should be concerned with the rights of all people. And so it just went on from there. I don't know how much more you want to know. I can give you the whole story, but.

Jan: Yeah, and. And I suppose that each little step of the way encouraged you because you wouldn't have kept going on it, you know.

Beverly: Right.

Jan: And splintered off into other areas.

Beverly: Yeah. You know, the thread that goes through everything I've done since 1970 is really, for over 50 years, I've been a community organizer. That's what really motivates me. And in everything I've done, I've applied sort of my skills in community organizing. When I was in the legislature, I would do what many didn't do. You know, a principle which is just go meet with everybody and try to persuade them to adopt whatever I was pushing at that point. Those individual context is something that's one of the basic principles of community organizing. So I would just. That's all I've done. And now, currently, I work with indivisible here in Tillamook county, and I've organized community resistance teams in eight communities here because, again, I think it's important to not just do protests, they're very important, but also to do organizing at the local level to get people engaged for the long haul.

Jan: And so as you're doing that, are you doing some, like, workshops with people or things or just, you know, how to do, like, feet on the ground and kind of what works and how tos.

Beverly: Well, I have taught a couple classes at the community college here in Tillamook. I live on Cape Mears near Tillamook, on facilitation, which is another skill that's important for community organizers. But mostly I just. I support the indivisible leaders, and I convene the co conveners we have for each of our community resistance teams on a monthly basis and support them in every way I can. Right now, we're all organizing house parties for a local woman who's running for reelection as county commissioner against a MAGA person. And so that's the activity. And I help. You know, I send people out the signup sheet and the script and how to invite people and how to make sure people come and those kinds of things.

Jan: I think you did hit on something really important and that is building relationships. Because just reading something, just having a post, just seeing some social something, some kind of whatever, just doesn't do it until you actually have a conversation with somebody.

Beverly: Yeah. And that's what we found. The power of these community resistance teams are they're locally based, you know, according to your neighborhood, basically. And people getting to know each other makes them feel part of something. And we know that, you know, fighting for democracy and the rule of law is going to require long term effort. And so it's important that people develop relationships so they feel connected to people and feel supported to keep doing the work that we're going to need to do for years. I mean, it's, you know, a lot of this work I did many years ago. I mean, the fact that, you know, my first effort was around abortion rights and now we're back again having to defend women. So it's kind of, it's challenging. I still do it because I can't help myself. I keep wanting to change the world, but I have to say it's a little discouraging that I've been doing it for 50 years and I feel like we're going backwards now. We used to be going forwards.

Jan: Yeah, yeah. What I had a thought there. Oh, okay. What, what tips would do you have to. To communicating with people who don't see things the same way you do?

Beverly: Well, you know, I'm not in the business at these, this stage in trying to convince people who are really against me. I want to mobilize the people that are, that want to change, make change. So there are others that take that up and there are a lot of forms for, you know, engaging in civil conversations. But that's just not my work. My work is to organize people, to motivate them and to get them into action to make a difference. So that's just not my thing.

Jan: Yeah, well, and there is. Everybody's got a different role or a different.

Beverly: Exactly.

Jan: Talent, you know.

Beverly: Yeah, I know. You know what my highest and best use is my skills. I want to apply the skills I have. You know, I'm 79 years old, so I feel like part of my job is to help train other people to do what I do. So part of what my thinking is as I do this work is to help other people learn. You know, a few years ago I organized what we called a campaign school to run people for local offices, for boards and commissions, you know, the fire district and the water board and all that. And I was very proud because at the end of it. I felt like there's about 25 people now who know more about how to run a campaign than when we started this project. So that's another of my focus at this point in my life, is to make sure that I am doing things that help other people learn to do what I'm doing. Because I'm not going to be here, you know, in the future.

Jan: Exactly. And I think that is our role. A lot of that. You know, I started a chapter of 100 Women who Care.

Beverly: I know about that. Yes.

Jan: And it's amazing. It's just amazing. But what I find with the nonprofits, a lot of them don't know how to give a presentation. You have six minutes here. What's your. Who are you? What are you doing, what's important, what's an emotional impact and what are you

Beverly: going to do with the money? Right, right, right, exactly.

Jan: You know, being able to work with people to kind of train them how to do that is just, it's so important.

Beverly: Well, you know, I, you know, I learned that. It's funny because one of the reasons I didn't think, think I could go to law school early on when my mother was choosing a career for me, was that I was a paper. No, actually she wanted me to be an architect, but that, you know, that I couldn't speak publicly. But when I got involved in the women's movement and started speaking in a group we call Berkeley Women's Speakers, went all over the state of California doing karate demonstrations and starting consciousness raising groups and stuff and giving public testimony sort of about how important this was. It was just like, I can talk because this is so important to me. And then of course, I honed that being, you know, running for office. Many times when you're a. On the campaign trail, you have to learn how to speak persuasively and succinctly. And so that's a skill that I've developed that I try to also help our young other candidates learn how to do that. Because I, I work, I try to work with a lot of people who are running for office too, since I have so much experience in that arena. Yeah.

Jan: And you know, I mean, as long as you've been doing it, it's like it's easy for you. You've done it enough times, you know how to do it and, but, and you recognize what needs somebody else might need, you know?

Beverly: Yeah.

Jan: Because you want them to succeed.

Beverly: Right, exactly. Like when we had people running for office, you know, we'd do practice sessions where we would Ask them questions, and then we'd give them critique. And, you know, from my experience, I was able to give them some good feedback. And so, yeah, it's part of me trying to, you know, transmit what I know to others.

Jan: Yeah, yeah. Trade others and pass it down. You know, like we went. The way to build it is to, you know, strengthen the body. It's strengthen the core.

Beverly: Right.

Jan: Are you doing any work currently or with homeless?

Beverly: I'm not working directly with homeless. You know, the issues of social services has been important to me. When I was in the Oregon legislature, I was on the committee for Human services because that's my passion. And so that included issues around homelessness. And then when I was and I ran for the position of chair of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners because the county in Portland does a lot of the social services. And then. So that was my passion. So, you know, we had programs for homeless people, but right now I contribute to the local people. I send my money, but I. But I don't do actual direct with them right now.

Jan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another big rabbit hole. Right?

Beverly: Very hard.

Jan: A never ending rabbit hole. Just. Yeah. What other kind of things are you passionate about?

Beverly: Well, I'm passionate about art and the importance of art in our lives. I have, since I've retired, I've had more time. I've always done various kinds of artistic activities over my life, but usually politics took first. First role. But now that I have more time, I'm a stitch artist. So I do creative embroidery with ribbons and buttons and beads and all kinds of things.

Jan: Fiber art.

Beverly: Yeah. Right. And so. And I've done all. And that's how I met my husband was directing him in a one man show that he wrote and performed. So I've done some performance art. So, yeah, that's another thing I'm passionate and the importance of art in our community. I recently participated in creating a quilt called against erasure, where 40 women, mostly from Portland, but three from here, from Cape Mears, were each assigned three words that the Trump administration had banned from federal websites. And we each made a square with those words and then it was put into a quilt. And we'll be displaying that here, I'll show you. You can ban that. So that's. That was really a fun way of combining my interests of politics and art.

Jan: That sounds lovely.

Beverly: Yeah, I love it.

Jan: It's kind of like, you know, what is it in the revolutionary, you know, and the knitters knitting.

Beverly: People's right.

Jan: And things, you know, and code.

Beverly: Yeah.

Jan: There's A. Yeah.

Beverly: There's a whole history of women expressing their outrage through the. The textile arts and embroidery and crocheting.

Jan: Because, I mean, we're just knitting. We're just doing.

Beverly: Yeah, right, right.

Jan: The power of the women. I love this.

Beverly: Yeah. Yeah.

Jan: I also do fiber arts, and my mother was a weaver, and so I grew up around, you know, all of that textile arts and that kind of stuff, too, and my dad as well. But anyway.

Beverly: Yeah.

Jan: And being creative. Oh, what a. You need, you know, when you do things that you're passionate about, but it's. Because, you know, is a stressful situation. Creativity is just like. Brings it all together. It kind of races that stress and puts you in a place of, you know.

Beverly: Yes. I use it. I mean, the work I do is very detailed, and so it takes a lot of attention. So I listen to music and I do that, and the world dissolves. And I need that sometimes because I. Unfortunately, I read the news and I get upset about what I'm hearing, but when I do my. My work, my stitch art, I just, like, go right into that. It's sort of meditative, and I. So all I pay attention to is what color should I use next? And should I use this bead or that.

Jan: I know, isn't it. Yeah, I like this color. Does this go with the. And it's just like. And when it's done, it's like a. You know.

Beverly: Right.

Jan: So let me just ask you, on the creative aspect, are you. Do you enjoy more the process or the end product?

Beverly: Oh, I think the. The pro. I love the process. I mean, I wouldn't do it if I didn't love the process because it's too much work for what I do. But. But I also like having it. And. And, you know, I experienced this a long time ago when I was doing some sort of collage art with a friend of mine. And it got to the point where we had enough pieces where we had a body of work, and I'd never experienced having a body of work. And we had a show just for our friends. We each invited 25 people who loved us. And I had this show. This was, like, in the 80s. And so I got the idea of what it was like to have a body of work and wanting to show it. So now I'm starting to show my work that I hadn't thought of doing before. So, yeah, I mean, I'm proud of what I've done, but mostly it's the process because it's. Why do it if the process is enjoyable?

Jan: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I. I think I tend to like the process better than the end product. Once the end product's done, it's kind of like, okay, you know.

Beverly: Yeah. Right. I just go on to the next one.

Jan: I mean, you know, you know, and somebody says, oh, it takes so long. Why are you doing it? It's just like, well, I'm not doing this. I'm going to be doing another one. So, you know, like, it doesn't matter. And that part doesn't really matter. Yeah. Can you give any stories of things of how some of the things you've done and have impacted individuals?

Beverly: Well, you know, one of the things I'm very proud of was the work I did in the Oregon legislature and I initiated a number of projects that still exist today, which made me feel very good because I was in the Oregon legislature in the early 90s. One of them is individual development accounts, which I introduced to the state of Oregon, which are accounts where people who are in poverty can contribute some money to an account and it gets matched by money from the state and they can use it to buy a first home, get an education, do some fundamental things that improve their, increase their assets. The basic principle is that you can't get out of poverty by just spending money. You have to have assets. So. And that program is flourishing and there's a tax credit for it for people to contribute. Another one was the community development corporations which were started around the state as a result of my legislation to do affordable housing. And there are now many community development corporations around the state. So that's a couple of the things I've done in the legislature. I'm kind of known for making things happen. So if there's something that we need to make happen, I'm good at making it happen.

Jan: And I mean, just as a curiosity, I mean, I know how I think of things, but I mean, how do you, how do you decide what you're making happen? Is it just like this? Are you just happen ears open and you hear something and you see it or what? I mean, how does that work for you?

Beverly: Well, I like to do things that I believe will actually make a difference that are evidence based. So like when I started a project to get people to write, get out the vote letters, I. I researched the various ways that you can get letters or postcards to send, you know, around the country to get people to vote in progressive areas. And I wanted to make sure that they were evidence based, that they actually had done research to show that sending the postcards made a difference. So that's how I landed on postcards to swing states because they seem to do a really good job of researching and changing their. Their approach according to the evidence they get. So. So I really like to do things that actually make a difference, not just make me feel good or make other people feel good. So, you know, I'll choose the thing that really works before. I'll just do something that seems fun or interesting or whatever and do those things.

Jan: Like, let's say when you were doing the postcards, was that something you had seen done before? How did that idea come to you for you to start doing it?

Beverly: Well, that's pretty much something that's been around, you know, sending postcards to get people out to vote for many years. So that was something I knew about. And I. Then I did the research to figure out what the best version was. That's. That was all. And then. Then engaged people in doing things. I'm. I'm someone who seems to be very persuasive to get people to do things. I'm not afraid to call up and ask somebody to do something. I've raised a lot of money. When I ran for governor, I raised over a million dollars by myself. And I've never been afraid since then. I've never been afraid to raise money. So we had a project here in my community when I was. I'm no longer the president of the Cape Mears Community association, but there was a. An about 200 acres in our community. This is a very small community. Like a hundred people live here full time, and it was to be logged, and we were able to stop the logging, and it took several years, But I led a project that resulted in buying that property. And, and, and we had some additional property and we sold it to a conservation fund who ultimately will be selling it to the wildlife refuge here. So that's the kind of thing that, you know, I. And so I raised a lot of money because we needed to, so. But a lot of people are afraid of raising money, but I'm not.

Jan: Yeah. Yeah. And I. There, again, part of that is building relationships that they're gonna. They're going to know you and they're going to trust you. And so, yeah, she's. I'll support her because she's supporting that and, you know. Yeah, because time to look them in the eyes and say, I care about you.

Beverly: Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Jan: Right.

Beverly: Yeah. I always say this whole. The work I do is about, you know, they say for real estate, it's location, location, location. I say it's relationship, relationship, relationship. That's my.

Jan: Yeah, I think for me, a lot of times, I'm just a channel. It's just like, okay, like, with a hundred women, you know, I was on a trip to Ecuador and a gal that was on our trip seeing sponsor kids, and she's from Minnesota, she said, I just went to this amazing organization and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I got, oh, oh, yeah, I'm gonna do that. I bet I'm gonna do that. You know, and it's like, not a lot of work, whatever, but I can facilitate a whole bunch of people.

Beverly: Right.

Jan: To go to that one cause and to make a difference without, you know. Yeah, you're a lot the same, I think, just that. That you channeled.

Beverly: You're.

Jan: You're the channel for things, you know.

Beverly: Right, right. Yes. You know, it's. I don't have a whole lot of ego in it. I mean, it was a contradiction because when I ran for office for many years, you do have to put yourself out there, but that was the job. So I put myself out there. But it's a relief now to. I haven't, you know, been involved that for 20 years to not have to care about if people give me credit or not, because I needed it then, and that was the job, because people needed to know who you were. But now I can just do what I do and do it behind the scenes and whatever.

Jan: You know, the freedom.

Beverly: I like being appreciated, and I am appreciated, but I don't feel a need to get credit, particularly.

Jan: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We are almost at the end of our time. I wanted to ask you, do you have. You're mentioning one of the. I want to say this wrong. The bills or something that you got through with, with people doing credits? How could people find out about that if they didn't know about it?

Beverly: They can Google Neighborhood Partnership Fund. And the Neighborhood Partnership Fund is who or, you know, is in charge of distributing the Individual Development Account credits and supporting the people who get the money. They have a financial literacy program to go with it so that people can learn how to budget and stuff. And it's. It's really a great program, but not a lot of people know about it. It's been around now for, like, you know, 25 years, but yeah, and you get it. Like, at this point, you get a 90% tax credit, which is a real benefit.

Jan: That's a lot of production.

Beverly: It's a credit. So, you know, I. I urge people to check it out. They actually run out of credits. They're now trying to figure out if they should reduce the credits to, like, 80% or something so more people can get in on it.

Jan: Hmm.

Beverly: Wow, that's.

Jan: Even 80% would be amazing.

Beverly: Yeah. Right?

Jan: Yeah. Are there other things that I could link to those podcasts that people know about?

Beverly: Let's see. Well, I encourage people to get involved in indivisible, and there's, you know, there's a national indivisible, and then you can go on their. Their website and find out if there's a local group, which. There are indivisible groups almost everywhere now. So I urge people to get engaged and not be discouraged that somehow we can't make a difference. We can make a difference if we do it together.

Jan: Yeah. Yeah. United.

Beverly: Yes. United.

Jan: This has been great, Beverly. Thank you so much for being a part of my show and kind of bring it to life once more. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Beverly: Great. Thank you for doing this.

Jan: Hey, friends, thanks for listening. Feel free to share this episode with anyone you think might be interested. There's a link in the show, notes for the neighborhood, partnerships. All kinds of great information there. If you're interested in that, take a look. Thanks again. Until next time.