Electric Transportation Equity in the Valley
Team TEA
Anna Bartholomew (Spring 2022), Raven Fielding (Spring 2022), Grace Logan (Spring 2022),
Kaleigh Shufeldt (Spring 2022), & John Stivers (Spring 2022)
Transportation Electrification Activator
April 2022

Caption: The above picture is a person at a transit stop surrounded by vacant lots and lack of shade, which
both decrease air quality and extreme heat. This picture demonstrates the interlocking systemic impacts
that coincide with transportation.

Table of Contents
Click on respective sections to be taken to that part of the Report.

Executive Summary

2

Introduction

3

Positionality Statement

4

Current State

6

Electric Transportation Across the U.S.
National Listening

7
8

City of Tempe’s Electric Transportation Plans
Regional Listening

10
10

Local Listening with Community Organizations
Tempe Community Action Agency
CHISPA Arizona

12
12
14

Community Listening Pilot Project
Timeline & Strategy
Listening Script

15
18
24

Project Processes and Emerging Conversations

29

Recommendations

32

Electric Transportation Equity Accompanying Documents

40

Conclusion

40

Appendix

49

Electric Transportation Equity 1

Executive Summary
The Transportation Electrification Activator (TE Activator) was created by Salt River Project
(SRP), a regional power/water utility, and Anthesis, a sustainability consulting agency. The
Activator’s mission is to “electrify transportation in a manner that optimizes community benefits,
maximizes investment efficiency, and achieves transformative results…[with a focus] on
cross-industry collaborative action aimed towards a region with clean air, accessible electric
transportation options, and robust electric vehicle infrastructure” (TE Activator, 2021). With this
mission, they have asked Team TEA to focus on making this transition equitable and inclusive.
The equitable implementation of electric vehicles (EVs) is deemed a challenge due to high
upfront costs, high costs of insurance, and lack of affordable new or used EVs (Glandorf, 2020).
However, there is a systemic gap that calls for institutions to listen to directly impacted
communities to properly scope this challenge and determine the actual barriers to
implementation. An important consideration for historically underrepresented communities is
that alternative methods of transportation are more heavily relied upon than single-occupancy
vehicles (SOVs), thus requiring an analysis of all transportation methods (FTA, 2013).
Significant risks, exacerbated by climate change and the current transportation structure, include
a warmer climate and worsening air quality that will continue to disproportionately impact
low-income and Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities in the greater
Phoenix area (Maricopa County Public Health, 2020). Moreover, these communities have
historically benefited less from an EV transition, whether it be financial barriers created by high
cost of ownership, missed government tax breaks, or lack of entry in the electric transportation
(ET) job market. Therefore, there is a great sense of urgency to evaluate potential pathways that
would best aid in the transition to ET for these underrepresented communities. Further, there is a
need to look at the bigger picture of these culminating disparities and analyze if transportation is
even seen as a priority, compared to other focuses, for the communities we aim to serve.
To aid this transition, we detailed the current state of electric transportation nationally and
locally, analyzed equitable EV/ET programs and utility plans across the country, reviewed the
City of Tempe’s electric transportation related efforts, conducted listening sessions with a
national expert, the City of Tempe, Tempe Community Action Agency and CHISPA AZ, and
created a Community Listening Pilot Project based on these listening sessions. Through our
research, listening, and discussions, we compiled tiered recommendations for the TE Activator
with systemic policy changes based on community priorities. Our report and recommendations
culminate in an Equity Roadmap, which will serve as a high-level summation of this report. The
Roadmap details the Community Listening Pilot Project and potential recommendations for the
TE Activator. We have also created a Community Listening Script to be utilized in future
listening sessions and a one-page brief as an overview of the overall project and deliverables
With the TE Activator’s intention of continuing this community engagement well into the future,
the Community Listening Pilot Project can be used to continually revisit the problem framing as
they transition to ET. Thorough collaboration, centered around empathy and listening, is the only
feasible route to develop transportation equity solutions that serve historically underrepresented
communities (Livingston, 2020).
Key words: Electric Vehicles (EVs), Electric Transportation (ET), equity, historically underserved/marginalized communities,
multi-modal transportation network, Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), Mobility Equity Framework, Love-Based
Aid , “5 P” Engagement Framework, Spectrum from Community Engagement to Ownership

Electric Transportation Equity 2

Introduction
The electric transportation (ET) and electric vehicle (EV) landscape is currently inequitable and
inaccessible for many living in the Phoenix area. This is especially true for people without
single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs), who are reliant on public transit, or do not live in the
Metropolitan center. Transit is intricately related to the environment and, due to societal and
political structures, most of these environmental injustices, deriving from traditional combustion
vehicles, are concentrated in low-income and Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC)
communities. The lack of political representation within these communities has led to increased
exposure to a variety of issues. Equitable transportation has also suffered due to a significant gap
in addressing the needs of these underserved communities (Bolin, et al., 2005). The
concentration of inequities and environmental injustices is a direct result of the lack of
representation. Therefore, equitable and inclusive collaboration on solutions is required in order
to maintain fairness and access, (Clement, 2020) considering the legacy of institutional harm
within historically marginalized communities.
In the current state, there are no clear ET pathways for historically underrepresented
communities that ensures an equitable transition. While there are organizations working on
equity within their communities, there is a lack of direct collaboration between institutions,
organizations, and community members to develop effective and equitable solutions that work
alongside their assets and with their identified needs.
The TE Activator was created by Salt River Project (SRP), a local water and power utility, and
Anthesis Group, a sustainability consulting agency. The Activator is a group of Phoenix-area
organizations interested in shaping the ET landscape to positively influence the well-being of
Arizonans. It is made up of two groups - practitioners and supporting partners (TE Activator,
2021). Practitioners are in charge of the tangible transition towards electrification in terms of
investment and built environment changes. While the supporting partners’ (community members
and organizations) role is to share their perspectives and provide honest feedback for the
practitioners.
The TE Activator is looking to collaboratively create a strategy for ET that brings inclusive
solutions to the Valley with the mission to “electrify transportation in a manner that optimizes
community benefits, maximizes investment efficiency, and achieves transformative
results…[with a focus] on cross-industry collaborative action aimed towards a region with clean
air, accessible electric transportation options, and robust electric vehicle infrastructure” (TE
Activator, 2021). Within this mission, they have asked Team TEA to focus on how to make this
transition equitable and inclusive.
To do this, Team TEA has come up with a number of deliverables. First, this report, which gives
an in-depth national, regional, and local lay-of-the-land for electric transportation equity, through
our own research and listening. This report details the current state of transportation in Arizona,
and then dives into national examples that demonstrate how these issues have been tackled by
other cities, states, and utilities across the country. Following, we narrow the scope by discussing
Tempe’s history with transportation-related policy and programs to understand what has already
been done and what they are currently doing. We then focus on local community organizations
and the work they do with historically marginalized communities. Within the national, regional,
and local sections we conducted listening sessions with leaders and incorporated their input and
Electric Transportation Equity 3

feedback. We then ground this work through the Community Listening Pilot Project, which
details an engagement framework that can be led by the TE Activator going forward. In the
Project Processes & Emerging Conversations section of this report, we detailed our reasoning for
how and why we went about this process and the need for a slow, intentional approach to equity
work that shifts power to communities. Finally, we include tiered recommendations based on our
research and listening.
Along with the report, we have several accompanying deliverables. The first is an Equity
Roadmap, which is a high-level summary of the contents in this final report, including the
Community Listening Pilot Project and our tiered recommendations. Next is a Community
Listening Script, which details the wording and questions that can be asked in future listening
sessions. We have also included a one-page brief that can be utilized by TE Activator partners to
get an overview of this project and the key deliverables. All of these deliverables will articulate
possible pathways towards reaching their proposed goal of equitable ET transitions, by providing
strategies and reflection as they craft their community collaboration.
Some aspects of this report may be uncomfortable, but having these conversations are critical.
We ask that as TE Activator partners read this report, and begin socially-embedded equity work,
that there is a focus to “...try to stay in the uncomfortable feeling and listen to the points raised,
rather than shutting the conversation down, leaving the room, reacting defensively, making
excuses or jokes, or shifting the discussion to your feelings of hurt… [in short] step back and
decentre yourself” (Creative Equity Toolkit, n.d.).
Positionality Statement
Land Acknowledgement
As many of us are descendants of settlers, immigrants, or descendants of those forcefully brought
to this continent, we must recognize and never forget that we occupy the unceded traditional and
contemporary homelands of those Native American tribes that have inhabited this land for
centuries. We also have a responsibility to acknowledge and pay respect to the Indigenous elders
and Knowledge Keepers – past, present, and future – whose stewardship and love of these lands
and all its beings allow us to be here today.
While acknowledgement means little unless coupled with meaningful action, we must all
recognize our full, true history before we can move forward, and must educate ourselves on our
responsibilities to one another and the land.
Personal Identities
We are a team of five graduate students with varying backgrounds, values, and beliefs.
Grace Logan is a white, agender 22-year-old that was born and raised in the Phoenix Valley north
of Van Buren, the historical segregation line, on Akimel O’odham and Piipaash lands. After
being a volunteer lead in a garden that was eventually gentrified out of Roosevelt Row, Grace
now primarily focuses on how sustainability can be seen as a philosophy, applied moral
psychology, and path towards abolition to culturally and institutionally shift away from white
supremacy paradigms and structures, with an emphasis on food justice and community
governance.

Electric Transportation Equity 4

Anna Bartholomew is a white, cisgender female 24-year-old that was born in Dallas, Texas and
now lives in Mesa, Arizona on historically Yavapai Apache, Western Apache, and Piipaash
lands. Anna came to Arizona to study sustainability at Arizona State University. Anna’s view of
sustainability has been shaped primarily around the impacts of human activities to the
environment and in turn how it has impacted human health. As water is a complex essential
resource which we all depend on, Anna has focused primarily on water resource management
throughout her undergraduate degree and into her graduate studies.
Kaleigh Shufeldt is a white, 29-year-old, cisgender female, that was born and raised in Paradise
Valley, Arizona, on Akimel O’odham lands. Kaleigh is focused on community wealth building
and the intersection of sustainability, environmental and social justice, and food security and
sovereignty. She believes that to create an equitable landscape and future, grassroots movements
and community engagement is the way forward.
Raven Fielding is a white, 23-year-old, cisgender female born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona on
Ak-chin tribal lands. Appreciation for nature, learning the intersectionality of environmental
protection and injustices occurring on a local and global scale, has shaped Raven’s view on
sustainability and intersectional justice in her graduate work.
John Stivers is a white, 24-year-old, cisgender male born in Pebble Beach, California. John has
spent the last two years in Arizona completing his Masters in Sustainability from Arizona State
University. Growing up, John spent time in nature and saw the importance of environmental
conservation and how it can not only affect the natural world but the community as well. John
has studied and interned in the energy sector and hopes to continue applying sustainable
principles to an energy transition. John believes that sustainable innovation, if done correctly, can
improve the environmental, economic, and social aspects of our communities.
Although representing different class, age, and gender communities, we all hold white privilege,
speak English as a first language, and have the ability to gain a graduate-level education. By
acknowledging our personal intersectionality (Appendix 1), we can better understand the biases
and power we individually and collectively have when navigating academic and community
spaces in this work. Specifically for this project, our intersectional identities create blindspots
and opportunities in our equity analysis that we wanted to openly acknowledge.
However, we each have our own mind maps and experiences that have molded our perception of
sustainability. A collective belief this group holds is that social sustainability must be central to
overall sustainability processes, but this integration requires a slow, intentional, reflective, and
observational effort.
Our Project Role
As social sustainability advisors for the TE Activator, we researched, listened, and detailed how
transportation electrification can be more equitable for everyone living in Arizona. Over the past
eight months, we have been meticulously evaluating and re-evaluating the best method to
approach communities that would produce beneficial, long-term relationships in regard to ET.
However, we must acknowledge the pertinent priorities of these communities, and electric

Electric Transportation Equity 5

transportation is not one of them. Navigating the unique and differing intentions of the various
organizations, communities, and individuals has been challenging, but has stimulated
conversations on the opportunities to achieve each stakeholder’s goals collaboratively. We hope
that our contributions will stimulate and inform long term relationships, which produce
beneficial and sustainable outcomes for all stakeholders.
Current State
The current state of disparity is accompanied by a great sense of urgency across Arizona in
environmental, economic, and societal spheres. The present has been dictated by the inequitable
conditions where historically underrepresented communities face excessive barriers that severely
curtail low-income and BIPOC communities ability to secure water rights, control or regulation
of land use, and effective political representation (Pope, 2014). In relation to transportation,
vehicular emissions intensify the urban heat island effect (EPA, 2015) and contribute to
worsening air pollution that is predominantly worse in low-income, BIPOC communities. In
2020, the National Weather Service set an unprecedented record by issuing 12 excessive heat
warnings that lasted for about 48 days, shattering previous annual records. Many of the
heat-related deaths were disproportionately represented by BIPOC (Maricopa County Public
Health, 2020). Therefore, there is a dire need to reduce air pollution and minimize activities that
increase heat, such as the dependency centered around the fossil fuel industry for combustion
engine vehicles. However, to achieve long-term significant environmental improvements with
ET, it must be widespread and implemented in regions that can benefit the most from it
(Greenlining Institute, 2011).
Aside from local governments passing policy for EVs and ET, there is the undeniable fact that
this switch is not addressing global energy dependencies fueled by environmental exploitation.
The secondary environmental impacts of increased EV adoption will have significant effects on
natural systems and human health in general, but posing specific threats for Indigenous
communities (Martin, 2021). The mining, manufacturing, and disposal of nickel, cobalt, lithium
and other materials used for battery technology uses substantial energy, extracts valuable
resources from the Earth, and pollutes freshwater resources (Brennan, 2016). As batteries
corrode, the chemicals will soak into aquifers and other freshwater supplies, disrupting flora and
fauna and causing significant human health problems. In fact, a 2015 EV generates enough
human toxicity potential to impact human health 20 days from either death or disability, while a
traditional combustion engine only generates enough for 6 days (Brennan, 2016). Therefore, as
we transition, research into sustainable mining practices for battery materials and the impact to
human health is critical to creating a fully sustainable system from top to bottom.
Throughout Arizona, many organizations have mobilized to achieve this electric transportation
transition. With the creation of the Transportation Electrification Activator, various
municipalities have come together to focus on this goal, such as the City of Phoenix, the City of
Mesa, and the City of Tempe. Many of the goals emphasize electric vehicle adoption, installation
of charging stations, electrifying public transit, overall reduction of miles traveled, and the
electrification of the cities’ fleets (Salt River Project, 2021; TE Activator, 2022). In December
2021, the Arizona Corporation Commission approved “the final phase of a comprehensive
Transportation Electrification Plan that aims to foster electric vehicle use, charging infrastructure
development, and innovative rate designs for electric vehicle (EV) charging” (Basinger, 2021).

Electric Transportation Equity 6

This approval further reinforces that regulated utilities must report “ongoing comprehensive
plans at least every three years and report annually on their progress” (Basinger, 2021).
Electrification has been implemented in some capacity across 50 countries, which includes
scooters, buses, bicycles, and mopeds (IEA, 2020). The primary driver for adoption of electric
forms of transportation originates from local governments, as it maintains significant influence
over the adoption of electric modes of transportation in regards to affordability and accessibility.
Despite national and international motivation to electrify modes of transportation, the local
governments must maintain the same level of motivation and possess adequate budgetary
funding to implement these desired changes. Budgetary shifts would then require a local shift in
city council priorities or alternatively be supported through federal funding.
Regional Current State & Electric Transportation
The Greenlining Institute has centered equity within the transition of electric transportation and
has called attention to these barriers within BIPOC communities in their 2011 report, Electric
Vehicles: Who’s Left Stranded. The report emphasizes that, despite underserved communities
having the most to benefit from an electric transportation transition, they “may get relatively
little benefit from EVs, which are often seen as expensive and unattainable” (Greenlining
Institute, 2011). For example, although white Californians make up 40% of the population, 70%
of hybrid owners were white in 2019, thus exposing the severe inequities and inequalities tied to
gentrification and the exacerbation of harmful institutionalized policies that have persisted for
generations (Fuels Institute, 2021). Using census block data in California, it was found “...that
public charger access is lower in block groups with below-median household incomes and in
those with a Black and Hispanic majority populations” (Hsu & Fingerman, 2021). EV
gentrification is where areas of historical disinvestment have “...little to no charging
infrastructure for electric vehicles…[on top of the reality that there is not] a place to park and
charge overnight…” if they don’t own their home or live in multi-family housing (TE, 2021).
Considering “...neighborhood[s] now lacking charging stations [were] once devoid of groceries
as well…” the switch to EVs without acknowledging price and accessibility of EVs and their
charging stations is recycling the same oppressive structures within a new dynamic (Walling,
2021).
The Greenlining Institute goal is “to encourage policy discussions’ around electric vehicles’
impacts and deployment plans in these communities, to raise the urgency and timeliness of these
discussions, and to create policy solutions that address the concerns of these communities''
(Greenlining Institute, 2011). If these systemic issues are not addressed, communities will lose
mobility and access to the transportation network, therefore alternative and feasible solutions
must be considered for those who can’t have EVs.
Electric Transportation Across the U.S.
There are numerous examples of cities, states, and communities implementing EV policies and
strategies. Our team begins by focusing on national examples of equitable ET adoption to gather
a deeper understanding of the best methods that are being evaluated and utilized across this scale.

Electric Transportation Equity 7

National Listening
Our team interviewed Kelly Blynn, the current Transportation Climate Change Specialist at
Colorado Energy Office, to better understand the ET movement and goals across the country.
Blynn has an extensive background in not only EVs, but community and city organizations.
When she worked as the Electric Vehicle Technical Strategist for the National Resources Defense
Council, Blynn drafted and led the development of the Boston ZEV Roadmap, Pittsburgh Public
EV Charging Strategic Plan, and Orlando Electric Mobility Roadmap (City of Boston, 2020;
City of Pittsburgh, 2020; Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, 2020). She
also led policy development, technical analysis, and stakeholder engagement for EV readiness
ordinances in St. Louis, Indianapolis, Orlando, and St. Petersburg (Blynn, listening session,
2022). Due to her work on the national level, she is an insightful resource to learn more about the
opportunities and challenges ahead.
There are a few key takeaways from our interview with Blynn. One, there is a big opportunity in
how we navigate the EV transition involving engagement, community participation, and
ownership of the shift to an ET system. Not only can we be more efficient and environmentally
friendly, but also take into consideration the whole distribution of cost effectiveness for all
communities and equity. What Blynn herself found exciting about the transition is how to ensure
that the benefits can be experienced by communities that have felt the burden historically from
transportation projects. There are a lot of barriers and complications, such as technology,
education, infrastructure, and up-front cost and maintenance issues. Additionally, it is difficult to
engage different entities, foster connections that aren't already there, and facilitate the discussion
of complicated information that isn’t easily digestible. Overall, every situation and project is
different, so there isn’t a one size fits all approach (Blynn, listening session, 2022). That being
said, there are a few examples from which we can pull from to help us in our project.
In this interview, there was an emphasis that electrifying our transportation system is an
important strategy to address climate change and air quality, but this must be in tandem with
investments with multi-modal transportation options, such as public transit, biking, and walking
infrastructure. Therefore, she believed the strategy lies with electrifying the vehicles on the road,
while also focusing on increasing accessibility in the wider transportation network. With the help
of Kelly Blynn our team was also able to identify a couple of projects in St. Louis, Berkeley, and
other national examples that we believe are applicable to EV adoption in Phoenix, and can help
us move forward.
St. Louis
In February 2021, St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson signed an executive order that formally began
the EV transition for the city fleet. It also involved a significant ramping up of city infrastructure
and charging stations, leading to a positive externality of wider adoption. The executive order
and implementation guide were led by key stakeholders, including but not limited to Mayor
Krewson, Sustainability Director Catherine Werner, Commissioner of Equipment Services
Christopher Amos, Commissioner of Facilities Management Rick Ernst, and Transportation
Policy Planner Scott Ogilvie. The initiative was also supported by NRDC and the Electrification
Coalition. A key development for St. Louis was their SiLVERS (Sustainable electric vehicle
shuttle program for seniors) program, which was implemented by the Forth advocacy group. The
initiative aims to serve historically underrepresented communities with EV technology to offset

Electric Transportation Equity 8

fossil fuel-powered outages and emissions, furthering the City’s overall sustainability goals.
Besides city leaders, the St. Louis project incorporated a community organization in their
deliberations. The organization has slightly different transportation needs than city officials and
the original stakeholders, and their voice was invaluable in developing the project concept and
securing funding. The project supported adding electric vehicles to existing community
transportation services that provide rides and deliveries to low income communities in the city,
while also offering access to the chargers for those vehicles to the surrounding community
(NRDC, 2021).
Berkeley
Another great example of incorporating different voices into a project was during the creation of
Berkeley's Electric Mobility Roadmap (Berkeley, 2020). Historically, the city of Berkeley has
been met with many challenges from a social and economic perspective. Therefore,
implementing an EV adoption roadmap that addressed real community transportation needs was
a challenge, as historically disadvantaged community members didn’t necessarily see vehicle
electrification as a top priority. One thing city leaders did in Berkeley was listen to community
members that were historically disproportionately impacted but not represented in past projects
and processes. As a result, the roadmap centered more equitable approaches to transportation
electrification options in the city (Blynn, listening session, 2022).
States/Utilities
Colorado is a great measuring stick for EV policies and programs. For example, their Colorado
eBike Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 Pilot Program addressed alternative solutions to emissions and
affordable mobility in lower socioeconomic communities. The Colorado Energy Office (CEO)
committed $500,000 for the Fall 2020 initiative, which gave 13 low-income essential workers in
the greater Denver area a Momentum LaFree E + eBike (Class 1), helmet, pump, lock, lights,
and more at no cost. It has since grown, as the Spring 2021 program deployed 156 eBikes
throughout the State of Colorado, with another 25 planned in Spring 2022, and 50 eBike share
memberships. The program is also a success in terms of state and local coordination. The Spring
2021 program was accomplished with the help of 5 local community and city organizations
(Colorado Energy Office, 2022).
Moreover, Xcel Energy in Colorado offers a unique case study into utilities' role in supporting
EV adoption and implementation. Xcel’s Transportation Electrification Plan (TEP) comes in the
wake of the state setting a goal of 940,000 EVs on the road by 2030 and implementing several
complementary policies and programs to establish itself as a national leader in electric
transportation space. The Colorado legislature has highlighted the importance of utilities in
helping Colorado reach their goals with the SB 19-007 Bill. Xcel will assist by “fostering greater
awareness of the opportunities and benefits of electric transportation; reducing barriers to
adopting electric transportation; increasing access to the benefits of electric transportation;
encouraging innovation, partnerships, and collaboration and encouraging EV charging in ways
that reduce system costs and enable their vision to realize a 100 percent carbon free grid” (Xcel
energy, 2021).
In terms of equity, Xcel Energy has incorporated multiple strategies to support low to moderate
income households. This comes in the form of subsidies and support for family charging in low
and moderate income households, rebates for EVs and charging, but only for low and moderate
Electric Transportation Equity 9

income households. Xcel’s TEP also boasts plans to increase the used EV market, which will
inevitably drive down prices and make EVs more accessible to all income groups. These plans
are similar to California's Public Utility Commission’s (CPUC) goals to support all
zero-emission vehicles by 2035 and 250,00 EVs by 2025. To help support this, utilities in
California will offer numerous incentives to make EVs more affordable. This includes:
● Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) Rebates
● Utility Shareholder-Funded Incentives: SDG&E offers a $1,000 point-of-sale rebate to
eligible teachers and first-responders in its service territory through its Champions For
Clean Air program.
● State vehicle rebates: Customers that purchase or lease an electric vehicle may be eligible
for rebates through the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project. This program has issued more than
$823 million in rebates since the program started in 2010.
● Visit Drive Clean for clean and efficient vehicles to identify additional incentives (CPUC,
2022)
Social and Technological
From our interview with Kelly Blynn looking at examples from the city, state, and utility levels,
it’s clear to see there’s a dynamic between the social and technological side of infrastructure
development. From a societal perspective, the coordination of multiple groups from state
legislators to energy suppliers and community led organizations, there is an opportunity to have a
clear and concise EV program that incorporates all community perspectives. From a
technological side, there’s a big barrier in advancement to charging infrastructure for
multi-family homes as well as affordable, low-cost vehicles for low-income peoples. There are,
however, some great examples from used EVs to utility rebates, and other forms of electric
transportation that can be implemented for feasible, equitable EV adoption.
City of Tempe’s Electric Transportation Plans
Focusing in from the national lens, we analyze how transportation plans in Tempe have recently
centered equity. The City of Tempe is a prime example of a city in Arizona making significant
strides towards electric transportation.
Regional Listening
To get a better sense of the City of Tempe’s current electric transportation plans, our team
interviewed Brianne Fisher, City of Tempe Climate Action Manager. Brianne Fisher believes that
ET is a great way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She stated that transportation equity, to
the City of Tempe, includes a variety of accessible options that meets the needs of the individual
within the community (Fisher, listening session, 2022). For their community, Fisher envisions
the neighborhood children being able to walk to school comfortably, the senior residents utilizing
the Tempe Streetcar or Valley MetroRail (light rail), and a seamless connection of diverse
mobility options. Fisher also hopes that the Tempe’s Orbit Shuttle Bus will become more widely
utilized by all of Tempe’s residents, as it is a free bus shuttle service (Fisher, listening session,
2022 and City of Tempe, 2022). One of the significant barriers for increasing ridership is the lack
of cooling and shading along these transportation routes.

Electric Transportation Equity 10

The City of Tempe conducted an analysis in order to achieve their Carbon Neutrality Goal by
2050, transportation emissions must be reduced by 91% and discovered that the transition to
electric vehicles would produce the largest impact to achieve this reduction (Fisher, listening
session, 2022). To financially accomplish this, there would need to be an estimated investment of
$36 million for supporting infrastructure, education and programs throughout 2050, which
equates to annual investment of $3 million until 2050 (Fisher, listening session, 2022).
In regard to our project, Fisher pointed to significant opportunities, such as the involvement and
interest the private sector shares around electric transportation, availability of regional funding,
and federal funding through the Federal Infrastructure Jobs Act (Fisher, listening session, 2022).
Despite these regional and federal resources that can contribute to the TE Activator, localized
projects must also be prioritized as it can more closely analyze the specific needs of each
community and the variety of other needs that may or may not be related to transportation.
In this interview, there was an emphasis on how this strategy was both politically feasible and a
means to reduce transportation emissions. She saw the ability for municipal governments, the
private sector, and utilities to partner in ET solutions as an asset to reach sustainable
transportation goals, such as increasing charging stations and re-evaluating infrastructure
changes to allow more public transit. When working with the community, Fisher reaffirmed that
better ideas and outcomes will occur when more diverse voices are included throughout the
process. In their experience of developing relationships with the community, the community
organizations that have expressed interest in this project ought to develop guiding principles on
how they would like to be partnered with (Fisher, interview, 2022).
City of Tempe Policy & Programs
As the city continues to rapidly develop, the urban density places pressure on Tempe’s
car-centric culture. In the city’s 2019 Climate Action Plan, Tempe included equitable approaches
that place underrepresented groups as first to be considered when developing programs and
policies for the city. The plan also incorporated “targeted universalism, which means pursuing
policies and programs that are targeted at underrepresented groups” to produce benefits for all
(City of Tempe, 2019). With these equitable approaches in mind, and when connecting it to the
transition to electric transportation, the City of Tempe 2020 Annual Report emphasizes that the
measurements of the City’s Transportation Electrification Goal are based on carbon neutrality,
achieving a 20 minute city, monitoring traffic delays, and evaluating the overall satisfaction with
the transit system (City of Tempe, 2020). With 43% of emissions coming from transportation
alone, it is imperative for the city’s future to reduce emissions within the transportation system
(City of Tempe, 2020).
As one of the founding partners of the TE Activator, the City of Tempe has announced plans to
“double the number of charging stations throughout the community by 2025,” as well as
“developing additional transportation electrification targets” by the end of 2022 (TE Activator,
2021). The City of Tempe has also added 20 electric vehicles to their municipal fleet, has
installed 35 electric vehicle charging stations at city facilities, and all buses are either hybrid or
utilize alternative fuels. The completed electric vehicle feasibility study will be utilized to guide
future implementation actions (City of Tempe, 2022). The next steps, as highlighted in the
Tempe Annual Report, focus on continuing to pursue their goal of creating a 20-minute city,

Electric Transportation Equity 11

expand upon the streetcar in collaboration with Valley Metro and the City of Mesa, and continue
their transition of the City Fleet of Tempe to electric vehicles accompanied by charging stations
(City of Tempe, 2020). Tempe’s Orbit Shuttle Bus and Flash buses are also switching to
alternative fuels that is accompanied by a pilot program of eight buses to test the feasibility of
fully-electric buses (City of Tempe, 2020).
Going forward, the 2022 Draft Climate Action Plan for Tempe contains various aspects of equity
that are supported through their theory of change (Appendix 1). The Guiding Principles
displayed in the city’s theory of change for equity “prioritizes needs of BIPOC residents and
Indigenous knowledge” (City of Tempe, 2022). The draft is a continuation of their efforts of
targeted universalism and considering underrepresented groups/individuals before others. To
combine equity efforts and transportation, the City of Tempe supports the creation of the
Transportation Management Association, which would be a non-profit member organization that
manages and oversees transportation options. Other equity efforts detailed in the draft advocate
for regional and federal funding for Bus Rapid Transit and Tempe Streetcar extension, increase
transit frequency on key routes, and adopt building codes that reduce barriers to install electric
vehicle chargers. Improvements in light rail, bike, pedestrian, and streetcar infrastructure will
continue to be a priority for the city as they work to achieve their goal of a 20-minute city and
the development of more mobility hubs. Mobility hubs combine various forms of transportation
in one location, and there is currently only one that is within Downtown Tempe (City of Tempe,
2022). Further, the city has proposed several investments in transit shelters, bus rapid transit
primarily on Rural Road/Scottsdale Road, extending the Tempe Streetcar into Rio Salado and
Mesa, and installing more electric vehicle charging stations.
Local Listening with Community Organizations
Centrally, the research up until this point will inform the necessary place-specific localization
that is required for equity work. To gather this perspective, we conducted listening sessions with
Tempe Community Action Agency and CHISPA.
Tempe Community Action Agency

Background
The Tempe Community Action Agency (TCAA) is a non-profit social service organization
founded in 1966 by two women, Lupe Esquer and Barbara Norton, who saw a need in the Tempe
area. With the reputation of Tempe’s largest social service agency, the non-profit organization’s
mission is “to foster dignity and self-reliance for the economically vulnerable in the communities
[they] serve” (TCAA, n.d.). For more than 55 years, the Tempe Community Action Agency
(TCAA) has worked to improve quality of life for their community by offering programs that
promote healthy upbringings for youth, address food insecurity, stabilize housing, and more
(TCAA, n.d.). TCAA provides programs to the valley that reach over 27,000 community
members within and nearby Tempe communities (TCAA, n.d). Some of these programs include
emergency centers, hunger relief, financial services, community gardens, and many more diverse
programs to benefit the community. TCAA continues to shape and innovate their programs in
response to the community's needs.

Electric Transportation Equity 12

Listening Session
Team TEA had the opportunity to meet with the Chief Executive Officer of the Tempe
Community Action Agency (TCAA), Deborah Arteaga, who shed light on the needs of the
low-income and elderly communities within the city of Tempe and surrounding areas. TCAA
maintains many programs in Tempe, which include Food Programs, the Senior Independence
Program, and Community Action Program (TCAA, n.d. & Arteaga, listening session, 2022). The
programs all have intersections that are directly or indirectly impacted by transportation. The
Food Program experiences transportation barriers, as it is challenging to reach the facility during
its hours of operation. There are also physical limitations since many of these community
members depend upon public transportation, such as Tempe’s Orbit Shuttle Bus, the Valley
MetroRail, and the local bus system. TCAA has provided bus tickets and light rail passes to
stimulate this accessibility, but there are still financial and physical barriers despite this support
(Arteaga, listening session, 2022). Another program Arteaga described is the Senior and Adult
Independence Program, which provides an array of services for the low income and elderly
individuals they service. The program includes a senior center, in-home care for seniors, petcare,
and other basic household maintenance and necessities that become difficult to keep up to date
on (Arteaga, listening session, 2022). The transportation barriers are very apparent through this
program, as it is challenging for the elderly and low income communities to access essential
services that also contribute to the maintenance of themselves and their homes. The final
program Arteaga shared with us during the listening session is the Community Action Program,
which focuses on housing cost issues such as financial assistance for the mortgage, the electric
bill, and other expenses. Electric vehicles have been considered in the context of this program,
but primarily regarding the opportunities to charge these electric vehicles within their own homes
as well as the greater community (Arteaga, listening session, 2022).
Those who are served by TCAA would most benefit from improvements made targeting public
transportation that is accessible to those with disabilities, manages the significant heat barrier to
utilizing these transit options leisurely, and more frequent and affordable transportation options
(Arteaga, listening session, 2022). The TCAA volunteers help alleviate some of these
transportation barriers, but accessibility, affordability and feasibility still impede serving those
who rely upon the organization. Other issues around transportation have been discussed among
the organization’s members, but primarily focusing on the rapid increase in transportation costs
due to skyrocketing gasoline prices, thus increasing the overall costs of transportation to
maintain TCAA’s various programs (Arteaga, listening session, 2022). One of the biggest
barriers to transportation is ideal options for the senior citizens within the community, and even
though Tempe’s Orbit Shuttle Bus is an affordable option, this method of transportation is not
feasible during the hottest months of the year. Overall, electric transportation is not a priority for
TCAA and the primary priorities for the communities they serve is food security, housing
security, and financial security.
In this interview, there was an emphasis that ET was not seen as an explicit focus, more so
ensuring a variety of options and choices within the transportation network that creates equitable
access (Arteaga, listening session, 2022). For the community members that interact with TCAA,
personal electric vehicles are not a reality within reach. Accessibility, affordability, and
convenience are the most prominent barriers (Arteaga, listening session, 2022). While looking
into the future of electric transportation, Arteaga envisions easy and plentiful access to these new

Electric Transportation Equity 13

transportation options. However, she also maintains reservations on this transition, primarily
because the dependence on natural resources is still needed for the electricity to power these
transportation options as well as the reliance on lithium for the batteries to generate these electric
mobility options (Arteaga, listening session, 2022).
CHISPA Arizona

Background
CHISPA Arizona , an offshoot of the League of Conservation Voters across the nation, is a
non-profit organization that “envisions an inclusive and reflective democracy that prioritizes
communities' rights to clean air and water, healthy neighborhoods, and a safe climate for
generations to come” (CHISPA AZ, n.d.1.). CHISPA works with Latinx communities to use a
transformational approach to environmental advocacy, hold decision makers accountable, fight
environmental racism, and build an equitable and inclusive environmental movement (CHISPA
AZ, n.d.2.). The non-profit organization focuses on several key issues - demanding clean air and
energy, conserving public lands, and building democracy and community power (CHISPA AZ,
n.d.2.).
Listening Session
To better understand the communities we are trying to collaborate and connect the TE Activator
with, our team met with Masavi Perea, Organizing Director at CHISPA AZ. Perea explained the
priorities of the communities CHISPA works with and the organization's thoughts on electric
transportation.
In this session, Perea started by addressing the increased motivation to transition to electric
transportation has produced a strong sense of urgency to adopt electric transportation as soon as
possible. However, there must be careful consideration of the human rights impacts that will be
directly and indirectly created as this transition is pursued. The energy sources, infrastructure,
and people needed to implement this transition cannot be rushed and other ways of living must
be respected (Perea, listening session, 2022). The youth of the community must also be
incorporated into this process, as they will experience the impacts of this transition more than
anyone (Perea, listening session, 2022).
A primary focus of CHISPA is climate change, and has been a massive rallying point for the
organization to stress the importance of environmental justice. In the context of climate change,
the heat island effect is a major priority for their communities. CHISPA has developed
campaigns and programs to educate and advocate for green spaces and cool corridors to combat
intense heat in South/West Phoenix. Not only does heat severely impact the health of these
communities, but the heat island effect has a negative impact on the accessibility of
transportation, especially during the summer. Another consideration for transportation that
greatly impacts the community of Phoenix is the high rates of pedestrian fatalities (Schwenk,
2021). This is a trend that also carries across the state, as Arizona has the highest rates of
pedestrian fatalities in the United States (Vandell, 2020). The City of Phoenix and the City of
Tempe have announced goals to reach zero pedestrian fatalities within their communities, and
these goals ought to include expectations for safety for electric transportation as well (Bontke,
2022). For electric transportation (even transportation currently) to work for everyone, barriers
such as heat, traffic, violence, and infrastructure must be incorporated into this transition.

Electric Transportation Equity 14

One of the key points made about an equitable electric transportation transition is that this work
requires a slow and intentional process to create trust with residents by spending significant time
with the community. Despite the urgency to move away from combustion vehicles, solutions
must be comprehensive and carefully crafted with the community. Perea pointed out that grant
funding for communities, funded by municipalities and/or SRP, which prioritize the transition to
electric transportation, can support endeavors to develop potential solutions and once again
emphasized incorporating the youth into this process.
For future listening sessions and forums to engage with community members and organizations,
it is important to meet community members at locations where they are most comfortable (Perea,
listening session, 2022). Favorable locations must also be equipped with proper language
interpretation resources as well as consideration for ideal times for community members to meet.
The final piece of advice from Perea encourages stakeholders to “acknowledge privilege, be
honest, and educate yourself before reaching out” (Perea, listening session, 2022).
Relevant Work
CHISPA has been integral to the introduction of electric school buses within their communities.
The Clean Buses for Healthy Ninos campaign is aiming to utilize funds from the Volkswagen
Environmental Mitigation Trust that were allocated to the states to provide cleaner forms of
transportation (LCV, 2017). In 2019, the Board of Directors of the Phoenix Union High School
District unanimously approved an electric school bus pilot program in the largest high school
district in Arizona, where approximately 80% of the student population is Latinx (LCV, 2019).
With over 300,000 students in Arizona relying on school buses, this program is a step in the right
direction of providing effective electric transportation that benefits the communities that
experience the most negative effects of gasoline-combustion vehicles.
On Earth Day, April 23, 2022, CHISPA is launching their Clean & Green program, which calls
for more electrification of transportation and clean energy for buses. Perea explained that public
transportation should be free and that it is important to be more community based and not
focused on individuals. This energy also has to be affordable. “We talk a lot about clean energy,
but not affordable energy,” Perea stated (Perea, listening session, 2022). Since this campaign is
still upcoming, it is important to reach out to CHISPA and research this program in more detail
once it is launched.
A key issue that CHISPA focuses on is the demand for clean air and clean energy, because the
“reliance on fossil fuels is polluting our environment and accelerating the warming of our
communities, creating a public health crisis that disproportionately impacts Latinos, low income
families, and people of color” (CHISPA AZ, n.d.3.). CHISPA is fighting for a transition to clean,
renewable energy and the chance to participate in decision making spaces (CHISPA AZ, n.d.3.)
Community Listening Pilot Project
When drafting this project, our team decided it was best to outline a pilot for the TE Activator
practitioners to enact, as this facilitates long term trust and a foundation for a concrete
relationship between the TE Activator and underserved communities. We selected this approach
as our time as students is extremely limited and not conducive to achieving the long-term goals

Electric Transportation Equity 15

and strategies required within a project of this nature. Therefore, we created a guide for the TE
Activator, with the input of community and institutional leaders (see listening sessions above).
The pilot project is a year-long process to collaborate with and hear from residents of
underrepresented communities. While the main focus is on transportation electrification, it is also
important to speak with residents about their neighborhoods, understand their assets, and how to
utilize their current assets to produce benefits for the community. The TE Activator must build
relationships with these communities and the organizations working with them before pursuing
an electric transportation agenda. This is not a linear process, ongoing collaboration with these
community members and organizations is vital in order to make the transition to electric
transportation equitable.
Determining Success
Success for this project will look like a safe, brave space that allows for open and collaborative
engagement with a diverse group of community members and organizations to continue to
provide feedback and insights. Further, financial, social, and governance structures should shift
towards community power, rather than institutional power. Alongside retention of getting quality,
meaningful engagements, there will also be a growing number of people involved as the process
continues. This will ensure that the listening pilot project will dynamically flow as new
perspectives are integrated, rather than staying fixed to a few organizations. The TE Activator
should finish this pilot project with a better understanding of these communities’s assets and
areas of opportunity, which will inform a process of working together to achieve an equitable ET
landscape.
Frameworks Utilized
As we designed the Community Listening Pilot Project, we utilized the Asset-Based Community
Development (ABCD) Framework to craft our questions and the Mobility Equity Framework for
transportation-related questions. ABCD will serve as a complementary framework to the
Mobility Equity Framework to provide a backbone for how team TEA interacts with
communities when identifying community assets (Appendix 2). The interview protocol we are
recommending the TE Activator implement, using the below script, is through the lens of
Love-Based Aid, so that “...service activities...contributes to the spiritual growth of those who
serve while rendering material benefits to those who are served” (Ulluwishewa, 2017). In using
these three frameworks, we are creating a process that reflects the needs and strengths of the
community we are aiming to serve (Appendix 2).
For the TE Activator’s engagement strategy, we utilized two additional frameworks: the Equity
and Empowerment Lens and USDN’s Spectrum from Community Engagement to Ownership
(Appendix 3). This Equity and Empowerment Lens “...is a set of principles, reflective questions,
and processes that focuses at the individual, institutional, and systemic levels…” (Multnomah,
2021) that analyzes People, Place, Process, Power, and Purpose when crafting decisions
(Appendix 3). The “5 P’s' can be directly used when crafting strategies throughout the timeline,
as we have done in the below Timeline and Strategy subsection, in addition to being used to
revisit the proposed trajectory as the timeline is enacted. With this, USDN’s Spectrum from
Community Engagement to Ownership articulates how and why equity work requires
collaborative governance that focuses on community power building in tandem with institutional

Electric Transportation Equity 16

power shifting. Direct participation and facilitation over community development and project
implementation is vital to ensure communities are involved in decisions and solutions that
impact them. Further, “[t]his level of [community] participation unleashes much needed capacity
[that] also requires initial capacity investments across multiple sectors to achieve systems
changes and culture shifts needed (USDN, n.d.). These two strategies will ensure that
engagements have meaningful community-institutional dialogue that “...facilitate[s] systems
changes to increase community voice[s] and decrease disproportionate harms caused to
low-income communities and communities of color” (USDN, n.d.).
These strategies will work alongside the process frameworks by serving as engagement pathways
for the TE Activator. By highlighting hands-on strategies that can channel the theoretical
frameworks our group used when crafting our own process, we are ensuring the TE Activator has
clear principles and tools to orientate their community conversations. Our group believes it is
important to have two sets of frameworks because, although academic theory can provoke
thought around moral orientations for community engagement, many still lack a practical,
tangible application for institutions to get this done. Therefore, from listening with our TE
Activator partnership, we have included possible equity strategies that can be consulted when
working alongside the community. For example, Love-Based Aid ensures the engagement
process has an intention centered around cultivating reciprocal relationships, but USDN’s
Spectrum takes this a step further to help the TE Activator’s intentions align with their activities.
In this way, we have provided theoretical frameworks to reflect upon the values that underpin
community engagement, in addition to applicable strategies to be used directly during this
engagement.
Accessibility
Each Community Listening Session should have the appropriate translation resources available
to fully capture community voices. Spanish translation, ASL Interpretation, and other language
translations must be considered and provided for all communication. These considerations must
be determined prior to engagement and resources ought to be finalized to ensure an accurate
collection of narratives that is mindful of community translation needs and preferences. For
instance, some communities may want to provide their own translation resources, while others
may prefer these resources be provided by the institutions seeking their perspectives. The timing
of these conversations must also be mindful of the hours in which narrative collecting will occur.
The meeting times ought to be favorable for those who will be providing their insights in order to
gather the most participation and foster positive relationships between all stakeholders.
Considering the on-going pandemic, it is imperative to also prepare for virtual listening sessions.
With this newer engagement medium, doing so in an accessible manner is necessary to still
create a reciprocal listening and learning experience. If the engagement occurs over Zoom or
other video conferencing platforms, ensure closed captions for the desired language, internet is
accessible for the community, recordings of the event, and free-access online post-event are
available. It is crucial that the materials and data gathered are also shared with the community.
For optimal in-person meeting, the location should be close to the community that the TE
Activator will be engaging with access to public transit or provide transportation options
themselves. The location should also ensure inclusion and comfort for the communities that will

Electric Transportation Equity 17

be engaged, such as wheelchair ramps and water stations. If security is absolutely necessary,
have plainclothes officers. Seeing uniformed officers can deter community members that are
undocumented, formerly incarcerated, or have historically had previous negative experiences
with law enforcement, which will hinder a positive atmosphere for collaborative community
work (Beck, et al., 2020).
[Potential] Actors
As part of the Community Listening Pilot Project, the TE Activator will need to connect and
collaborate with local organizations, such as CHISPA Arizona, the Tempe Community Action
Agency (TCAA), Unlimited Potential, Tiger Mountain Foundation, and Spaces of Opportunity
(Appendix 4). Our team conducted conversations with CHISPA and TCAA, and were pointed to
Unlimited Potential, Tiger Mountain Foundation, and Spaces of Opportunity to be brought into
the conversation. Through these connections, the TE Activator can hold a forum to hear from
community members across Metropolitan Phoenix and create additional communication methods
to build trusting relationships. We want to recognize this is not a complete list of potential
community partnerships. As the TE Activator builds trust, partners may feel comfortable to share
additional connections to further understand the complexities and nuances of community assets
and needs.
Honorarium
The TE Activator will need to secure and/or set aside funding to provide an honorarium for
community members that take part in the listening process. Since residents will be taking time
out of their day to meet with the Activator, they should be compensated for their participation.
The amount for the honorarium should be based on the amount of time and effort the action
would require. For example, compensation for facilitation of an hour long panel discussion will
be more than asking to send an email to connect with community partners.
Timeline & Strategy
Overall, this process should take about a year and include four overarching sections - informal
engagement with organizations, formal community input sessions, integration of feedback and
input into TE Activator plans, and continuous relationship building to ensure community
engagement and ownership. The proposed timeline for the TE Activator’s community
engagement is with the important caveat that these time periods are not set in stone. Depending
on the pulse of the community organizations, additional time may be required to make this
engagement intentional and meaningful. Therefore, the TE Activator can use this timeline and
strategy as a guide, but should deviate as needed to maintain the integrity of community
engagement, as this process will not be linear. Further, this is not a complete list, as this strategy
was crafted with our own internalized biases and there could be potential limitations with what is
proposed. While the below timeline starts this summer, it can be moved based on the TE
Activator’s programming.
Centrally, the Timeline & Strategy details the process to create a community organization grant
program, a network and/or Department of community organizations that is given primary
decision-making power, and an internal equity educational program for institutions that is
periodically revisited (not a one-and-done training). The main vision detailed in this Strategy is

Electric Transportation Equity 18

to shift power in tangible, meaningful ways, such as changing decision-making structures and
creating financial equity programs.
Our strategy will be using the Equity and Empowerment Lens, also known as the “5 P”
Framework, and USDN’s Spectrum from Community Engagement to Ownership (Appendix 3).
Each phase of the Timeline uses the 5 P’s as guiding principles, and is positioned within the
USDN Spectrum.
Summer 2022
Informal Engagement with Community Organizations & Internal Preparation
USDN Spectrum Stance: Consult
● People:
○ Begin talking with potential actors (CHISPA, Unlimited Potential, TCAA, and
other community organizations) to plan future listening sessions and build trust
between TE Activator and community organizations.
○ Attend community-held events and listen to the conversations and how they are
facilitated.
○ Look at opportunities for volunteer work through the various organizations to
form deeper relationships with those who will be impacted (TCAA, CHISPA).
● Place:
○ Conduct internal institutional educational training and research to understand
violence embedded-in-place of communities engaged.
■ Definition of violence embedded-in-place: The manner in which structural
racism lingers in the built and social landscape. This residual violence
from historical trauma impacts the current layout of how people and
communities can and do interact with one another on the land.
● For example, the violence embedded-in-place from the
displacement of the Golden Gate Community to build Sky Harbor
Airport has lasting and permanent implications for how former
Golden Gate residents can interact with the land that was formally
their home, where this violence is embodied in the land as well as
within the social structure of the displaced community (Bolin, et
al., 2005).
● In addition to the Bolin, et al., article cited above, a good starting
point for research on this topic would include looking at the history
of redlining and segregation in Phoenix, the history of South
Phoenix’s lack of council representation, how highways displaced
BIPOC communities (such as San Pablo Barrio in Tempe), and the
history of Maryvale and the Golden Gate Community (where
Maryvale was constructed in the 1950’s as a white, master planned
community. After the Golden Gate Community was displaced here
in the 1970’s, it soon had some of the highest rates of child
leukemia in the country due to environmental injustices).
● Process:
○ Integrate the Electric Transportation Equity in the Valley Report
recommendations and insights, also conveyed in the Equity Roadmap.

Electric Transportation Equity 19

○ Reflect on why the social aspect of sustainability is more difficult for institutions
in the TE Activator by analyzing historical to current structures and processes.
○ Once community organizations have expressed their interest, gather guiding
principles provided by these organizations on how they would like to be partnered
with.
○ Work with community organizations to start scheduling listening sessions /
forums for Fall 2022. Utilize guiding principles established in the beginning of
the relationship to inform this process, alongside co-creating guiding principles
specifically for the listening sessions.
○ Begin identifying how to form a community organizational grant program to
ensure there is necessary capacity for community partners down the road in this
timeline.
● Power:
○ Recognize institutional accountability for creating barriers around who benefited
and who was burdened in the Valley’s current car-centric culture, both in terms of
where transportation channels are and how they were created.
○ Recognize the differing priorities across communities and their mismatch with
institutions.
● Purpose:
○ Identify intervention points in decision-making structure, such as where
community organizational leaders can be brought into institutional decisions.
○ Develop internal educational trainings that creates opportunities to unlearn and
relearn about the necessary shifting of structural inertia in decision-making
processes, so institutions are prepared for the ‘Involve’ USDN Spectrum Stance.
○ Build and strengthen relationships with important actors for equity work.
Fall 2022
Formal Community Listening Sessions
USDN Spectrum Stance: Involve
● People:
○ Invite community members to attend listening sessions/work with community
organizations to reach out to residents.
○ Continue attending community-led events and hold space for community
organizations within TE Activator decision-making meetings.
■ Make sure there is needed language translation and accessibility protocol
for TE Activator facilitated meetings.
● Place:
○ Ensure proper honorariums are given to community organizational members when
giving their time to construct and facilitate the listening session process.
■ Honorariums are stand-ins for proper grant funding that will happen in the
next phase.
○ Plan around accessibility for location of listening sessions.
■ Make sure times are not during work hours/are on weekends so there are
less time constraints for people attending.

Electric Transportation Equity 20

■ For online/virtual events, consider potential internet access issues and
attempt to either provide resources for virtual events or avoid holding such
events.
■ For in-person events, pick locations that are close to public transportation
or have transportation provided for. The in-person events ought to be held
in areas where community members and community organizations feel
most comfortable, therefore these locations should be determined
collaboratively.
● Process:
○ Hold formal listening sessions with community members and organizations.
■ Utilize Equity Roadmap and Community Listening Script so institutional
partners can co-develop an agenda with community-based goals for
listening sessions.
■ Work to create a reciprocal and collaborative relationship by prioritizing
community organizations capacity-building over creating short-term
outputs.
■ Gather consent from participants prior to communication or engagement
that explicitly shares detail about the listening sessions.
■ Identify community members that would like to continue this conversation
or collaborate with the TE Activator.
● Prepare for the introduction of new community member
organizations and/or community members with their own priorities
and intentions surrounding the TE Activator (revisit preliminary
steps laid out in Summer 2022 on integrating more community
members and community organizations for more detail).
○ Continue creating or changing institutional structures to create a community grant
program that will be required for a community organization to fully participate in
how listening sessions are integrated and for continuing community outreach to
update people about the process along the way.
● Power:
○ TE Activator institutional partners are taking and articulating the best practices
they have developed to ensure community organizations have decision-making
power.
○ Institutional partners in TE Activator have developed and completed training
about structural racism and have developed internal equity goals (see “Place” in
Summer 2022).
■ Hire additional staff so there is enough internal capacity to coordinate with
community organizational leaders.
○ Community-learning and evaluation process that holds institutional partners
accountable for the engagement happening, as well as policy development that is
happening outside of the TE Activator’s scope (e.g. municipal budgetary
sessions). This is important to ensure institutional partners are not engaging
communities for the appearance of equity and then funding programs that are
antithetical to community priorities (i.e. community leaders discussing the
importance of public charging stations, or more shade structures at transit stops,
but this not being reflected in the upcoming fiscal year municipal budget).

Electric Transportation Equity 21

■ This could be through reflective, check-in sessions between institutions
and community partners, outside of decision-making meetings.
● These will need to be honest, brave, and safe spaces for
community organizations to explain their perspective and for
institutions to listen and find pathways to power without getting
defensive or maintaining the status quo.
● Purpose:
○ Strengthen the relationship between the community and stakeholders within the
TE Activator and build upon the established boundaries and expectations
developed in the summer.
○ Receive a wider range of perspectives and engagement with community members
to then reflect on how the TE Activator could best support these communities.
○ Foster a deeper understanding of the priorities, opportunities, and challenges of
the communities that are interested.
○ Continue to maintain developed relationships while balancing new relationships
with community members and community organizations.
Winter 2022-23
Integration intro TE Activator Plans
USDN Spectrum Stance: Collaborate
● People:
○ The community members and organizations at this point ought to have established
leadership roles with the TE Activator and are thoroughly engrained in the
implementation of decisions and the decision-making process.
○ Continue to hold regular meetings with community members and organizations
when analyzing and finding strategies based on listening sessions.
■ These meetings should be invitations to TE Activator meetings, holding
meetings facilitated by community members/organizations, and regular
reflective, check-in sessions.
○ Share and permit editing access to documents to community members and
organizations.
● Place:
○ A comfortable and community-desired meeting location or meeting platform (e.g.
video conferencing) ought to be firmly established at this point, ensuring
maximum participation and accessibility for all stakeholders involved.
■ Additionally, ensure it is at a regularly scheduled time and reminders are
sent a day before the meeting.
○ Incorporate the needs of new community members and community organizations
that would like to be involved in the TE Activator by keeping meetings open to
the public.
● Process:
○ Determine leadership roles and facilitation responsibilities for all involved in the
TE Activator.
○ Evaluation of the responses gathered from the listening sessions built on a
power-balanced, collaborative decision-making model for co-creating definitions
to opportunities and solutions.

Electric Transportation Equity 22

○ Develop and agree upon a shared purpose for decision-making processes.
○ Incorporate new community members and community organization’s perspectives
and ideals into the process as they are brought into the TE Activator.
● Power:
○ Collaboration between institutional and community-based sectors that ensures
there is required community capacity to both be part of decision-making
processes and uphold larger missions of the organization.
■ At this point, the community grant program should have dispersed funds
to organizations that will form this capacity.
○ Clear leadership roles for community members and community organizations
where there is the ability to delegate, facilitate, evaluate, and guide the
decision-making process and the proposed outcomes.
○ Community organizations have built a strong, reliable base of impacted
community members that are regularly brought into the decision-making process.
● Purpose:
○ After months of internal institutional educational trainings, there is a greater
acknowledgment of which equity goals must be reached, in addition to creating
intervention pathways for community work to drive the direction of this project.
○ The evaluation of the community listening sessions are done with the necessary
nuance and context that only community organizations and members can
articulate, therefore ensuring the next stage is grounded, meaningful, and
addresses systemic outcomes.
○ Collaborative governance is embodied as common practice in the evaluation and
decision-making processes within the TE Activator.
Spring 2023
Ensure Community Ownership
USDN Spectrum Stance: Defer To
● People:
○ Established networks of community members, community organizations, and
institutional leaders working alongside the TE Activator.
■ These networks will have clear decision-making power in the TE
Activator and will be led by directly impacted peoples.
■ TE Activator will accentuate the community solutions brought forth by
these community-based networks over personal institutional agendas.
○ Transparent strategy to center community ownership over how the TE Activator
wishes to make decisions around ET-related solutions.
● Place:
○ Continued, regularly-scheduled meetings that are community-facilitated, where
there is an understanding that the TE Activator now is a participant and guest in
community-led processes.
○ Participatory budgeting or other redistribution methods have been actualized
where institutional budgets reflect community priorities and financial pathways to
community ownership are clear within their decision-making structure.
● Process:

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○ Shared purpose for decision-making processes has led to a long-term
implementation strategy, in the way of a network, coalition, or department, that
reclaims community governance over essential transportation necessities.
■ The structure for decision-making and long-term implementation is in a
manner that achieves a pathway for ambitious, place-specific,
community-led strategies.
■ Leadership roles from the listening project stage are embedded deeper into
institutional structures that creates opportunities for a plurality of manners
that community members can get involved with municipal and state-wide
efforts.
○ Community assets, such as informal relationships, organizing power, connections
to community spaces, and knowledge of place, continue to generate ongoing
resident leadership that will continue to feed into solution strategies and problem
identification.
● Power:
○ Management and design of how solutions are conducted and decided upon is
controlled by the communities where these solutions are happening within.
■ At this point, community capacity has been supported so there is the
organizational bandwidth, financial resources, and structural integrity that
ensures the time and energy needed for this leadership role is possible
without exploiting community members or compromising the efforts
needed for other community priorities.
○ Organizational cultural shifts have been reflected in budgetary priorities where
there is not only decision-making power, but tangible implementation ability for
community ownership over solution strategies.
■ This could be seen in a fully functioning community grant program that
gives reiterative, consistent funding to organizations working on
transportation equity
● Purpose:
○ Create a reiterative process that embeds a practice of community listening and
leadership into institutional decision-making structures, where collaborating and
deferring to directly impacted communities becomes the structural norm.
○ Internal institutional equity educational trainings are frequently revisited to
prompt reflection about ways to further decentralize structures that inhibit
community ownership.
○ Complete financial and structural community leadership in the TE Activator’s
decision-making process for achieving equitable transportation solutions.
Listening Script
Our team outlined a script and possible questions for the TE Activator to use in the Community
Listening Pilot Project with community members and organizations across the Valley. We also
provide the questions and format in another document, titled Community Listening Script, to
utilize in future forums and sessions.
As part of this process, it is important to understand and recognize a community’s assets, so they
can share what they enjoy about where they live. As Masavi Perea stated in our listening session,

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“We do not want to romanticize poverty. But share the beautiful moments, because they are
there.” Perea explained it is important to reaffirm that these communities are not rough, ugly, and
need to be developed, they contain beauty, life, and areas that might need support.
Although some questions may incite responses outside of the TE Activator’s scope, we believe
these questions are vitally important so respondents feel comfortable voicing their actual
concerns and perspectives, in addition to the TE Activator not coming in with an explicit,
transactional agenda with these listening sessions. If a respondent brings up something outside of
the report, this creates the opportunity for the TE Activator to be a community connector (e.g.
point to Tempe PRE program, that offers free and half-cost tuition with eligibility, if a respondent
brings up child care). Rather than operating in silos, these broader questions have the opportunity
to incite systemic connections between different assets and needs within historically underserved
communities, and reciprocity between the TE Activator and the people they are listening to.
Opening
“Thank you for your time. We value your expertise and participation in this listening project. We
would like to take a moment for us to take five deep breaths and ground ourselves before we get
started. If you’re able, release any tension or residual emotions from this day or the week before
we enter this collective space.”
Land Acknowledgement
“As many of us here today are descendants of settlers, immigrants, or descendants of those
forcefully brought to this continent, we must recognize and never forget that we occupy the
unceded traditional and contemporary homelands of those Native American tribes that have
inhabited this land for centuries.
We also have a responsibility to acknowledge and pay respect to the Indigenous elders and
Knowledge Keepers – past, present, and future – whose stewardship and love of these lands and
all its beings allow us to be here today.
While acknowledgement means little unless coupled with meaningful action, we must all
recognize our full, true history before we can move forward and must educate ourselves on our
responsibilities to one another and the land.”
TE Activator and Goals
“We are the Transportation Electrification Activator, a group of local Arizona organizations and
cities interested in shaping the electric transportation landscape to positively benefit Arizona’s
communities. Part of our goal is to take an equitable approach to ensure the benefits of electric
transportation are shared by all. This is why we are conducting this Community Listening
Project, so that the perspectives of the communities we aim to serve drive the actions we take.”
Questions
General
● What are the strengths of your neighborhood?
○ What do you love about your community?
○ What are your favorite places to visit in the area?

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● What assets does your community have?
○ Do you have access to: emergency medical services, nursing homes, health
clinics, dentists, pharmacies, fitness centers, accessible transportation, child care.
○ What is the quality of these assets?
● What areas in your community do you feel could be improved?
● How could the TE Activator help you in your day to day life?
Check-in
● How are you feeling?
● Are you uncomfortable in any way?
● With this process, what kinds of questions do you think we should be asking going
forward?
● Do you have questions for us?
Transportation
● What are the strengths of your community, with respect to transportation?
● How do you get around the Valley?
○ Is this preferred or a necessary form of transportation?
○ How accessible is this form of transportation for you?
○ How much time do you spend commuting or reaching your final destination?
○ Is your transportation option dependent on multiple factors (such as
weather/heat/lack of shade, time of day/availability of transit)?
● How does transportation impact your day to day life?
● What do you like about the transportation system?
● Are different transportation options important to you?
○ If so, which ones? If not, why?
● How would you like to get around the Valley? What, if anything, needs to change in the
landscape for this to happen?
● How do you feel about electric transportation in general?
● Do you see a future where electric transportation impacts you personally?
○ Would electric vehicles or electric methods of transportation be more probable as
a transit method in the future?
Potential Follow-up Questions
*Ask these questions only if conversation has gone well / participants feel comfortable*
Transportation Equity
Definition: Accessible and affordable transportation for everyone in the community resulting in
fair distribution of transportation resources, benefits, costs, programs and services based upon
differences in income, ability and other factors affecting transportation choice and impact (Leahy
& Takesian, n.d.).
● Is this a focus of yours?
○ If so, why?
○ If not, would you be comfortable sharing where your focus(es) are?
● What does transportation equity mean (or doesn’t mean) to you?
● What is required for the Phoenix Valley to reach transportation equity?

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​TE Activator Transportation Goals
Mission & Vision: The TE Activator, which launched in November, is a group of local Arizona
organizations and cities - facilitated by Salt River Project - interested in shaping the electric
transportation landscape to positively benefit Arizona’s communities. The Activator members
envision a region with clean air, accessible electric transportation options, and robust electric
vehicle (EV) infrastructure. As part of their goal, the Activator wants to take an equitable
approach to ensure the benefits of TE are shared by all.
● What are your concerns and hopes, if any, about SRP leading a transportation equity
project centered around electric vehicles and transportation equity?
● How do you view the goals of the TE Activator?
○ Given the context of how transportation pathways have displaced Black and
Hispanic/Latinx communities in South and West Phoenix, historically and now
with the light rail expansion.
● ​If public transit is a possible equity solution, do you believe there is a way to increase
accessibility without causing more harm?
Community Organization Narratives
● Is electrifying transportation a top priority for your community organization?
○ If so, why?
○ If not, what are your top priorities?
● What are the primary methods of transportation for your community members?
● Which methods of transportation would you like to see improved upon?
Concluding Remarks
“If there are any questions, comments, or concerns that you would like to convey that you did
not have the opportunity to do so, please feel free to express them now or contact us.
“Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us and share your insights. We look
forward to further collaboration in the future. Please reach out if you have any questions or
feedback.”
Best Practices
When executing the Community Listening Project, as outlined above, it is important to
remember this is not a set-in-stone recipe for how to conduct participatory, socially-embedded
work. These are merely suggestions, based on our research and targeted listening, we have
compiled. To truly understand the perspectives and approaches required in this work, there
should be guiding principles created by community members facilitating this work. These could
range from anything as having a sign to indicate jargon, being transparent about internal
processes of the work, or having a set protocol of how to communicate (‘like’ messages when
viewed so team members know you saw it, having it on a channel that is best for community
members, etc). These we, as an MSUS team, cannot outline for the TE Activator verbatim. They
must be crafted to the specific context and requirements of communities being engaged.
This central report is broken down into two smaller deliverables: the Equity Roadmap and the
Community Listening Script. The roadmap can be used as a protocol to refer to, for both TE

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Activator partners and community organizations, when identifying a planned strategy for
community listening. The script provides a breakdown of what could be the opener, questions,
and closing of such a listening session. Both smaller deliverables serve as summations of our
final report, so there is an easily digestible version that can be dispersed.
The questions reflected in the script are the ones our team used during our own listening
sessions. However, these questions, listed in the Questions subsection above and in the
Community Listening Script, should be vetted by community organizational members before
being asked at Community Listening Sessions. Further, they should be adjusted based on the
style of the listening session, such as a forum style having fewer questions that are
conversational versus a 1:1 interview having more questions that give the interviewee room to
share their perspective at the length and depth they see fit. By adjusting the questions based on
community context and listening session style, they will be most conducive to a successful and
meaningful session.
After the listening session, TE Activator partners should meet with community facilitators to
begin identifying pathways for implementation. By co-identifying pathways for the aspects
brought up, and determining where structures need to adapt or change to realize them,
community members can be involved in every step of the decision-making process. Further, how
perspectives or data collected is analyzed, interpreted, or incorporated into future planning
should be grounded with the context-specificity that community members can provide. Working
in networks, community members can articulate what they believe is most crucial to work
towards, while institutions are transparent about where structures need to change to make this
possible. In this way, there can be a trusting relationship formed where strategies are led by
peoples most impacted by decision-making, while peoples in power are supporting through
changes in structural processes. For example, if community members voiced in listening sessions
that providing grant funding for community organizations to lead electric transportation-related
initiatives was most important, TE Activator partners should identify how to secure funds and
create pathways to power for such a program.
Centrally, the Community Listening Pilot Project is a starting point to calibrate institutional
values and approaches for socially-embedded work. This will allow for additional, productive
discussions with community partners about how this work is conducted in prior planning,
implementation during, and integration after listening sessions to create equitable ET solutions.
At every step of the process, community organizations should be facilitating the listening
process, and institutions should be focused on how to shift culturally and structurally to defer to
community-led decision-making. Additional information about these aspects are detailed within
the Timeline & Strategy section above.
Based on the outlined pilot process above and the approach crafted below in the Project
Processes and Emerging Conversations section, we have outlined considerations when crafting
guiding principles for a shared culture of cooperation. As the Equity and Empowerment Lens
that outlines the “5 P’s” of equity work suggests (Appendix 3), there is a need for self-reflection
as well as community conversations while engaging in this work. This is because frameworks
cannot be the be-all-end-all of committing to this work, it is a dedication to a non-linear learning
process and restructuring of deeply-rooted assumptions. This is a deeply reflective process where

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everyone has something to teach and something to learn, especially for people that hold power
and privilege, requiring both personal introspection and community conversations. As this team
consistently comes back to, engaging in authentic equity approaches that are not performative
accentuates process over outcomes, allows for changes in course as determined by a community,
shifts decision-making power and the structures necessary to do so, and is slow and intentional
about where these shifts must occur (See Project Processes and Emerging Conversations section
below).
Project Processes and Emerging Conversations
After conducting listening sessions with national, regional, and local experts and continuing
research to construct the Community Listening Pilot Project, our team wanted to accentuate not
only our process, but the cultural, intangible deliverables that we are hoping to create with this
work. First and foremost, the reason we orientated our applied project this way was because
socially-embedded work is more than creating outcomes that look good on paper. Equity work
does not only produce benefits for the most socially privileged group involved, but requires a
practice to challenge cultural and institutional power dynamics. Further, it is about focusing on
process, rather than outcomes, and co-creating a shared culture to work towards systemic equity
goals (Johnston & Marwood, 2017). In this way, many of our deliverables are focused on these
intangible shifts in how we approach, view, and move when working to serve, rather than
looking to ‘solve’ problems with an aim to ‘develop’ a community. Further, this change in
viewpoint requires a power shift, both morally and financially, that moves concentration of
decision-making and capital from institution-led to community-led ventures (Harrison, 2021).
When this cultural shift happens, equity work can create tangible outcomes that are more than
performative (Love, 2021). By bringing to the forefront “...an alternative to the external
changes-based sustainable paradigm, [we aim to] highlight the significance of altering human
relationships with each other” (Ulluwishewa, 2017), so equity work has a relationship-building
focus.
With this in mind, we are advocating for a slow and intentional approach to equity work, as
cultural shifts take time before shifts in structural paradigms can occur. Especially under the
pretenses that there is no being ‘not racist’. There is only being anti-racist, which comes “...from
a conscious decision to make frequent, consistent, equitable choices daily… [that] require[s]
ongoing self-awareness and self-reflection…[of where] we (un)consciously uphold aspects of
white supremacy, white-dominant culture, and unequal institutions and society (Smithsonian,
n.d.). This requires that institutions “...create and sustain an environment where everyone feels
heard and fairly treated…by investing in a sustainable infrastructure” (Clarke, 2021). Investing
in a sustainable work structure goes beyond diversity hires, but creating a culture of belonging
that breaks down necessary systemic barriers that prevent “...people [from] feel[ing] like they
can bring their whole person, have a seat and a voice at the table, and feel heard” (Clarke, 2021).
To understand what marginalizing processes may be systemically engrained, many of which are
often taken for granted with an ‘it is what it is’ mentality, there has to be adequate time and
consistent commitment in uncovering what could, and should, be done to make institutional
structures equitable. This reflection and deliberation also cannot be pursued by “...setting an
agenda or duplicating diversity initiatives that seemed effective in other organization[s],” instead
there must be clear articulation of perspectives, personal identities, and context, so there is

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consideration on “... how experiences of power and privilege may affect their approach and
effectiveness” (CCL, 2022). Further, this approach requires ongoing dedication and is not a
simple ‘one-and-done fix’ to creating an equitable shared culture. Equity is not “...a series of
tools, strategies, and compliance tasks…[it is] a whole-person, whole-system change process
linked to culture, identity, and healing…[that] does not come with a pre-set program or toolkit
that simply needs to be implemented… [but] understand[s] the specific ways inequity plays out
in our context, to engage in praxis—the integration of constant reflection and action— and to
engage in a continuous cycle of learning” (Dugan, 2021).
With approaches and strategies in mind, there must be acknowledgement that good intentions are
not enough, it is creating processes that will realize positive impacts. It is important to be
transparent about intentions but, within equity work, impacts must be the primary focus.
Intentions are “...what you thought you were doing…”, while impact is “...how that action was
perceived by other people” (White, 2021). By focusing on impact, there can be a clear
articulation of where harm was created, where active listening needs to happen, and why there
was a mismatch between intentions and behavior. With this, focusing on impact can help create
comfortable environments to voice where actions hurt others, rather than creating defensiveness
around absolving guilt for causing harm, e.g. shifting away from “I didn’t mean it that way” to “I
understand I did that.”
However, some impacts can create a systemic shift of livelihoods for generations, such as the
case of gentrification. Acknowledging harm is not enough, there is a further step to redress and
heal the source of harm (Darity & Mullen, 2020). This redress necessitates a shift of power, so
there is not a disconnected institution making macro-level decisions without understanding
micro-level context. For example, gentrification is a very real possibility with the ET transition if
there is no investment into community decision-making structures and hyperlocal governance
(Walling, 2021). Hyperlocal, or place-based, governance, “...give[s] stakeholders a structure
through which to share ideas, voice concerns, advocate for investments, and co-design strategies
with others both inside and outside their place” (Vey & Storring, 2022). Through
“...engagement[s] at the neighborhood scale [that] are connecting [institutions] with the
community development agendas being undertaken in that community,” there are mutually
beneficial impacts where institutions understand the context of place and communities are
supported in their own goals (Dostilio, et al., 2019). Considering the history of “[u]neven
patterns of economic growth and investment…” there is now an opportunity to “...enhance the
institution’s ability to form partnerships and advance community development” (Vey & Storring,
2022; CUMU, 2019). To shift power in socially-embedded work means there is a shift in
community-institutional governance structures.
When work is not slow and intentional, marginalizing institutional consequences, like
gentrification, can occur intentionally or not (Curran, n.d.). Although climate change and the
transportation emissions that partially cause it are urgent to address, we cannot run into solutions
without being intentional about the values we are bringing into these decisions, lest we repeat
why we are here to begin with. Rather than acting reactively by providing band-aid solutions to
systemic issues on the back-end, there needs to be proactive focus on “[s]ecurity and autonomy
for poor communities [that] are not on the agenda of governments anywhere…” (Seabrook,
1997). This does not just mean giving funds philanthropically or pooling human resources, but

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creating systemic processes that supply basic material needs - of acting in solidarity and not in
charity (Spade, 2020). This challenges reformism, that calls to find ‘better’ outcomes within a
‘broken’ system, and necessitates transformation, by recognizing that although some systemic
practices have changed, the system itself was “...intentionally designed to produce the disparate
outcomes that disadvantage Black and Latinx…” peoples (Murphy, 2022). Instead of reactively
changing practices within a rotten system, there needs to be greater attention on proactively
addressing the roots of structural harm. Additionally, “...build[ing] individual capacity without
commensurate organizational development can be ill-fated since structural or cultural features of
the organization often stand in the way of putting that capacity to work” (Berg & Homan, 2021).
By focusing on process, rather than outcomes, the TE Activator can put organizational capacity
behind structural and cultural power shifts, so as not to just recycle the same structure within the
new dynamic of ET.
With this orientation in mind, there can be unintended consequences of rushed equity work that
does not look to address the systems that create inequity to begin with. Namely, often reformism
can lead to the exact opposite of project outcomes, meaning that there is a possibility of
decreased mobility and increased mobility issues without understanding the needs of historically
underserved communities. Considering “...not everyone can afford electric vehicles and wean
themselves off American society’s collective oil addiction right away…[then putting more
pressure on an already] overburdened and underfunded public transportation
system…[a]lternative and feasible options need to be made available to those who can’t afford
buying electric vehicles, and these options—including better public transit programs or car
sharing programs—require more investment and more diverse community outreach”
(Greenlining Institute, 2011). Alongside the mobility consequences of not taking a systemic
approach, there is also the necessary public outreach and educational campaigns required to
make EVs equitable. For example, if residents don’t know it is cheaper to charge when it is not
peak energy hours, they could be overcharged on their bill for charging their EV. Although this is
of course within the context of single-family homes, versus public charging stations,
“[k]nowledge about energy usage will be crucial in energy conservation and bill management,
especially for hard-to-reach communities that are isolated due to linguistic and economic
barriers” (Greenlining Institute, 2011). In addition to the issues of reformism and meaningful
community outreach, there is a coinciding perspective that views technology, in isolation, to be
enough for social advancement. Although technology can be helpful in adapting to aspects of a
problem, “...the fundamental problems are political and economic and rooted in human
nature…[therefore a] tool is not the task, and often the invisible, social, non-physical aspects of a
technological regime make all the difference” (Rheingold, 2001). Especially considering the
economic motivations of technology, it cannot be the primary method to solve social problems.
Over the last several months, the TE Activator has started to internalize our team's work and
began questioning their process of how to make electric transportation equitable in Arizona.
They have reached out to leaders at CHISPA to start building that relationship and, in March, the
Activator held a webinar on “Equity In The Transportation Electrification Transition.” In this
webinar, the Anthesis Group gathered employees from SRP to share about the recent
considerations and developments within the TE Activator regarding equity. The strongest
message from the webinar was the importance of acknowledging and recognizing that electric
transportation is not a priority for these communities and the varying impacts of the current

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transportation system, as well as the anticipated system, will affect underrepresented
communities the most. This is a crucial step for the founding partners and practitioners to
incorporate diverse perspectives into the TE Activator’s envisioned ET transition by
“...partner[ing] with community-based organizations that have a track record in community
outreach, cultural sensitivity, and language ability” (Greenling Institute, 2011).
Thus far, the TE Activator hasn’t changed their processes to account for equity work, waiting for
the findings in this report, but it has been a topic of discussion and an outlined objective.
Although in the early stages of deciphering how to address equity in their work, they believe it is
a valuable approach. They have been having conversations internally based on conversations
with Team TEA and reaching out to our project advisor, Scott Cloutier, but are planning to take
action after digesting this report and the accompanying deliverables. They have taken messages
to heart, realizing they need to take the time to do this right when centering equity in their work.
Further, our conversations have prompted reflection to not assume they are at the top of
somebody’s agenda, or that they should force their way to the top of the agenda (TE Activator,
meeting, 2022).
As discussed in Fall 2021, Team TEA was given advice that SRP should develop a bid or call to
the community. This would allow interested stakeholders, with electric transportation as their
priority, to come forward, rather than being asked to take part. In equity work, it is imperative
that the community reaches out to the organization for assistance, rather than the other way
around. This may make it easier for SRP and Anthesis to gather interested community members
and community organizations. By using this method, this avoids addressing communities that
have been approached in the past for similar projects and have not received benefits after the
organization gathered the information they needed (AAMC, n.d.). However, even interested
organizations may have negative experiences from past projects, and the TE Activator should be
cognizant of these hesitations.
Detailed in the Best Practices section above, guiding principles and goals for engagement have to
be decided with the community and before beginning formal listening sessions. This will ensure
that priorities and intentions are laid out on the table before beginning community-institutional
partnerships. It is important to acknowledge one’s own institutional agenda, while being open to
change as needed from the pulse of the community. With institutions being transparent about
structural processes, and community voicing where barriers are impeding what they want to see,
there can be a meaningful, transformative partnership that, through time and commitment, shifts
power to community decision-making.
Recommendations
This is the last step of our report following the qualitative analysis of our listening sessions with
national, regional, and local leaders. Below are tiered recommendations with phases - from how
to continue public engagement to systemic policy changes. ‘Tiered’ in this context implies the
level of investment, both financially and with time, that will go into these policies and programs,
but does not need to be executed chronologically. These recommendations are based on our own
research and listening, however community priorities and input need to be heard and understood
prior to moving forward with institutional actions.

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A high-level summation of this section is also reflected in our project one-pager, one of the
deliverables of this project.
Future Utilization of Frameworks
● The three frameworks below are oriented towards “Process” (Appendix 2). This means
that these theoretical understandings can be consulted when crafting the intention and
underpinning of how the process will run. Meaning, these can be grounding points when
beginning to create a strategy.
○ Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD)
■ This framework is important during community listening to understand a
community’s assets and strengths in tandem with their needs and areas of
opportunity. This way the TE Activator can utilize its available resources
to support communities in building upon their current assets and
infrastructure, along with their conceptions of their own community.
○ Mobility Equity
■ The Mobility Equity Framework developed by the Greenlining Institute
can be described as a combination of the Asset-Based Community
Development Framework and focusing equity in an electric transportation
transition. Firstly, this framework identifies the mobility needs of the
community and then prioritizes the transportation methods that best
maximizes benefits and minimizes burdens. Then once these methods are
determined, the best approaches are discussed with the community while
placing the decision-making power for the community members to have
the final say.
■ Essentially, it will be in phases that first determines the transportation
needs of the community, education to the community on equitable
transportation which leads to the community brainstorming on potential
solutions, then to be determined by the community which projects ought to
be pursued.
○ Love-Based Aid
■ This framework advocates for an approach to development that is not
extractive and paternal, but rather reciprocal and supportive. By
identifying issues with current development paradigms, there can be a
clear articulation of how to better understand where a community is
coming from, creating new pathways to power for community leadership,
and making room for different ways of knowing that centers spiritual and
emotional dimensions of collaboration.
● The two frameworks below are oriented towards “Strategy” (Appendix 3). These can be
used practically when beginning public engagement, by outlining key considerations and
benchmarks to target processes. In this way, the “Strategy” frameworks provide
opportunities to integrate the theoretical understandings identified as important in
“Process” frameworks.
○ Equity and Empowerment Lens
■ This outlines different reflective questions to determine where greater
focus, resources, and capacities must go into creating an equitable work
environment. Through the 5 P’s (People, Place, Process, Power, Purpose),

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communities and institutions can clearly communicate their perspectives
and gaps when creating a shared organizational culture, so bridges can be
identified prior to project implementation.
○ USDN’s Spectrum from Community Engagement to Ownership
■ By clearly distincting between different relationships between
communities and institutions, this overviews both the cultural and
financial requirements for embodying equity. This can be consulted to
ensure there is mutual understanding about where the TE Activator stands
with deferring to community organizations when changing old and
creating new processes to address power consolidation in
decision-making.
Going from Public Engagement to Community Ownership
● We hope the TE Activator goes beyond superficial engagement that gleans community
input to instead ensure members and organizations are actively shaping the course taken
by the projects in their communities.
○ Defer to Community Knowledge
■ As stated in the strategy frameworks above, our main recommendation for
community engagement is to move beyond consulting community
opinions, but deferring to their knowledge in decision-making. Further, the
Strategy & Timeline section above breaks this down into more detail.
○ Take an Intersectional Approach
■ To put it succinctly, shifting power requires an intersectional approach
(Appendix 1). In addition to being an underlying foundation to equity
work, intersectionality also demonstrates the need to create guiding
principles alongside community, prior to formal listening sessions, so
there is a clear articulation of how they want to be engaged with. By
figuring out the nuances of healthy collaboration from the get-go, this can
prevent confrontations down the road and lead to a cooperative process
where communities feel like they are talking with project partners, rather
than being talked to.
○ Be Slow and Intentional
■ To craft guiding principles based on a community’s intersectionality, this
collaboration must be slow and intentional, where trust with communities
is created over time through consistency and transparency. For additional
information about reasoning behind slow and intentional equity work, see
the Project Processes & Emerging Conversations section above.
Systemic Policy Adaptations
● These are the “low hanging fruit” policy changes that could be a focus of the TE
Activator.
○ Grant Funding for Community-based Organizations
■ As explained by Brianne Fisher from The City of Tempe, federal and
regional funding for electric transportation is widespread, however there
are very few grants and funding opportunities that focus on individual
communities and organizations within those communities. This is

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especially true for underserved areas, which have very different assets and
needs.
■ The TE Activator can work to make regional and federal funding available
to community organizations focusing on equity work.
○ First-Last Mile Transportation Options
■ This refers to how people without SOVs get to and from public transit
stops.
● These options need to be safe for pedestrians from vehicles on the
road, people on transit, and people going to and from transit.
■ Plan for micro-mobility hubs, which connect first-last mile transportation
to a larger transportation network.
● Offer other electric transportation options at these hubs, such as
e-bikes and e-scooters.
○ These options should be accessible and accommodating to
the youth, elderly, and disabled peoples.
○ There should also be safe pedestrian walkways for people
that want to walk, too.
■ Make sure that there is evaluation of actual distance to travel to and from
transit. Is it actually a mile or more?
● Most people won’t use transit if it is more than a quarter-mile
away, on average (Comfort, 2016).
● Invest in greater frequency of stops and of pick-up times.
● This will also increase ridership of public transit in general, if it is
accessible to get to and from stops and there is trust they will come
regularly.
○ Increase Options of Ride-Share
■ With transportation to and from public transit that is more than a mile,
ride-share becomes an important mobility option.
● Expand on connecting ride-share resources to connect with other
methods of transportation or engrained in the infrastructure of
micro-mobility hubs (as explained above).
■ This could build and expand upon existing business infrastructure, through
grant-funded subsidization of Lyft and Uber rides.
● This would require working with private companies to get
consistent discounts or free rides.
■ Collaborating with the emerging sectors within ride-share/car-share will
lead to the evaluation of potential solutions that serve all individuals with
transportation needs.
○ Shade at Transit Stops and Corridors
■ With increasing concerns about the urban heat-island effect, it is important
to ensure areas are cool and shaded, especially where people have to wait
outdoors for public transportation.
● Considering the radiation that comes from the sidewalk, in addition
to the sun, shade is an important tool to reduce heat (Middel, et al.,
2020).

Electric Transportation Equity 35

■ Develop shaded corridors along walking paths to access transportation
routes.
● Increase the use of drought-resistant and native plants to Arizona
for these shaded corridors by working with utilities.
● Agrivoltaics or solar panel shade structures are also an option to
include shade infrastructure in urban planning (OSU, 2021; Rop,
2013).
■ Look into emerging research and infrastructure projects for possible
solutions.
● For example, the City of Phoenix is looking into using a non-toxic,
cooler asphalt in future infrastructure projects (Gantz, 2021).
○ Hold Inclusive Listening Sessions
■ In order to implement the feedback and inputs from residents across
Arizona, and target different community needs, it is important to include
an inclusive array of voices to better understand their varying views,
needs, and assets.
■ Hold listening sessions targeted towards specific populations and
demographics (e.g. youth, elderly, disabled) and more general sessions
that are open to the public.
● In accordance with the Honorarium and community grant program,
having organizations facilitate and prepare listening sessions (See
Timeline & Strategy session).
■ Work with institutional partners to hold inclusive city council/budgetary
meetings that are open to the public. (See Accessibility section for more
details).
○ Offer Educational Programs
■ EV Manufacturing Partners can push against privatization by holding a
forum on EV maintenance and upkeep.
● As the electric vehicle maintenance industry sits, many of these
private companies, such as Tesla, actually require any and all
maintenance to be conducted at their facilities. And if there is any
opportunity to receive maintenance services at another facility that
is not Tesla, car owners may be paying significantly more in
maintenance costs.
● Partnering with interested mechanics that reside in these
communities is ideal to provide community resources for electric
vehicles, as well as acknowledging these communities have
developed relationships and trust with certain mechanic industries.
○ Professional Maintenance: Provide EV and ET
maintenance programs to teach mechanics or engineers
how to work on these new modes of transportation.
○ Charging: Develop EV and ET maintenance programs to
manage public charging stations and/or private in-home
charging stations.

Electric Transportation Equity 36

○ Average Maintenance: Hold programs for EV
owners/future owners to help them understand how to care
for their vehicle long term.
■ Encourage vocational training programs for EV
maintenance experts (The Economist, 2021).
■ Create and provide educational material for EV owners/future owners that
cover a range of topics.
● Material on in-home charging guidelines that include information
on charging during peak hours and other impacts to the home.
● Easily accessible and reliable information on public charging
guidelines, locations, and other essential information for traveling
with an electric vehicle.
○ Campaign for Public Transit
■ As it is now, public transportation is not nearly as prioritized compared to
other methods of transportation. There is also a negative social component
which impedes the support for public transportation that cannot be ignored
and has created a certain elitism of people not wanting to ride in a public
space with other people. Without the inclusion of public transportation as
a priority in this transition and acknowledging the increasing
transportation costs on our current transit system, this poses a significant
risk to underserved communities to lose mobility in the future.
■ Maricopa County is going to continue to grow and single-occupancy
vehicles can not be the main option going forward. It is important to
bridge the gap and make public transit cool and safe.
● The Activator can work with community organizations to create a
campaign around the benefits of public transit and why it is a vital
aspect of transportation.
Systemic Policy for Long-term Resilience
● These are the ambitious, mitigative policy changes that could be a focus of the TE
Activator. If outside the TE Activator’s scope, these recommendations can become a
focus for the TE Activator’s municipal partners.
○ Offer Free, Accessible Public Transit
■ As stated in Masavi Perea’s interview, transportation options need to be
accessible in cost, alongside the focus on frequency of rides and where the
energy sources come from.
■ There are other cities, such as the Rio Metro ACCESS Program in New
Mexico (Rio Metro Regional Transit District, 2022), that have made this a
reality based on an evaluation of those who need transit the most.
● Differing from the Rio Metro program, transit should be free for all
Valley riders, not on a needs-based qualification.
○ This can be seen in Tempe with the free Orbit Shuttle Bus
program.
● There are several cities around the country that are making their
buses fare-free (Squires, 2021).
○ Fund Avenues for Multi-Modal ET Network

Electric Transportation Equity 37

■ Focus on the development of mobility hubs, where multiple methods of
transportation connect at various locations.
● The City of Tempe already has a priority in developing mobility
hubs across their region (City of Tempe, 2022).
■ In addition to first-last mile transportation options, there should be greater
investment to connect mobility hubs, such as bus-rapid transit (BRT), light
rail, and transportation demand management (TDM).
● Bus-Rapid Transit (BRT) “...is a high-quality bus-based transit
system that delivers fast and efficient service that may include
dedicated lanes, busways, traffic signal priority, off-board fare
collection, elevated platforms and enhanced stations” (Federal
Transit Administration, 2015).
● TDM “...focuses on reducing peak period traffic by attracting solo
drivers to carpools or transit, shifting work schedules away from
traditional peak hours, and allowing more employees to work at
home” (Giuliano, 1992).
○ Fund Private EV Ownership
■ Bridging the EV financial gap could be addressed by providing
micro-grants for community members to buy used EVs.
■ Federal, regional, local forms of funding that finance this transition are
possibilities, as well as private agencies that are related to electric
transportation may also have opportunities.
■ Upfront funding is ideal for ensuring economic burdens are not placed on
underrepresented communities.
■ Tax incentives and rebates may be able to financially assist this transition,
but despite these financial avenues, electric vehicles are still too expensive
and unattainable (Greenlining Institute, 2011).
● The availability of tax credits and rebates will only be as effective
as those providing this resource are able to effectively evaluate
those who need it and communicate efficiently to these
communities.
○ Frequency of Transportation Modes
■ To ensure buses and city-funded transportation modes come more
frequently, there needs to be greater investment in labor capacity, such as
bus drivers, transportation administrators, and other needed personnel.
■ This will increase the desirability of riding transit when arrival and
departure times are reliable and consistent.
○ Development Considerations
■ Consider displacement, gentrification, and environmental quality issues
when planning future transit development projects (See South Phoenix
Light Rail Extension).
● The people, environment, and businesses must be thoroughly
considered and incorporated into this transition. The
pre-development, during development, and post-development
stages produce long term impacts to the livelihoods and the greater
region that exacerbates current issues within these communities.

Electric Transportation Equity 38

○

○

○

○

● With the South Phoenix Light Rail Extension, many South Central
residents opposed because “‘[t]here's no reason to spend a billion
dollars on a train when the rest of south Phoenix need the money
so bad” (Fish and Boehm, 2018). Additionally, there was concern
this would harm local businesses, which it did, with two dozen
having closed their doors because of light rail construction
combined with COVID-19 (Gomez, 2021).
Fund Community Security
■ By investing in basic capacities and resources, people can focus on
long-term thriving, rather than day-to-day surviving.
● Instead of providing band-aid solutions, the TE Activator could
center social determinants of health that also intersect with
transportation (Fawcett & Rabinowitz, n.d.). By focusing on what
is conveyed as higher priority by community members, there can
be a systemic, holistic approach to co-creating in the solutions
space.
○ Food security, housing security, and financial security are
all fundamental aspects of socially-embedded work.
■ Socially demanding sustainability issues, that also require integrating
cultural differences head-on, have to focus on long-term stability and
security through investments in community-run programs.
■ Targeted Universalism is “setting universal goals pursued by targeted
processes to achieve those goals… [where] universal goals are established
for all groups concerned… [then] strategies developed to achieve those
goals are targeted, based upon how different groups are situated within
structures, culture, and across geographies to obtain the universal goal…
[meaning this approach is] goal oriented, and the processes are directed in
service of the explicit, universal goal” (Powell, et al., 2019).
Roadmap for EV Charging Stations
■ To reach underrepresented demographics, provide charging stations at
public spaces, such as libraries, hospitals, community centers, and parks.
■ After conducting the listening sessions, if EV charging is a priority, work
with residents and organizations to make a plan for future charging station
infrastructure and development.
Recycling Supply Chain of EV Batteries
■ EV batteries are not necessarily designed to be recycled. Most
governments have to force compliance for manufacturers to use recycled
battery materials (Morse, 2021).
■ There needs to be thought on where, how, and who will be impacted by
the recycling/disposal of EV batteries must be considered, and what
recycling chains need to be created for this.
■ Significant benefits to recycling include minimizing pollution and
ensuring battery resource regional/national security (Morse, 2021).
● There are several NGOs working to recycle EV batteries, such as
Call2Recycle (Lewis, 2022).
Regional Collaboration

Electric Transportation Equity 39

■ To ensure transportation equity cuts across silos and municipal lines, there
must be investment in regional capacity. By collaborating between
municipalities, and reaching out to County partners such as Maricopa
Association of Governments (MAG), there can be the beginning of an
approach that expands into a regional plan.
■ Community organizations should be brought into these conversations, as
well as transportation conversations scale from local to regional.
Electric Transportation Equity Accompanying Documents
Accompanying this document will be a 8-page Equity Roadmap document, a 8-page Community
Listening Script, and a one-page brief of our report recommendations. The Roadmap acts as a
guide for the TE Activator to ground themselves and potential organizations in their intentions
toward implementing equitable electrification. In short, the Electric Transportation Equity
Roadmap is a high-level summation of our full report, as it outlines key details of the
Community Listening Pilot Project, such as measuring success, potential actors, timeline,
resources, accessibility, as well as highlighting recommendations in each category. The
Community Listening Script is a separate document that has the script outlined in this report to
ensure this can be easily dispersed to TE Activator partners and modified to meet guiding
principles created alongside community organizations. Finally, we have created a one-pager to
ensure the recommendation subsection of this report can easily be accessed by TE Activator
institutional leaders. The TE Activator can utilize this report, the Equity Roadmap, the
Community Listening Script, and the one-pager to help conceptualize the approach they take
with the Community Listening Project they will conduct to engage and integrate community
perspectives into the TE Activator’s decision-making process.
Conclusion
Our team envisions a future with an inclusive and equitable electric transportation (ET)
landscape, which has utilized clear and concise institutional dialogue that prioritizes historically
underserved peoples to redesign the Valley’s car-centric culture. We envision this process to be
completed through collaboration, centered around empathy and listening, as this is the only
feasible route to develop transportation equity solutions that serve historically underrepresented
communities (Livingston, 2020). Our team has served as social sustainability advisors to the
Transportation Electrification Activator, doing grassroots work with local, regional, and national
organizations by listening with empathy to each of these organizations' needs and hopes around
transportation. Throughout this report, various references have been crucial to guiding our
understanding of equity and we highly encourage those utilizing this report to engage with this
material as well. This is a process we have acknowledged will take time and should not be
rushed, as equity work is slow. We orientated our applied project this way because
socially-embedded work is more than creating temporary outcomes. It is about focusing on
process, rather than results, and co-creating a shared culture to work towards systemic equity
goals.
Tasked with the role of social sustainability advisors, our team sought out the most effective
process and deliverables for community-based equity work. We began by analyzing equity
frameworks to develop an approach for this task and reaching out to community organizations.
Through our research, listening, and discussions our team compiled tiered recommendations for
Electric Transportation Equity 40

the TE Activator suggesting systemic policy changes based on community priorities. Our report
and recommendations culminate in an Equity Roadmap, which will serve as a detailed
summation of this report. The Roadmap details the Community Listening Pilot Project and
potential recommendations for the TE Activator. We have also created a Community Listening
Script to be utilized in future listening sessions and a one-page brief as an overview of the
overall project and deliverables.
Equity work is slow, and as we have developed a detailed plan and groundwork for the TE
Activator, we envision this project to be ongoing. Our team has spent time building relationships
with communities with the intention and impact of creating a space of trust between the TE
Activator and the community. Due to the natural longevity of this project, we have laid the
groundwork and see this as a future opportunity for MSUS projects. We hope this project is
carried on by the TE Activator and future organizations with equity and community engagement
at the heart of it.

Electric Transportation Equity 41

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Appendix
Appendix 1: Diagrams
Nestled Sustainability Diagram
This diagram, also called Strong Sustainability, demonstrates how the environment is the
overarching space where humans have created their society. Within this society, there further is
an economy - a system of choices - that humans have also constructed (Hunt, 2009). This
diagram conveys the inherent interdependence and connection between the three pillars of
sustainability, rather than the typical Venn diagram that conveys the possibility to pick two
pillars (Environmental Protection and Economic Viability) while putting less focus on the third
(Social Equity).

Draft Climate Action Plan for the City of Tempe - Theory of Change
Below is a visual that ties together how the City of Tempe envisions their departments actions
linking community voices to their policy and programs, therefore creating outcomes that serve
the mission of their Office and of the city’s strategic budgetary priorities.

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Axes of Power and Oppression Diagram
The Axes of Power and Oppression Diagram is a visual depiction of intersectionality. This links
systems of power and privilege to their corresponding systems of oppression, and also links them
to the everyday experiences that enact these systems personally. For example, the line that reads
“Upper to Upper-Middle Class” on the Privilege/Society Normatives side is directly linked to
“Working Class” on the Oppression/Resistance side of the diagram. These two personal
experiences are then tied together through the power structure of classism, that creates the
conditions of both enforcing societal norms and oppression.

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Appendix 2: Process Frameworks
Mobility Equity Framework
The Greenlining Institute proposed a mobility equity framework that forms “​​a transportation
system that increases access to high quality mobility options, reduces air pollution, and enhances
economic opportunity in low-income communities of color” (Creger, et al., 2018).
The three steps of this framework include:
● Step 1: Determine the appropriate mobility needs of the community
● Step 2: Conduct an equity analysis of the proposed projects from the community
● Step 3: Centralize decision-making power within the community

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These steps provide a backbone to how team TEA will identify the needs of communities by
working alongside them.
The Mobility Equity Framework is centered on equity and community power and is supported by
traditional decision making frameworks to identify needs. The framework is divided into three
sections, the first focusing on determination of communities and their mobility needs, the second
phase evaluates the equitability of proposed projects, and the final phase incorporates traditional
decision-making frameworks that place power within the community (Creger, et al., 2018).
For this report, Team TEA focused on the first step in the framework by determining the
appropriate mobility needs of the community.
Asset-Based Community Development
Asset-based Community Development (ABCD) provided a backbone for how team TEA
interacted with communities and organizations. ABCD focuses on a community's capacities and
assets for engagement and future development, rather than their problems and what they are
lacking. The framework is beneficial to help build a community’s capacities by determining their
current assets and strengths. ABCD centers on low- to moderate-income communities to
incorporate financial, economic, environmental, and social sustainability. In this context, assets
can refer to physical, human, social, financial, environmental, political, or cultural capital. The
process of ABCD starts with community organizing and leads to visioning, planning, public
participation, and implementation and evaluation. While the TE Activator did not focus on
development within a specific community, this framework is necessary to provide an inclusive
and equitable landscape for community members (Haines, 2009).
Love-Based Aid
Love-Based Aid is a different orientation to serving community that centers the emotional and
spiritual development of everyone involved, rather than narrow economic development for the
external world. This requires a shift within developmental aid toward spirituality rooted in love
that connects us at “...the quantum level”, causing “...an inner transformation from
self-centeredness to selflessness” (Ulluwishewa, 2017). When this inner shift happens, we can
begin developing in a way that is not extractively transactional, but reinforcing reciprocal.
Alongside this, acknowledging the soft-wired perceptions of aid that come from decades of
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“...self-centeredness, greed and fear which are symptoms of spiritual underdevelopment”
(Ulluwishewa, 2017). Therefore, “...service activities [must] be interpreted as love-in-action
and... [s]ervice, in this context, contributes to the spiritual growth of those who serve while
rendering material benefits to those who are served” (Ulluwishewa, 2017). When discussing
development, Team TEA felt it was important to ground the process of our research with this
framework, as this explicitly points to the white supremacy culture (Okun, 2001) evident within
modern aid programs externally, and refocuses on the love and spirit that unites cooperation with
another internally.
Appendix 3: Strategy Frameworks
Equity and Empowerment Lens i.e. “5 P” Framework
The Equity and Empowerment Lens “...is a set of principles, reflective questions, and processes
that focuses at the individual, institutional, and systemic levels…” that analyzes People, Place,
Process, Power and Purpose when crafting decisions (Multnomah County, 2021). The “5 P’s”
can be used to analyze and critically question the planning processes surrounding racial equity
projects and programs. By “...deconstructing what is not working around racial equity…” to then
reconstruct and support what is working, there can both be a shift in how we think about and
make decisions, while healing our structures, our environments, and ourselves during the process
toward racial equity outcomes (Multnomah County, 2021). This can directly be used when
crafting strategies throughout the strategy timeline, in addition to being used to revisit the
proposed trajectory as the timeline is enacted.
● People:
○ Consider physical, spiritual, emotional, contextual, and intersectional (See
Diagram in Personal Identities section) effects of the issue/decision.
● Place:
○ How are public resources and investments distributed geographically when
considering social-ecological impacts and environmental justice concerns of the
issue/decision?
● Process:
○ What processes are traumatizing and how do we create meaningful relationships
that include communities most affected by the inequities of this issue/decision?
● Power:
○ Who is accountable to shift power dynamics in the current issue, policy, or
program decision-making structure to better integrate voices and priorities of
BIPOC communities?
● Purpose
○ How can this issue/decision transform the way we make equitable decisions,
deconstruct and reconstruct our structures, transform and support our
environments, and heal ourselves?

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USDN’s Spectrum from Community Engagement to Ownership
USDN, or the Urban Sustainability Directors Network, is a peer learning network for local
sustainability officials in the United States and Canada “...to pursue collaborative projects that
address urgent challenges and timely opportunities facing multiple cities” (USDN, 2022).
USDN’s Spectrum from Community Engagement to Ownership articulates how and why equity
work requires collaborative governance and power shifting. Direct participation and facilitation
over community development and project implementation is vital to ensure communities are
involved in decisions and solutions that impact them. Further, “[t]his level of [community]
participation unleashes much needed capacity [that] also requires initial capacity investments
across multiple sectors to achieve systems changes and culture shifts needed (USDN, n.d.). To
bridge the mismatch between institutional intentions, the messages conveyed to communities,
and the actions taken to reach equity goals, there must be a reorientation towards community
power building in tandem with institutional power shifting.

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Appendix 4: Contact Information
Stakeholders

Name & Title

Contact Information

CHISPA

Masavi Perea, Executive
Director

Email: masavi_perea@lcv.org

CHISPA

Dulce Juarez

Email: dulce_juarez@lcv.org

CHISPA

Sawsan Abdurrahman

Email:
sawsan.chispaaz@gmail.com

Tempe Community Action
Agency (TCAA)

Deborah Arteaga, CEO

Email: deboraha@tempeaction.org

Tempe Community Action
Agency (TCAA)

Debra Bacorn, Community
Engagement Supervisor

Email: DebraB@tempeaction.org

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City of Tempe

Brianne Fisher, Climate Action Email: Brianne_Fisher@tempe.gov
Manager
Phone: (480)-350-8959

City of Tempe

Bonnie Richardson
Robert Yabes

Email:
bonnie_richardson@tempe.gov
Email: robert_yabes@tempe.gov

Tiger Mountain Foundation

Darren Chapman, Founder

Email:
darren.chapman@tigermountainfou
ndation.org
Phone: (602)-687-7725

Unlimited Potential

Emma Viera

Email:
executivedirector@unlimitedpotenti
alaz.org
Phone: (602) 305-4742

Spaces of Opportunity (Farmers
Market)

Tawsha

Phone: (480)-270-9414

Spaces of Opportunity
(Volunteer Coordinator)

Darren Chapman

Email:
darren.chapman@tigermountainfou
ndation.org
Phone: (213)-300-8846

Spaces of Opportunity
(Incubator Farm Plots Program)

John

Phone: (602)-509-6042

Spaces of Opportunity
(Community Garden)

Bruce Babcock

Email:
bruce.babcock@tigermountainfoun
dation.org
Phone: (602)-826-9824

State of Colorado - Energy
Office

Kelly Blynn, Transportation
Climate Change Specialist

Email: kelly.blynn@state.co.us
Phone: (480)-422-8922

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