Empower Missouri
Joanna Grace Farmer has extensive experience in community empowerment and education, currently serving as a member of the Global Community Impact Leaders Consortium at Thought Partnerships since December 2020, focusing on facilitating collaboration among activists and peacebuilders. As the Founder and Director of Building Community Capacity, LLC since February 1997, Joanna developed processes to enhance resource access for indigenous communities. Engagement as a Scholar-Activist with organizations such as the National Conversation Project and Friends of the African Union demonstrates a commitment to fostering conversations and connections across societal divides. Joanna also contributes to feminist literature as a co-author for Demeter Press and has held multiple academic roles, including Faculty Representative and Academic Advisor at Webster University, where significant improvements in faculty engagement and student success were achieved. Educational credentials include a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and prior degrees from the University of Chicago in Sociology and Public Policy Studies.
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Empower Missouri
For 120 years, Empower Missouri has been a champion for families struggling with homelessness, food security, mass incarceration, and access to healthcare. We are the oldest and largest anti-poverty advocacy organization serving our state, and one of the first organizations of its kind in the nation. We are nonprofit and nonpartisan, working to secure basic human needs and equal justice for every person in our state through coalition-building and advocacy. For more than a century, Empower Missouri has driven key policy changes that have improved the lives of countless Missourians. And we are just getting started. We believe in a future where all people have food, shelter, and justice in Missouri. Our long history has equipped us with a clear understanding of how poverty has been created and sustained by public policy decisions. We believe that substantive policy change is the only long-term solution to alleviating poverty and creating a brighter future for all Missourians. We work to analyze current policy, build an understanding of real-world impact, and elevate the voices of those impacted. We research innovative policy solutions, foster coalitions of individuals committed to improving policy, and work to shift the mindsets of legislators to change laws that perpetuate cycles of poverty.