Morgan Holmgren recently join the Community Impact Department and the Early Learning Multnomah Hub team at United Way of the Columbia-Willamette. He serves as the Senior Manager of Research and Evaluation on the Albina Rockwood Promise Initiative (ARNI). Morgan worked closely with partners to collect, process, and analyze student perspective data from the Reynolds School District. He held 12 presentations with ARPNI partners, administrators at the schools in the Reynolds School District, and United Way leadership. The school survey serves to provide data on student perspectives on school and community belonging, safety, and their own empowerment within those spaces.
What’s one experience from childhood that helped make you who you are today?
My mom worked for the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro program, which was tasked with managing the wild horse population throughout the United States. One of their main ways of doing that is rounding up excess horses (they have basically no natural predators anymore so they can easily overpopulate) and then working to get people to adopt the horses. I remember when I was between 5 and 10 years old going to fairs, festivals, and parades in Northern Nevada and California with my mom and setting up tables trying to get them interested in adopting a wild horse. It was an experience that made me more comfortable talking to people I didn’t know and being comfortable with public speaking from a young age. I used that skill a lot when I ran voter registration drives and worked on political campaigns in my 20s. I have rarely been nervous about public speaking, and I think this experience is part of why.
We know decision making is often based on data interpretations. ELM is fortunate to have Morgan, who is able to evaluate and present the data that supports and verifies the testimonies of our communities and their needs!