Frequently Asked Questions

As Oregonians, we consistently say that we want to participate in decisions and public projects that affect us, but we often don’t know where to turn to share our opinions, concerns, and even the resources and ideas we have to offer. And we’re not always sure we’re being heard when we do. Oregon’s Kitchen Table aims to better integrate citizen voices from across the state so that people residing in Oregon can influence the decisions that impact their lives. . At the same time, Oregon’s Kitchen Table aims to increase the public’s understanding and interest in participating in public issues and projects at the local, regional, and statewide levels.

Oregon’s Kitchen Table is a program housed at Portland State University. It is funded on a project-by-project basis, typically by state and local governments or charitable foundations.

When you participate in an Oregon’s Kitchen Table consultation, the answers you provide will be reported to OKT in an aggregate, anonymous form. The information you provide will not contain or be linked to any information that personally identifies you, including your name, e-mail address, or mailing address. Instead, your answers are linked to an anonymous ID number that is used internally.

Our commitment to your privacy:

• Your privacy will be respected and your answers will be maintained and used only as described in this Policy.
• Your name, address, phone number, personal information, and individual responses will only be used as described in this Policy and except as otherwise described herein, will not otherwise be disclosed to anyone without your consent.
• We will clearly represent to you what we are doing through our Site.
• Our community engagement processes  are not a guise to sell you something or to ask for money.
• With your consent, we will contact you via email so you will not be interrupted at inconvenient times.
• Your decision regarding participating in a survey, answering specific questions, or discontinuing your participation will be respected.
• We will do our best to make your participation in our community engagement processes a pleasant experience.

Oregon’s Kitchen Table invites people across the state to participate.  We strive to engage people who are politically active as well as people who have been — or have felt — outside the political process. Whether you are a concerned neighbor, active volunteer, community leader, parent, or have never participated in a community engagement process before, we want to hear from you and we want you to join your fellow Oregonians in helping support the Oregon communities we all care about.

While many of our projects have different elements or approaches based on a number of factors, there are elements that we often employ.  These are:

1. Decision makers propose key questions on policy and governance issues that call for input from people with a wide variety of experiences and knowledge.
2. Oregon’s Kitchen Table puts together a project team that includes OKT staff as well as people with different skills and expertise that will meet project and community needs. We often work with a team of multilingual and multicultural facilitators, community organizers, translators, interpreters, graphic designers, student interns, and PSU faculty and staff.
3. The OKT  team works closely with the decision maker to create questions that invite community members to share their opinions, experiences, ideas, beliefs and values.  We work with plain language experts to use language that is as accessible and understandable as possible, no matter what someone’s knowledge is about the topic.
4. Working with community organizers and community partners, we create multiple ways for people to give input.  This often includes an online survey tool in up to 9 languages, paper surveys distributed and collected by community organizers and partners, in-person community conversations, culturally and / or linguistically specific gatherings with food and activities, online community conversations, tabling at culturally specific and community events, fairs, and festivals, and other activities.
5. OKT collects input through all of the different formats and analyzes input to identify common themes and values, areas of difference or tensions, and unique perspectives. We post a report on the OKT website and distribute the report through multiple channels in order to make the results available to decision-makers, the media and the public. This information can help lawmakers make tough decisions on critical public policy issues.

Our goal is to accurately gather input from the entire state on statewide issues and to accurately gather input from communities on regional or local issues. We use organizing techniques and partners to try to reach people from communities who have traditionally been excluded from public decision making. 

Information gathered from Oregon’s Kitchen Table consultations is published on this website in the The Results section. Oregon lawmakers, decision-makers, researchers and opinion leaders can use OKT reports to help make tough decisions on critical public policy issues.

Like other forms of community engagement, we count on people being honest. After all, this is a way for people to share what they think with decision makers, so it’s in their own interest to be truthful. We’re trusting Oregonians to tell it to us straight.

Oregon’s Kitchen Table is committed to trying to bring all Oregonians to the table.  We partner with local libraries and community-based organizations  to increase access for folks without internet access. We work with translation and interpretation services to provide materials in a multitude of languages. As of August 2024, we are offering ways for people to participate in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Somali, Russian, Ukrainian, Marshallese, Chuukese, and Arabic.  We offer paper and online translated consultations in these languages when our community partners request it.  Our long term goal is to be able to offer all translation for the different types of engagement activities Oregon's Kitchen Table has to offer. We’re committed to identifying and addressing barriers to participation and hope you will offer any suggestions or solutions you have so we can make it easier for everyone to take part.  Please contact Sarah Giles (sagiles@pdx.edu or 503-725-5248) to request an accommodations or additional information.