As Oregon's Kitchen Table has grown since our founding a decade ago to provide more meaningful opportunities for Oregonians all over the state to participate in public decision making, we've come to identify and embrace a few philosophical frameworks for our work and to hold ourselves accountable in achieving our purpose. We have learned about Popular Education and the work of community healthworkers and those principles and approaches have resonated with us as we think about our foundations here at Oregon's Kitchen Table (more to come on that in the future!). And at the same time that OKT was starting out, Berkeley professor john a. powell began to introduce a framework he calls “targeted universalism”, which has become a significant guide for us as OKT has and continues to evolve. In a 2020 piece published in the National Civic Review, "Take a Seat at Oregon’s Kitchen Table: Adapting Targeted Universalism for Broad and Deep Civic Engagement," OKT Director Wendy Willis shares how targeted universalism informs our thinking about civic engagement and improves our democracy. Read on for more.