Partnerships Are Vital to Our Work

To further our work, we maintain partnerships and alliances on a wide range of public issues. We work with other business associations, elected leaders, government agency officials, grant makers, nonprofit advocacy organizations, and community leaders.

Foundations in particular have increasingly invested in our work as they have become more proactive, outcome oriented, and interested in the same problems we’re trying to solve. The past two decades they have made significant investments in our work on education redesign, poverty reduction, rural economic development, community health and wellness, and fiscal reform.

In recent years OBC has become more engaged with grassroots and community organizations where our policy interests converge. In such cases we learn from their expertise and partner with them on particular issues. One example of such collaboration is on the earned income tax credit. The past two years we have worked with 15 community organizations from across the state to scale-up earned income tax credit uptake for low-income filers by expanding culturally specific, culturally responsive, and rural taxpayer outreach. Learn more about this issue here.

Although OBC is a 501 (c) (6) business association, with operating costs funded by member dues, our most important engagement with public issues is done through grants to our 501 (c) (3), the OBC Charitable Institute. Additionally, our work is supported by direct contributions from our member companies and their foundations. Foundation supporters include the Meyer Memorial Trust, Oregon Community Foundation, MJ Murdock Charitable Trust, Ford Family Foundation, and company foundations at Cambia, Portland General Electric, Intel, and many others. Follow this link to see a page-bottom display of Oregon Business Plan sponsors.