Public Engagement

Humanity United’s cross-cutting portfolio, Public Engagement, plays a critical role in HU’s mission to cultivate the conditions for enduring peace and freedom.

The portfolio supports independent journalism and media, advocates for policy change, and leverages strategic communications to support our partners and our broader mission. These approaches complement each other while collaborating with HU’s Peacebuilding and Forced Labor & Human Trafficking portfolios to help shift harmful systems and practices to recognize shared humanity and to bring attention, accountability, and action to issues of conflict and exploitation.

The Public Engagement Portfolio supports HU’s goals to increase the agency of those most affected by conflict and exploitation; cultivate the recognition of our shared humanity; and make key institutions more accountable and responsive.

Within the Public Engagement portfolio, the Independent Journalism and Media (IJAM) program is grounded in the belief that we need high-quality, independent journalism to help make sense of the world around us and to shift harmful systems and practices towards peace and freedom. We support journalism and media that align with our mission, adhering to key principles. Through the Policy and Government Relations team, HU recognizes the important role of governments to safeguard the rights to peace and freedom. As a U.S.-based organization, we and our partners work with policymakers and governments at national and international levels to create greater awareness and understanding of these issues. We also work with civil society and multilateral institutions to advocate for solutions to prevent and respond to forced labor, human trafficking, systemic violent conflict, and mass atrocities, and racial injustice within the United States. Our Strategic Communications team develops and deploys HU’s reputational and intellectual capital to advance the understanding of issues core to our mission and programs. We help amplify the leadership and expertise of our partners to influence the overarching narratives around peacebuilding, forced labor, and racial justice; and we work to ensure those addressing these issues include the voices of people with lived experience.

The Public Engagement Portfolio as a whole works directly in service of HU’s mission and also partners closely with the Peacebuilding and Forced Labor and Human Trafficking portfolios to catalyze impact. We strive to demonstrate HU’s approach of being expansive in our efforts, and offering more than financial support to our partners. The work of the Public Engagement portfolio seeks to directly and indirectly increase the capacity of HU’s partners and networks, create more cultural and political space for progress, and help connect new audiences with critical voices, information, ideas, and approaches.