Basic Needs Oregon aims to close opportunity gaps for low-income college students by connecting them to essential resources that help increase their basic needs security. The program supports Oregon community college and public university students in accessing local, state, and federal benefits through the support of benefits navigators, staff members at each public college and university. Benefit navigators offer culturally specific resources, establish student feedback channels, and use a statewide consortium to collect data and share best practices. In turn, the statewide consortium supports benefits navigators through a community of practice, training, data collection, and resource sharing.
Initiated by the passage of Oregon House Bill 2835 in 2021, and now in statute (ORS 350.262), Basic Needs Oregon is a statewide consortium of college benefits navigators helping to support students with basic needs insecurity. This will be the first statewide in-person convening of the Basic Needs Oregon benefits navigator consortium.
Convening Overview
We invite front‐line Basic Needs staff from campuses across the state to join a collaborative, skill‐building convening designed to strengthen your capacity and deepen the impact of your work with students and other stakeholders in your work. Participants will learn practical approaches with a focus on both creative solution-building and dignifying, strengths‐based, and empowerment‐oriented support for students. The primary goal is for each attendee to leave with new tools they can confidently apply in their interactions to improve student success with food, housing, financial, and resource challenges.
This convening also offers dedicated space for front‐line Basic Needs staff across the state to strengthen relationships and learn from one another in ways that enhance both day‐to‐day practice and long‐term planning. The funding landscape for this work continues to be uncertain, and it is essential that we proactively prepare for how our roles, strategies, and resource approaches may need to adapt if fiscal support becomes more difficult to secure. By sharing skills, refining communication strategies, and developing stronger strategic thinking together, attendees can build the capacity needed to sustain and evolve this work under changing conditions.
Through this collaborative learning engagement, participants will deepen the expertise on their own campuses while also contributing to a stronger collective impact in basic needs work across Oregon. Strengthening individual practice directly strengthens the statewide effort, and this gathering is designed to support that growth through practical training, relationship development, and advancing skills related to problem‐solving and solution-building.