Hawaiʻi Budget & Policy Center director brings extensive organizing experience

Will White most recently worked at United Way Bay Area on the public policy and government affairs team.

The Hawaiʻi Budget & Policy Center (HBPC) welcomes its new director, Will White, who returned home to Hawaiʻi in February of 2021 after spending the previous two decades living and working in the continental United States. During that time, he dedicated his professional career to advancing progressive public policies and supporting issue-based campaigns in both New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Having worked as both a community organizer and a policy advocate, he’s been engaged with issues ranging from preserving our natural resources to expanding our social safety net for vulnerable populations.  

As an organizer in New York City, White quickly discovered the value and joy of directly engaging with people in their communities. It was here that he discovered the enormous potential people have to create change when community members come together and organize to take action.  

“The ability to forge a bond with a complete stranger in a city as large and anonymous as New York became a foundational lesson that impacts my approach to social justice work today,” said White. 

Eventually, Will left New York for a brief detour to San Francisco, where he led a new outreach and organizing effort on behalf of Peace Action West, a pro-peace and social justice group. This role allowed White to immerse himself in the pro-peace agenda while working to build community with individuals who felt just as passionate about the issue as he does.

“While the work in this capacity was incredibly rewarding, the victories were often temporary, and/or sometimes elusive,” White said. “I realized that to create lasting and impactful change, I’d need to take my skillset to the next level. After some soul searching and a stint working in a warehouse for minimum wage, I settled on the idea of going back to school to earn my master’s degree in Urban Policy Analysis and Management.”

Shortly after graduating, White returned to California where he landed a position at United Way Bay Area working on the public policy and government affairs team. While there, White was fortunate enough to be a part of campaigns to raise the minimum wage, expand health care access for undocumented immigrants and increase the refundability of tax credits for working families.  

Successfully passing legislation using the community-building skills he developed in New York helped ensure that the victories he had long sought as an organizer were no longer temporary. 

“Change can be impactful and long lasting, but it requires policy, working in coordination with the community, to achieve it,” said White.

Since moving back home, it quickly became clear that many of the inequities White had been working to address in California and New York were the same ones impacting the people of Hawaiʻi. Rising costs of living, a high prevalence of low-wage jobs, housing and food insecurity, unfair tax codes, and unequal access to quality care are all contributing to inequitable outcomes for many of Hawaiʻi’s workers, particularly workers of color and workers with low wages. 

“HBPC’s strong track record of being an authority on policy issues for both lawmakers and the general public was what drew me to the organization, and I want to continue to elevate the organization in that role as I continue my own evolution as an agent for progressive social change,” said White.