Luke Elzinga

Policy and advocacy manager, Des Moines Area Religious Council (DMARC)

Age: 31

Wife: Piper Haugan 

Children: June Haugan Elzinga (daughter, 2 years old)

Reasons he is a Forty: He serves as the board chair of the Iowa Hunger Coalition, a statewide anti-hunger advocacy organization. He is currently pursuing his Master of Public Policy from the University of Northern Iowa. He is a 2022 HealthConnect Fellow with the Mid-Iowa Health Foundation. He is a co-founder of DMARC’s Storytellers Roundtable, a project that aims to elevate the voices of people experiencing hunger and food insecurity and involve them in advocacy, storytelling and decision-making at DMARC.

What are your goals in your role at your company? At DMARC, I’m working to end hunger and food insecurity in Greater Des Moines by advocating for strong safety net programs, pushing for systems-level change to address the root causes of poverty, reframing the narrative on hunger and food insecurity and keeping people with lived experience centered in this work.

What are your goals for your community involvement? As the board chair of the Iowa Hunger Coalition, I’m working to build a robust statewide coalition of anti-hunger advocates and elevate the voices of people who would be directly affected by proposed policy changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

What's your biggest passion, and why? One of my biggest passions is challenging the status quo and advocating for systemic change. As a cisgender white man, I have a lot of privilege, and if I am not actively working to dismantle the systems that afforded me these privileges, I am upholding systems of oppression.

What is it that drives you? Injustice drives me, and career success looks like putting myself out of a job. To me, hunger isn’t solved by providing more and more food through food pantries. Hunger is solved when food pantries no longer need to exist. Unfortunately, I think my level of job security is pretty high.

What are your future aspirations? Growing up, I always had a strong interest in creative writing, drawing, painting, acting and other arts. I’ve let my creative endeavors fall to the wayside over the years, but would really like to dedicate more time to get back into forms of artistic expression.

Three hobbies: Grabbing fresh bialys from Scenic Route Bakery on Saturday mornings with my family; perfecting my voice acting by reading to my daughter; Dungeons and Dragons. 

Fun fact: He can recite the entirety of the 1994 cinematic masterpiece “Dumb and Dumber” from memory.

One word to describe you: Skeptic.

What is your wish for the Central Iowa business community? I would like to see the Central Iowa business community provide more unrestricted funds to nonprofit organizations. Companies should be focused on funding nonprofits’ greatest needs (read: operating costs), not the newest, flashiest project to put their company name on.

What's one piece of advice that you would give to a young professional? Don’t be shy about sharing how much you get paid with your co-workers – it’s your legal right. Pay transparency is important in identifying disparities based on race and gender, and having knowledge of how other people in similar roles are compensated can be very useful in advocating for a raise.

What is one issue you would like to see Central Iowa leaders address? I would like to see Central Iowa leaders collaborate on a focused poverty-reduction strategy. We have many organizations and agencies providing Band-Aid solutions to poverty. We need a coordinated approach to address the root causes of poverty: economic exploitation, systemic racism and gender-based oppression. Sometimes it seems our leaders want to pretend poverty doesn’t exist in our community. It’s a daily reality for tens of thousands of people right here in Greater Des Moines.

Anything else you haven't addressed that people must know about you? I swear I’m not a complete buzzkill!