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The following report details grant making carried out by Strategies to Eliminate Poverty (STEP), a program of The Seattle Foundation created through a five year, $2.5 million commitment from the Northwest Area Foundation, covering the period April 1, 2006- March 31, 2011. The STEP strategic plan was approved by The Seattle Foundation and the Northwest Area Foundation in the winter of 2007. The grants that are described below are those that have been awarded since the strategic planning process was concluded. STEP’s area of geographical interest in the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota.
After three full years of operation, STEP has awarded $1,312,000 in grants, including $76,720 in its strategic planning phase. The grants below are organized to reflect five stages of poverty policy development on which STEP is principally focused.
- The need for poverty policy advocates and analysts across the eight states of the Northwest Area to focus on comprehensive, integrated policies that build economic security and reduce poverty.
- The capacity of non-profit organizations in all states to seek and build a system of adequate income and other public supports that contribute to economic security as wages increase.
- The need for all eight states to expand and integrate the specific policies that encourage individual asset building.
- The development of human capital investment approaches that provide a meaningful path to sustainable and increasing wages.
- Guarantees that policies that fight poverty will respond to the specific needs of targeted populations.
I. Setting the Framework for Fighting Poverty in the Northwest Area
A. Northwest Poverty Policy Projects ($248,418)
To analyze existing approaches to the measurement of poverty in the Northwest, to develop strategies to improve poverty measurement and related strategies; to evaluate the impact of tax policies on low income persons in the eight states of the Northwest area; to provide technical assistance to states on comprehensive policy strategies; to help expand poverty policy analytical and advocacy capacity in the eight states; to convene poverty policy working sessions in the summer of 2008 and 2009; and to develop a “tool kit” to help states assess and expand upon their efforts.
This series of grants has been designed to create a core focus upon which all STEP grantees can build. The principal coordinator and consultant of the above activities has been consultant Annette Case, who has worked closely with STEP since its inception. Her ToolKit on state policies to fight poverty is featured on the STEP website and will be updated after each legislative session. Her field work has helped guide STEP’s efforts to increase poverty policy advocacy and analytical capacity, especially in the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Idaho.
Annette was the organizer of STEP’s poverty policy working session held in Denver on July 22-23, 2008. This meeting of 30 analysts and advocates from the eight states played an indispensable role in strengthen STEP’s network and charting the course going forward. The next such session, which will assemble 60 analysts and advocates, will be held in Seattle on July 20-22, 2009.
II. Improving State Capacity and Expanding Income and Work Supports for the Working Poor
A. Washington State Budget and Policy Center ($70,000)
To expand its policy analytical and advocacy capacity; to analyze the possible structure and impact of a Working Families Tax Credit, which is similar to a state funded Earned Income Tax Credit; to increase public information and understanding of the Working Families Tax Credit; to work with the Washington State Poverty Action Network to expand the participation of poor people in state poverty policy discussions; and to work with the Oregon Center for Public Policy to monitor the impact of climate change policy proposals on the poor.
The Washington State Budget and Policy Center (WSBPC) is one of five STEP grantees who are affiliates of the State Fiscal Analysis Initiative, a group of non profits organizations coordinated by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Other STEP SFAI grantees are located in Oregon, Iowa (2 organizations) and Minnesota. Without the WSBPC’s work, the Working Families Tax Credit would never have been developed. It is the first EITC instrument in a state with no income tax.
B. Washington State Poverty Action Network ($20,000)
To make certain poor persons help formulate and influence Washington state poverty policy initiatives, including the Working Families Tax Credit.
Among its other strengths, SPAN has been a key participant in the High Cost of Being Poor Project, which is identifying and confronting the ways in which numerous individuals are being kept in poverty in part through the purchase of goods and services that are more expensive for them than for middle income consumers
C. Minnesota Budget Project ($50,000)
To devise means to bolster and improve the Minnesota Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which is currently structured to mitigate the income and work support “cliffs” that beset other states; to provide assistance to members of the Legislative Commission to End Poverty by 2020; to analyze and respond to the work of the Commission and monitor its efforts; to increase its communications efforts on these issues; and to work with the Oregon Center for Public Policy to monitor the impact of climate change policy proposals on the poor.
State budget problems in Minnesota have created the risk that one of the best state-enacted Earned Income Tax Credits will be curtailed. In addition to seeking to guard against the elimination of this tax credit and the existing Renter’s Tax Credit, the Budget Project is playing an important role in monitoring the work of the Legislative Commission, which is the only such commission in the Northwest Area
D. The Urban Institute ($20,000)
To enable the completion of assistance to Minnesota’s Legislative Commission to End Poverty on levels of poverty in the state.
The Urban Institute’s poverty research efforts are well respected by the Minnesota Commission. The Institute manipulated Current Population Survey (CPS) data to gain much better understanding of the extent to which specific federal and state poverty interventions will decrease Minnesota poverty levels, thus improving the quality of the Commission’s work.
E. Affirmative Options Coalition of Minnesota ($30,000)
To expand the participation of a coalition of organizations aiming to reduce poverty in Minnesota; to partner with those organizations to monitor and influence the activities of the Legislative Commission to End Poverty and any successor organizations.
With the Minnesota Budget Project (see above), the Affirmative Options Coalition (AOC) has played a key role in seeking an impactful report from the Legislative Committee to End Poverty, and in advancing selected recommendations of the Commission after the report’s release. AOC also provides important connections to organizations throughout the state.
F. Iowa Child and Family Policy Center ($66,000)
To expand work on the economic status of women, with a special focus on women in the ranks of the working poor; to make the case for income and work supports for these women; to work with the Oregon Center for Public Policy and the Iowa Policy Project to monitor the impact of climate change policy proposals on the poor.
This activity related to the economic status of women is nicely connected with the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women, Among other matters, the report will examine changing median income levels and the extent to which state and federal support systems support lower income families, and single working mothers;
G. Iowa Policy Project ($88,129)
To develop all new ways to demonstrate return on investment for state income support programs and work support programs, and to partner with the National Center on Children in Poverty (in conjunction with the Iowa Child and Family Center) to decrease “cliffs” in eligibility for the working poor.
State interest in such income and work supports as child care assistance depends in large measure on how policy makers understand the advantages of helping the working poor out of poverty, and the essential role income and work supports play in keeping them on that path. This case helps support the efforts of the Iowa Child and Family Policy Center and those of the Iowa Policy Project to advocate for the expansion of child care and related supports in the state, and the methods developed will be used across the region. (See Iowa Policy Project also under section III)
H. Oregon Center for Public Policy ($84,000)
To develop numerous poverty policy information and applied research efforts generated in part by the legislative session which began in January, 2009, including interest in maintaining or expanding the Oregon Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) which some advocates believe can be increased in the face of tough economic times; to work with the State Fiscal Analysis Initiative (SFAI) affiliates in Iowa, Minnesota, Washington and Oregon to insert poverty policy into what thus far has been an environmental policy debate over global climate change.
As the SFAI affiliate in Oregon, the Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP) plays the primary role in devising strategies to improve and increase the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit. In addition, OCCP has played the leading role in the region in examining the impacts of various global climate change proposals and develop and advance recommendations on ways impacts on the poor can be lessened. Unless the appropriate steps are taken, global climate change policy will have an all new hugely regressive impact on persons with local incomes.
I. North Dakota Consensus Council ($34,180)
To forge an all new state poverty policy coalition facilitated by the Council and to address poverty approaches now under review by North Dakota state government; to partner with The North Dakota Women’s Network, the North Dakota Center for the Public Good, and the State Data Center at North Dakota State University; to bring a dozen other key North Dakota organizations to the table; to devise poverty policy proposals in the area of the earned income tax credit and other issues.
The grant to the Consensus Council is a major first step in developing all new poverty policy analytical and advocacy capacity in North Dakota. Similar grants are anticipated in Montana, South Dakota and Idaho.
III. Advancing New and Inventive Approaches to State Efforts on Income and Work Supports
A. The National Center for Children in Poverty ($77,000)
To work with local partners to carry out intensive projects in Iowa and Washington to improve government sponsored “work supports” to confront eligibility “cliffs” and thus help the working poor move along the pathway to jobs that fully support them.
The principal product of NCCP on these matters is the Family Resource Simulator. NCCP created this model with significant support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. STEP has made it possible to put this policy/technical assistance initiative in play in Iowa and Washington. Comprehensive poverty policy at the state level requires states to understand how they are going to keep the working poor on the path to family wage jobs once they put them on the path. .
B. Iowa Policy Project ($68,962)
To expand their project to find new ways to define and establish the return on investment (ROI) gained by states who strengthen income and work supports to boost the working poor; to complete the current study of how ROI is best calculated at the state; to develop new education and training tools on ROI calculation for use in other states and to hold workshops for poverty policy researchers and advocates from the other seven Northwest area states.
New ways of proving the return on the public’s investment are an important means of advancing new poverty reductions strategies throughout the region.
C. Building Changes ($33,810)
To increase “boundary spanning” by recommending specific strategies for removing federal and state barriers to the integrated, collaborative efforts that are indispensable to positive outcomes for the poor.
This report has been completed and both STEP and Building Changes will distribute it widely. It confronts the failure of governmental agencies to make certain that their policies and related programs work in conjunction with each other.
D. West Coast Poverty Center ($10,000)
To provide support to a 2008 convening on scholars and practitioners on poverty policy challenges.
This grant helped make possible a successful meeting held in September, 2008.
IV. Improving Policies that Support Individual Asset Building
A. Corporation for Enterprise Development ($155,000)
To establish and/or strengthen four state coalitions in order to build more impactful and better integrated state asset policy agendas; to provide sub-grants in each of the four states that are selected; and to provide for the participation of key state and local asset building leaders in the September asset building working session of CFED and the November state conference of the Washington Asset Building Coalition
In early 2009, STEP developed an all new effort to strengthen state policy agendas related to individual asset building. The Corporation for Enterprise Development is the national leader in fashioning and advancing individual asset building strategies. They are in the process of determining the four states that will receive this assistance.
V. Improving Pathways out of Poverty
A. Jobs for the Future ($79,996)
To determine gaps in existing education and training career pathway policies in these eight states, and begin to pursue all new approaches to making these states among the best in the country in pursuit of effective pathways.
Along with enterprise development and home ownership, human capital improvements are one of the three primary ways poor persons move out of poverty. Jobs for the Future has prepared a career pathway self assessment tool. They worked with representatives of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana in Portland in early June of 2008 and will work with representatives of Iowa, North and South Dakota, and Minnesota in Iowa in 2009, primarily to identify gaps in the existing policies being carried out by these states.
B. Corporation for a Skilled Workforce ($17,000)
To guide the region’s policy advocates and policy makers on critical dimensions of the business sector strategies that are improving government’s approach to human investment in lower income populations, and in areas not in the path of growth.
CSW has fulfilled the condition of this grant by preparing two excellent reports that they will use in their own work; make available for use in the above JFF sponsored sessions, and otherwise promote with STEP assistance. Sector focused strategies are playing a strong and growing role in boosting the effectiveness of workforce training.
VI. Addressing the Needs of Target Populations
A. Community Capital ($34,000)
To thoroughly explore current policies in the eight states that effect business assistance to immigrants, and to provide policy makers and policy advocates with an all new understanding of barriers that presently exist, and how they can be overcome.
The report underscores that there are opportunities to take advantage of the entrepreneurial energy of immigrant populations, especially as they seek to serve markets of people of their ethnicity. Community Capital Instead, recommends that STEP focus on English language learning for immigrant populations (see above entry on Jobs for the Future) since immigrant entrepreneurs with advanced English skills are much more successful in expanding their markets.
B. Hate Free Zone ($30,000)
To help develop a compact that communities would adopt to welcome and assist their immigrant populations.
A compact of this sort would help increase community participation in the continued efforts to ease tensions over immigrant populations.
C. Housing Organizations of Color Coalition ($30,000)
To expand the poverty policy capacity of the HOCC and thus its member organizations, which include Hacienda Community Development Corporation, Native American Youth and Family Center, and the Portland Community Reinvestment Initiative; to formulate policy solutions to address disparities and inequities in access to housing by communities of color in the city of Portland.
This grant is the first of STEP’s efforts to attend to impacts of poverty policies on targeted populations at the metropolitan level. |
