T.E.C.H. -- A Harlem Children's Zone on Wheels

The Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) is one of America's most well-known and impactful non-profits.  Their innovative model, which focuses on a 'cradle to college' approach to supporting children, has been replicated throughout the United States.  What's more, HCZ's dedication to data-driven programming has forced many in the education and broader non-profit fields to re-think how they do business.  For me, HCZ has been a source of inspiration because of the extent to which the organization takes a holistic approach to tackling poverty--recognizing that no one intervention will suffice to break the numerous and often impenetrable barriers to success faced by America's poor--and I congratulate Geoffrey Canada for pioneering the use of data, and for growing HCZ into what it is today.  At the same time, however, I have focused on one potential flaw to their model: it's cost and time-intensity.

In a recent article of mine, The Math of Social Change, I talked about how hard it is to accept that only a certain percentage of those we serve will truly benefit from the service.  I went on to explain that two  logical responses to this realization are to a) determine the characteristics of those that are likely to benefit and target the intervention to them, and/or b) increase the percentage of people that benefit from the intervention.  The necessity for both of these responses is born of the fact that social change work is all too often a zero sum game: with limited resources, the dollar spent on the person that does not benefit could have been spent on someone that would have benefited.  Therefore, it's imperative that we  do a better job targeting the right people, or ensuring that more people benefit from the intervention.

Summer PLUS -- A New Take on Summer Camp

As any regular follower of our work will know, we are obsessed with creating products and services that are replicable, sustainable and truly impactful.  For instance, realizing that truly ending poverty in the lives of our clients means breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty in families, we launched the T.E.C.H. Program.  Under T.E.C.H., we offer our entire suite of products and services to low-income parents at partner elementary schools.  The theory of change is that by helping a family stabilize financially through financial coaching and free tax preparation, and gain access to technology through loans and training, the kids will do better in school and, in turn, in life.

However, we know that improving educational outcomes is a major challenge.  Given our passion for being honest with ourselves and others about what works and what doesn't, we decided to run a pilot summer camp at our first partner school, Pleasant View Elementary in Providence, Rhode Island, to see if adding a summer camp to the T.E.C.H. Program a) makes sense, b) is feasible and c) excites the kids.   Increasingly, our goal is to for T.E.C.H. to be a program for true transformation and change within a school and the school community.

The summer program, which we ran thanks to seven (7) summer AmeriCorps VISTAs and Dr. Gara B. Field, Principal of Pleasant view, was designed to eliminate summer learning loss, build character, instil a love of learning and introduce kids to technology.  The above video tells the story of the camp which was, in the opinion of everyone involved, a roaring success: the kids loved it and learned a ton, the counselors had a blast and felt like they made a difference, and the leadership at the school and the school district are thrilled with the results.  We want to be able to bring the summer PLUS model to every school with which we partner on T.E.C.H.!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 7, 2012
CONTACT: Chip Unruh (Reed), 202-224-4642
Andy Posner (Capital Good Fund), 401-339-5437

RI Non-Profit Wins $81,000 Community Development Grant

PROVIDENCE, RI – Capital Good Fund (CGF), a non-profit financial services organization based in Providence, will receive an $81,273 Community Development Financial Institutions Technical Assistance grant to help revitalize low-income communities in Providence and better serve all of Rhode Island.

“I am pleased Capital Good Fund has won this competitive grant to help revitalize communities in Rhode Island,” said Reed, a member of the Appropriations Committee. “Offering loans and financial coaching to communities and small business owners are smart ways to foster economic opportunity and community development.”

The Math of Social Change

The fight for social/environmental justice, regardless of the form the battle takes, is deeply imbued with emotion: we want to hear about the life changed, the forest preserved, the child educated, the disease eradicated, the war averted.  And to be sure, whether one donates to a non-profit, works for an organization that seeks to better the world or volunteers for a cause, one’s time, money, sweat and tears will almost always achieve a positive impact, however infinitesimal.

However, there is also a math to social change that cuts through emotion and gets at a simple question: does a particular intervention actually achieve the desired impact?  As the Executive Director of a non-profit, I have dedicated my entire life to bettering the world.  For the past four years I have worked 60+ hours a week to grow an organization that can tackle poverty in America.  After all this work, after thinking for so long about what product, service or combination of the two can really change lives, and after serving hundreds of people with loans, financial coaching, free tax preparation and various workshops, I have been forced to come to a painful conclusion: no matter how many people you serve, only a certain percentage of those served will truly benefit from the service.

An Ode to Martin Luther King, Jr.

‘The Ruins Proclaim the Building Was Beautiful’—Arab saying

The ashes of your life
Span the decades like the wake
Of passing birds or clouds,
Visible only to he who can hold
In abeyance the lust for reality.

I walk as you walked, on ground
Trodden by truncheons, by branches,
By the rise and fall of hopes and dreams
Swept clean by time, by men and women,
By a society made sick with cleanliness.

You waged a war of peace; your bombs
Were marches, sit-ins, speeches:
Where others won by shooting, your victory
Came from being shot, a wound
That rent asunder an edifice of hate.

You pulled and tugged with all your might
To bend the arc of history, to reshape
The world in the image of love and justice;
Yet to me you bequeathed both your joy
And your sorrow at an imperfect world.

Will I live and die as you did?
Will the silent suffering of the masses
Become a thunderclap in the loudspeaker
Of my heart?  What am I to make
Of a triumph tinged with tragedy?

Invisible injustice is blind to redemption;
A prison of sadness cages your spirit.
Dr. King, I shall remain shackled  to your vision 
Until both the jailer and the jailed
Walk free into the sunlight as brothers and sisters!

By Andy Posner

Invisible Suffering

Last week I spoke at a support group for unemployed persons organized by the Catholic Diocese of Rhode Island and hosted at a church in Cumberland, RI.  Originally intended as an opportunity for me to speak about the products and services offered by Capital Good Fund and the process for accessing them--which I did--the meeting ended up opening my eyes to the extent to which low to moderate-income Americans are suffering, and how invisible that suffering is.  The attendees, numbering around 25, were all unemployed; some had not had work for years; others had recently been laid off.  They shared painful stories of mistreatment by employers, the bleakness of the job market, and the feeling that no one is advocating for them or doing anything to improve their lot.

As I discussed strategies for increasing income, including entrepreneurship, budgeting, resume building and taking online or other courses so as to build skills, I came to a painful realization: whatever the attendees might do to get a job would be at the expense of another person seeking that job.  Given the state of our economy, a job search is truly a zero-sum game, and without broader, macro-economic changes in the American system, that paradigm won't change.

Leverage in the Fight for Social Justice

There are only so many hours in a day, days in a week and weeks in a year; we cannot squeeze more time out of the fabric of the universe without resorting to the extremes of relativity.  Yet the problems of poverty, racism, environmental degradation and other forms of injustice seem to demand more of the individual than can possibly be given.  As the Executive Director of Capital Good Fund, for instance, I am keenly aware of the dissonance between the amount of time and energy I possess and the demands placed on me by my work.

Over the last four years, however, I have come to two powerful and fundamental conclusions about the nature of the fight for social justice: first, that there is a tremendous difference between delivering a program or service and building an organization that can deliver that program or service, and second, that only through leverage can we ensure that the arc of history bends towards justice.

Consider the difference between volunteering at a soup kitchen, ladling soup to the homeless, and starting an organization that creates employment opportunities for the homeless.  While there is no doubt that, for those without a place to eat, a soup kitchen is an essential and, indeed, live-saving place, the fact remains that anyone can ladle soup into a bowl.  Those of us with the means to truly make a difference must ask more of ourselves; we must think about systemic change, about how to leverage every action, every idea and every hour into greater and more sustainable impact.  True social change does not come from the warm fuzzy feeling of ladling soup, nor does it come from occasional volunteerism.  Rather, social change happens when ideas people meet people with a knack for logistics, people who understand finance and operations...and when these people get together to build an organization, greater than the sum of its parts, that can tackle a problem until it is solved.

Take, for instance, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), one of the key organizations that led the fight for civil rights in the late 50's and 60's.  While the majority of Americans can identify Martin Luther King, Jr. and understand the impact of his work, far fewer recognize the role that the SCLC, the NAACP and other organizations played in advancing civil rights through legal action, coordinated protests, nonviolence training, fundraising and voter registration drives.  In other words, the success of the civil rights movement was as much the product of MLK's soaring speeches as well as his, and myriad other people's, ability to build an infrastructure that could engage the masses and force an end to segregation.

Had MLK simply been on his own, and not part of a broader movement, his brilliant speeches would have reached but a few ears and his life would not have become a pivotal part of American history.  The unsung heroes of social change are those that execute on the ideas of leaders; those that bring to their work a businessman or woman's attention to finances, operations and management.

So whether you are a leader or employee of a social change organization, it is imperative that you think about how to leverage your actions so that they have an impact beyond the reach of your arms and the sound of your voice.  An hour spent disbursing a loan to a woman in poverty is not the same as an hour developing the policy and procedures for how to effectively and consistently provide equitable financial services to the poor.  When I first started Capital Good Fund, I spent all my time answering phone calls and serving one client at a time; obviously, when we had no staff and were still trying to figure things out, that was the role I had to play.  But now, everything I do is about building systems, processes, policies and procedures that can transmogrify the vision I have for the organization into the actual impact it can have on the lives of thousands of human beings.

I encourage anyone that cares about social and environmental problems to consider how they spend their time and money addressing those issues.  Think about your actions as a kind of pulley that can lift up society; imagine how you can connect your passion with the community of people who share your passion.  Finally, I want to be clear that I am in no way demeaning the importance or power of volunteer work such as ladling soup at a soup kitchen.  Instead, what I am saying is that, given the choice between an hour of working at that soup kitchen and an hour building an organization that can deliver soup to the homeless day after day, there is no doubt in my mind where one's effort should be focused.  Indeed, when we consider that the community of people working for social good is far smaller than the forces that perpetuate injustice, we must recognize that the only way we can hope to see justice persevere is if our impact is multiplied through the judicious use of our time, our energy, our and our ideas.