A successful program in Portland, Oregon that could work elsewhere

The Northwest Area Foundation is an organization that combats poverty in the northern plains of the US. At a recent meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota an innovative program was spotlighted that the organization hopes to bring to other locations.

The Economic Opportunity Initiative uses a combination of workforce programs and micro enterprise to give people skills that will lift themselves out of poverty.

The Minnesota Spokesman Recorder noted the comments of the programs designer Howard Cutler.

Its main goal is to increase adult participants’ incomes by a minimum of 25 percent after three years, and also to train youth for jobs that will allow them to pursue higher education or a career path. The seven micro-enterprise projects help participants to start or expand small businesses.

Portland’s previous attempts to eliminate poverty only produced minimal results, especially among long-term residents. “There are multiple reasons why an individual is poor,” said Cutler. “Our goal was to use a people-centered strategy, [and] the projects are built around the strengths of the individual.” The essence of the “Portland model,” then, appears to be making a special effort to match individuals who are living in poverty with training and jobs matched to their individual interests and talents.

He announced that this past year the Initiative graduated its first class. Eighty percent of the participants were earning below the federal poverty level when they first enrolled in 2004-05; 51 percent are people of color, and 74 percent were unemployed at the time of enrollment.

According to Cutler, 25-30 percent of the participants “are [young] African Americans,” adding that the enrollees’ incomes have nearly doubled after completing the program.

“Every individual is tracked for three years to see if there is improvement,” he explained. “Our goal is to decrease poverty.”

Cutler said that there are now 2,000 Portland residents enrolled in the Initiative, adding that his program will be needed “as long as poverty exists” in Portland. For the past 18 months, Cutler has been a consultant for “Duluth at Work.”

Independence wins $100K for fighting poverty

from The Portland Business Journal

Independence is one of four communities receiving $100,000 each from the Northwest Area Foundation's third annual Great Strides Awards, an initiative created to reward communities for the significant progress they have made to reduce poverty over the long term.

The 2007 winners are Independence; Brinnon/Quilcene, Wash.; White Earth Indian Reservation, Minn.; and Westhope (Bottineau County), N.D.

The money will go to community organizations which will decide how the funds will be used for community benefit. Each community has also been offered an additional $40,000 grant to finance their efforts to share their stories and lessons learned with other communities that may want to replicate or adapt the poverty-reduction strategies.

Twenty-eight communities in St. Paul, Minn.-based Northwest Area Foundation's eight-state region -- South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon -- applied for this year's award.

Independence, with a population of 7,515 and poverty rate of 11 percent, won the award for a community approach to reducing poverty, embracing new immigrants, creating tax incentives for better wages and developing community assets.

Community members have worked together to creatively reduce poverty through business incentives, public/private partnerships, infrastructure projects that led to economic expansion, economic diversification, historic preservation and tourism.

Winners were chosen because of steps they've taken to date to reduce poverty over the long term. Each submission was evaluated against five key criteria:

* inclusiveness: involvement of community members from diverse sectors and groups;
* regional impact: interaction with and awareness of other communities facing similar issues in their geographic area;
* asset-based perspective: recognition of the community's existing strengths;
* economic engines: involvement with businesses and other organizations that fuel the local economy; and
* leadership: efforts to nurture leaders from different public and private sectors, ages and genders.