Community Action Partnership eNewsletter, September 19, 2016

September 19, 2016

NEWS YOU CAN USE

Census Releases Income and Poverty Data
Report: Human Service Agencies Contributions Soar but Retention Rates Plummet for All Nonprofits
Accountable Health Communities Track 1 Funding Opportunity
Hunger Forces Teenagers to Make Serious Sacrifices
"Dream On" Documentary Premiere

TRAININGS AND WEBINARS

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity Webinars
OPRE Webinar and Blog Post

NEWS YOU CAN USE

CENSUS RELEASES INCOME AND POVERTY DATA

On Tuesday, September 13, 2016, the U.S. Census Bureau released new data showing that Americans made historic gains in income, poverty reduction and health insurance. In 2015 there were 43.1 million people living in poverty (that's 3.5 million fewer than 2014, but still far too many). Using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (accounting for social supports received and expenses paid) 45.7 million people lived in poverty in 2015 (that's 11.9 million children and 6.5 million adults over 65 years old with too few resources to grow and thrive).

Read the Partnership's Statement on the Recent Census Data here

Median incomes are up and poverty rate is down, surprisingly strong census figures show

From the Los Angeles Times, September 13, 2016

The economic recovery is finally providing relief to America's long-running problem of stagnant middle-class incomes.

The Census Bureau's report on poverty and incomes, released Tuesday, showed the biggest improvement in decades on both fronts.

Healthy job growth, coupled with moderate wage gains, lifted the median household income to $56,500 last year, up 5.2%, or $2,800, from 2014. It was the sharpest annual increase on record.

The nation's poverty rate fell to 13.5% in 2015 from 14.8% the year earlier, the largest single-year percentage drop since 1968.

Read more here

What Do CAAs Do With All of This Data?

Download the complete report on Income and Poverty Data, click here. To view detailed findings on health insurance coverage, click here.

Read the report on the Supplemental Poverty Measure to understand what is included to get a better picture of poverty in America. To view more information about the supplemental poverty measure, see the latest report here.

Watch this webinar from Coalition on Human Needs detailing how to find specific poverty data for your state - and then compile the 2015 numbers for your state!
Share this guide with your staff for ideas on how to integrate the updated numbers into your agency processes

Additional data was released from the American Community Survey on Thursday, September 15, 2016. This data provides statistics down to the city, county, and congressional district across a number of demographic, social, and economic factors. The Partnership encourages the Network to visit Census.gov to view the reports and data tables released this week.

REPORT: HUMAN SERVICE AGENCIES' CONTRIBUTIONS SOAR BUT RETENTION RATES PLUMMET FOR ALL NONPROFITS

Nonprofit Quarterly, September 16, 2016

A relatively new project called Growth in Giving (GiG) has begun to do some deep, specific dives on giving patterns that promise to provide practitioners with a level of granularity that may make fundraising data more relevant. We offer the proviso that since the data has been drawn from software providers, it does not include data about the fundraising of very large organizations, which often have their own custom software. But this is a case of caveat lector-reader, be advised. (Those contributors, by the way, are, as listed, the Urban Institute, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, SofterWare/DonorPerfect, Bloomerang, Philanthropic Service for Institutions, DonorTrends, Abila, and Neon.)

In this report, Giving USA Philanthropy Spotlight: Benchmarking Giving to Human Services, the project has looked at giving to human services organizations, and it has found some interesting and frequently surprising trends. The most important takeaway is that the growth rate of giving to human services organizations increased by 58.1 percent over the six-year period from 2009-2015, compared to the 48.6 percent seen by other nonprofits.

Read More

ACCOUNTABLE HEALTH COMMUNITIES TRACK 1 FUNDING OPPORTUNITY

In January 2016, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a new Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for a model called the Accountable Health Communities (AHC) Model. This is the first Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation model to focus on the health-related social needs of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. Many of these social issues, such as housing instability, hunger, and interpersonal violence, affect individuals' health, yet they are rarely, if ever, detected or addressed during typical health care-related visits. The AHC Model is based on emerging evidence that addressing health-related social needs through enhanced clinical-community linkages can improve health outcomes and reduce costs.

The original Funding Opportunity Announcement requested applications for three different scalable tracks featuring interventions of varying intensity that would address health-related social needs for beneficiaries. After receiving significant interest, inquiries and stakeholder feedback, CMS has decided to make modifications to the Track 1 application requirements and is releasing a new FOA specific to Track 1 of the AHC Model. The AHC Model is accepting applications for Track 1 at www.grants.gov through November 3, 2016.

Questions about the AHC Model can be sent to AccountableHealthCommunities@cms.hhs.gov. For more information about the AHC Model, please visit our website at https://innovation.cms.gov/initiatives/ahcm.

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HUNGER FORCES TEENAGERS TO MAKE SERIOUS SACRIFICES

Urban Institute, September 14, 2016

Food insecurity and hunger is causing many young people to stay with friends or relatives, engage in criminal behavior, and sell sex or drugs to buy food, according to a new study from the Urban Institute. Impossible Choices: Teens and Food Insecurity in America analyses the results of 20 focus groups with at-risk teenagers in 10 communities, finding that teen food insecurity is widespread but that young people will go to great lengths to hide their struggle to find food. Some participants talked about intentionally going to jail or failing classes in order to attend summer school as viable strategies for ensuring regular meals, according to the study.

Read More

DREAM ON DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE

TRAININGS AND WEBINARS

SPOTLIGHT ON POVERTY AND OPPORTUNITY WEBINARS

September 19 -- In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

The event will be held from 5:30-6:30 EDT at a location to be determined.

In the updated version of In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, author Charles Murray proposes replacing America's social safety net with a universal basic income. The American Enterprise Institute will host a discussion with Dr. Murray and Jared Bernstein, former chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden and senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Click here to register.

OPRE WEBINAR AND BLOG POST

Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation - Office of the Administration for Children and Families

Scaling Up a Workforce Program for Youth: Lessons from the Year Up Program

Several takeaways emerged from our look at Year Up's efforts to scale up its program. Read our latest post in The Family Room Blog to learn more about their efforts that may help other organizations considering when and how to scale up services.

Webinar: Multidimensional Poverty in America

Register to join the Self-Sufficiency Research Clearinghouse on September 20 at 3:00 p.m. for a webinar on Multidimensional Poverty in America. The webinar will focus on examining the issue through the lens of race/ethnicity and potential policy implications. Registrants are invited to submit their questions.

Community Action Partnership

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Washington, DC 20036

www.communityactionpartnership.com