Making An Impact in Prince William County

The Prince William County Community Foundation (PWCCF) has made a significant impact in the county since it was founded in 2018, particularly when the pandemic prompted a sudden spike in the need for emergency assistance. This September, you can support them in making an even bigger difference by participating in PWC Gives!, a 24-hour campaign supporting nonprofit organizations from across the county. Between 9 AM on September 1 and 9 AM on September 2, join this community effort to connect with, and help raise funds for, dozens of local nonprofits serving the residents of Prince William County (PWC), Virginia!

“In PWC, between 14,000 and 26,000 children alone experience food insecurity daily, especially when food assistance programs are not in place,” Dominique McIndoe wrote in Prince William Living. “Efforts of nonprofit organizations like (PWCCF) are motivated by these unfortunate statistics to improve the quality of life of everyone in the community.”

PWCCF builds philanthropic resources to sustain healthy and vital communities now and into the future, with a focus on improving the social, environmental, and economic health of residents by championing solutions that advance the common good. As Dr. Vanessa Gattis, President and CEO of PWCCF, stated in an interview with No Kid Hungry Virginia, “(We) prioritize serving residents in Prince William County’s Economically Distressed Areas because they are most affected by poverty and subsequent health-related issues, such as food deserts and food insecurity.”

Their largest program, the Combating Hunger on Wheels (C.H.O.W.) Wagon, transports meals to neighborhood children in need and has served over 750,000 meals since its inception. They also collaborate with other community entities through their Health Initiative to collectively promote strategies to improve residents’ health, in addition to granting scholarships to students and micro-grants to public school teachers.

PWC Gives! is their latest initiative fueling collaboration and generosity throughout the county. Their easy-to-use platform maximizes the ease of online giving, uniting nonprofits in raising the funds and resources they need to sustain their critical programs while allowing local supporters to invest in making the place where they live a better one.

Mark your calendar now to participate in PWC Gives! starting at 9 AM on Thursday, September 1! You can also learn more about the work of the Prince William County Community Foundation on their website and stay updated through Facebook.

Supporting Small, Local Nonprofit Leaders and Staff in 2022

Since March 2020, the Catalogue has been surveying Executive Directors in our network of 400+ nonprofits to gain a better understanding of the state of the sector in the Greater Washington region. The goal is to understand how the pandemic is impacting their programming, finances, organizations, and staff.

Over two years into the pandemic, as many of us are re-familiarizing ourselves with gathering in-person, it can feel increasingly easy to forget its cumulative effects, which have weighed more heavily on people with disabilities, people caring for children, and people working jobs with low pay or working multiple jobs. These challenges can be compounded in the nonprofit sector where staff are often on the frontlines of offering urgent and critical services to the community, but who are expected to run on “passion” with little support for overhead and administrative costs.

We have seen this lead to burnout and high turnover within the sector. While the last six months, specifically, have shown overall improvement in staff and leadership engagement, we are also hearing growing worries about forecasts for an economic downturn, challenges with hiring, and resetting funding expectations given a decrease in COVID-19 relief money.

How might we as a sector prioritize the well-being of small nonprofit staff, especially nonprofit leaders, over the next year? Here are three action steps the Catalogue would like to share based on our survey findings.

1. Fund mental health support and coaching for Executive Directors.

“It is impossible to convey how stressful the last two years have been as the leader of a small nonprofit,” an Executive Director shared with us anonymously. “I feel like I have been running a sprint since March 2020.”

37.9% of Executive Directors we surveyed this summer were either feeling burnout or were on the way to burnout. Though this is an improvement over results from our last survey in December 2021, when 42.5% of Executive Directors surveyed this sentiment, it still means that nearly two out of every five small nonprofit leaders in our network are struggling.

Within the same period, the percentage of staff who are feeling burnout or close to feeling burnout (as reported by Executive Directors) decreased from 29% to 19%. This trend, while positive, reflects what we have seen Executive Directors doing — prioritizing their team and the people around them. Staff engagement is a critical component of successful nonprofit management but leaders, too, need to be adequately supported to ensure the overall health, sustainability, and impact of the organization.

Our qualitative results include stories from Executive Directors who have not taken a vacation (or even much parental leave) since the pandemic started and who are seriously considering leaving the nonprofit space due to burnout. Given that strong leadership is a big contributor to building strong teams, we need to collectively attend to the well-being of Executive Directors through providing opportunities for one-to-one and small group consultations and coaching, as well as funding more capacity building support to make the work of Executive Directors more sustainable.

2. Stop thinking of overhead and administrative costs as separate from, or less worthy of funding than, program costs.

As public health guidelines loosen and we ease out of an “emergency” state, our sector is seeing less relief funding being made available. At the same time, the needs of our communities have stayed the same, if not increased. The pandemic impacts people’s health and economic security over the long-term, and its negative impacts will be disproportionately difficult for already underserved communities to mitigate.

Instead of designating funds solely for nonprofit programs that address these issues and more, it is time to rethink the overhead myth altogether. We agree with Curtis Klotz, who wrote in Nonprofit Quarterly that “Strategic financial functions, good governance, and the development of key funding partnerships are vital to strong organizations.” To this, we add equitable salaries with clear professional development and promotion pathways, as well as holistic support that views nonprofit staff as people — because ultimately, programming does not happen without the people who work to implement them.

“The “nonprofit starvation cycle” caused by unrealistic donor expectations of grantees’ administrative and operating costs has been a known problem in the grantmaking world for years,” John Summers and Rodney Christopher recently wrote in PEAK Grantmaking. Analyzing data from nearly 150,000 nonprofits nationwide, they found that “smaller organizations tend to have higher indirect cost rates than larger organizations” because “indirect” functions like accounting and human resource administration “benefit from economies of scale.” Project-based funding that doesn’t cover these costs actually disproportionately burden small organizations and, consequently, nonprofits led by people of color, which often have smaller budgets than white-led organizations.

One immediate way donors and funders can support nonprofit staff and leaders is to ensure their financial contributions are unrestricted, so that nonprofit leaders can decide where best to use that money, be it to hire more staff, pay for interns, upgrade the organization’s technology, or more.

3. Commit to recurring giving.

A report published by the National Council of Nonprofits in December 2021 revealed that 42% of nonprofits had 20% or more of their positions open. A separate survey by the Advisory Board for the Arts showed that more than one-third of respondents were taking three-to-six months to fill jobs. These two results reflect the hiring concerns we have heard from small nonprofit leaders in our own network.

While there are myriad current and systemic challenges that have created such an acute workforce shortage in the nonprofit sector — including inflation and increased volumes of work — one of the biggest reasons is that nonprofits are unable to offer competitive compensation compared to their for-profit and government counterparts. 79% of nonprofits surveyed by the National Council of Nonprofits last fall reported that salary competition impacted their ability to hire, and this can be particularly true for small nonprofits with small budgets and teams. Yet, as the report stated, “While job vacancies in the government and business sectors may cause disappointment and lost profits, the lack of adequate nonprofit staffing means delayed or complete loss of needed services.”

One strong way to help ensure nonprofits can increase salaries for their staff is to fund them on a recurring basis. When donors and funders commit to monthly or multi-year giving, not only do they pledge to continually support an organization, but they also acknowledge that it is through sustaining the organization in the long-term that they can help it create the greatest impact. Being able to make projections for their budgets beyond the year allows nonprofit leaders to develop better plans with less uncertainty, which helps to cultivate a work environment where nonprofit staff feel they can grow with the organization.

Free Tax Clinics for Families by the Mother’s Outreach Network

“Middle class, educated and White parents have been more likely to claim the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in the past than Hispanic families and those who did not graduate high school,” according to results from a national survey conducted by Ipsos last year as reported in the Washington Post. Through a temporary expansion of the CTC, eligible families can receive up to $3,600 for children under 6 and up to $3,000 for children ages 6-17. Yet, in DC, an analysis by the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis shows that only 50.4% of eligible DC families received these payments.

Because tax season typically runs from January to April, it can be difficult for individuals and families who want assistance with their taxes to find free tax preparation services off-season. Mother’s Outreach Network, who launched tax workshops back in October of last year, is continuing to run tax clinics in partnership with the DC Public Library through September. Every Wednesday between 11 AM and 1 PM, they answer questions and give 1-on-1 advice at the Southwest Branch Library about the CTC, Earned Income Tax Credit, Stimulus Payment, and more — at completely no cost.

Melody Webb, Executive Director and Founder of the Mother’s Outreach Network, told Axios DC that “she often works with vulnerable mothers who may have misconceptions about the credit or be unaware of it altogether.” Research shows that while such government programs play a large role in lowering poverty, disparities in economic security persist.

As an organization that supports the economic empowerment of Black mothers fighting for their families’ economic stability, the efforts of the Mother’s Outreach Network to increase access to legal services like free tax preparation are critical to reducing these disparities. Because the process can be difficult or complicated, and because many are unfamiliar with the process of claiming these credits, their goal is to ensure that families feel supported and assisted in claiming the government money they’re eligible for.

“The biggest myth we’ve had to dispel,” Webb said, “is that people who are currently receiving safety net benefits aren’t actually eligible.” In fact, the vast majority of US families with children are eligible for the CTC, including people who don’t regularly file taxes. In addition to their Wednesday clinics, the Mother’s Outreach Network has also compiled a list of frequently asked questions about the CTC, available on their website.

Find more information about these weekly Parents’ Tax Clinics and help spread the word! The Mother’s Outreach Network is a racial justice and antipoverty nonprofit organization that supports Black family wellness, economic security, and racial justice by transforming government income and child welfare laws, policies, and practices from punitive to empowering. Learn more and support their work!

Suited for Change’s Recipe for Success: Nonprofits Banding Together

What has been driving nonprofit organizations to continue through what seems like an endless pandemic? Leaning on each other.

When everything came to a rushing halt back in March of 2020, many organizations turned off their lights, locked their doors, and never returned. With nonprofit organizations being the backbone of our community, the ripple effect of these closures was felt almost immediately.

After some initial adjustment, Suited for Change (SFC), a nonprofit organization focused on empowering women through providing professional attire, skills development, and coaching, had the realization: the only way to survive is to band together.

Over the past two years, SFC has completely revamped their services, finding new approaches to meet the needs of their clients right where they are.

SFC began calling all their referral partners in the DC Metro area, asking them, “What do your clients need right now?” Beginning with virtual suitings, and then expanding to virtual and in-person workshops, SFC started collaborating with nonprofits within the Catalogue for Philanthropy network, including Friendship Place, Calvary Women’s Services, Britepaths, and La Cocina VA, to best serve their clients as they continue to strive for economic independence.

With a talented variety of volunteers who have expertise in fashion, interview preparation, resume writing, and financial literacy, SFC has been able to equip their clients with a well-rounded education on the tools they need to embark on their professional journey.

Through these growing partnerships, both SFC and the affiliated referral partners participating in these new workshops have already begun to see the effects of their collaboration. From increased motivation and confidence to achieve participation and eagerness to learn, the clients have been exhibiting their drive to succeed in all avenues of their life.

Prior to these workshops, many clients would arrive at the SFC boutique hesitant and unsure of what to expect. However, after having a clear introduction to SFC, clients have been jumping at the chance to schedule an appointment to get the finishing touches they need to launch their careers.

Thanks to the continuing collaboration between these Catalogue for Philanthropy nonprofit partners, clients are more equipped than ever to tackle the professional world and get the jumpstart they need to thrive.

Suited for Change equips women in need in our community on their path to financial independence by providing them with professional attire, coaching, and skills training. Join Suited for Change and support the local women in your community as they secure and sustain professional employment. You can donate both funds and clothing, volunteer with them, shop at their boutique, and stay updated through email, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

What is our vision for abundance in this city?

The dominant narrative of our current economic and political systems centers on scarcity. As adrienne maree brown noted in YES! Magazine, “We are living in an age of immense interlocking crises, from climate to pandemic to race. Although there are massive opportunities to grow and change — the fight for abolition, the proliferation of mutual aid in response to COVID-19 — erotic power, happiness, and satisfaction are not words I would use to describe our current collective state.”

“In summer, when the boughs are laden, Serviceberry produces an abundance of sugar,” Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote in Emergence Magazine. “Does it hoard that energy for itself? No, it invites the birds to a feast… Isn’t this an economy? A system of distribution of goods and services that meets the needs of the community?”

This summer, the Catalogue for Philanthropy echoes the question Yura Sapi asked in their Community-Centric Fundraising piece, “How do we collectively shift from scarcity to abundance?“

Understanding and valuing abundance as gratitude, reciprocity, and exchange, we’ve invited several of our nonprofit partners to share their visions for abundance in this city. Alongside their words, we also provide more detail on the way in which their missions and work allow our local communities to flourish. As you dive into these visions, we encourage you to see yourself in them and to engage with the efforts of your nonprofit neighbors. What is your own vision for abundance in this city’s present and future? How might you share this with others and be part of a larger ecosystem?

The Power of the Arts

“For Artivate, “abundance” means helping to create a diverse, inspiring array of performances and workshops which enhance education and create connections in ALL communities,” Diana Schenck, Director of Artist and Community Programming at Artivate, told the Catalogue. “It means providing professional artists with a wealth of opportunities to share their skills and traditions, while providing an ever-growing number of schools, libraries, parks, correctional facilities, and other venues with truly inspiring and enriching experiences for their communities.”

Since they were founded in 1995, Artivate has been engaging communities to create interactive arts experiences that inspire learning. Seeing the transformative power of the arts as essential to community life, they have grown from 80 programs serving 25,000 students and teachers to an average of 1,300 programs reaching 200,000+ children, teens, and families at 250+ unique school and community sites each year.

As Miranda Anderson wrote in Psyche, “Artworks both reflect and inspire transformative understandings of our own minds and our encounters with the world, widening and deepening the ways we make sense of our subjective experiences.” The process of engaging with art builds a reciprocal relationship with the work and the artist. Artivate expands this creative opportunity through spaces that allow artists from a diverse range of artistic disciplines and cultural traditions to share their art with children, teens, families, and incarcerated adults and youth — building relationships and creating a collective learning experience.

In the words of one of their participants, “Art not only frees our bodies, it relieves us from the confinement of our minds.” Where creativity has a place to play, grow, and flourish, communities have the room to express their curiosity about the world and each other.

We see this in the work of another nonprofit partner, Friends of Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens (FoKAG), who uses the healing power of nature and art to champion green spaces in the city. A national park site along the Anacostia River, the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens features over 45 ponds filled with water lilies and lotus, along with acres of dynamic tidal marsh, and is the only national park site devoted to cultivated water-loving plants.

“In 2030,” reported the Washington Post based on data from Climate Central, “communities throughout the District will experience extensive and consistent periods of flooding, including the Yards in Ward 8, Kingman Island, Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in Ward 7, and the entire Anacostia River Trail from Anacostia Park to Bladensburg Waterfront Park in Maryland.” Just as the history of the land is tangled with instances of environmental injustice, “the reality is that (the climate crisis) disproportionately affects communities of color and those populated by low-income residents like the area surrounding Kenilworth.”

In FoKAG’s creative project Down to Earth, a partnership with Caandor Labs and Capital Fringe, artists shine a light on the Gardens and Ward 7′s past, present, and future, with a sharp focus on the climate emergency and its intersectionality with systemic racism. Narrative figurative painter and Down to Earth’s Winter Season Artist, Rik Freedman, painted “Breakfast on the Anacostia,” a scene of the river in roughly 10,000 BC. “While researching the abundance of animal life that once depended on this river,” he reflected on the painting in their season recap, “it struck me as to how many of these animals were no longer here.”

Echoing this past in the present and future, Summer Season Artist Siobhan Rigg observed in the Washington Post that “Things that go down — like oil and gas — don’t necessarily go down to stay; they come back with the tide. So the damage over time continues to resurface. “What would it be like to reframe the narrative and look at the Anacostia as a potential source of sustenance?” (Emphasis ours)

An Inclusive Approach to Community

“Between its persistently hot housing market and an almost universally unaffordable child care ecosystem,” Conor Williams observed of this city in The 74, “D.C. is muddling towards a future where an upper-middle-class income may become a prerequisite for any family trying to live — and stay — in the city.”

Rents in the DC metro area have increased by 15.7% over the last year. One-third of people across the region experienced some level of food insecurity in 2021, and only three of the 49 full-service grocery stores in DC are located in Wards 7 and 8. Despite DC residents being some of the most politically engaged in the nation, “working to make the world fairer, better, safer, cleaner,” Williams continued, “(we) also (fight) to retain our ability to sustain and transmit our advantages to our kids.”

“As we continue to emerge from the pandemic, we’re focused on renewal,” Diana Schenck shared with us of Artivate’s direction, “reestablishing long-held partnerships and discovering new connections that allow us to continue (our) reach, while making it even more accessible for everyone to learn from, enjoy, and be inspired by the arts.”

This priority — of ensuring that opportunities for creative expression and collaboration are accessible for everyone — is reflected in the work of fellow nonprofit partner, Young Playwrights’ Theater (YPT). “In YPT’s arts education programs,” Brigitte Winter, their Executive Director, told the Catalogue, “we invite our students, whose voices are too often minimized, to take up space, to create and express themselves with abandon, and to know that adults will affirm their ideas, stories, dreams.”

Not only does YPT believe that no person is an island, but they also acknowledge that truly collaborative expression simultaneously requires a respect for people’s autonomy and are therefore committed to both anti-oppressive communication and reducing the harm of oppression through their organizational structure.

From writing individual stories to creating plays as a group to performing original arts activism pieces, students in YPT programs participate in unique experiences that are tailored for the specific needs of each YPT community. Though no two programs look alike, underlying them all is a singular, unifying belief that Winter shared with us: “We hope for a day when every young person in our city knows their brilliance, and that brilliance shines across Washington, DC, and beyond.”

In our last article on redefining citizenship, we mentioned the abundance of love and care that fuel many of our nonprofit partners’ work and inclusive approach to community. We are inspired by YPT, who practices their vision of “an abundance of safety, creativity, and joy for the young people in our community” every day. Our experience of this region we call home — through the work of nonprofits like YPT — is that there is no shortage of love, joy, and energy.

Shepherd’s Table, who addresses food insecurity and homelessness, serving individuals from all walks of life, is another example of this mindset. “No one should have to go hungry or without shelter in a city of such rich abundance,” Holly Harris, their Communications Associate, told us. “Because there are enough resources to meet every need when we live in community with one another, we are working to create a table long enough to make room for every neighbor.”

From providing daily hot nutritious meals and to-go dinners to offering a resource center, clothes closet, and eye clinic, Shepherd’s Table envisions a DMV where lives are transformed with nourishment, empowerment, and care. In its 38-year history, and even through economic hardships and the challenges of the pandemic, they have never missed a single day of meal service.

That alone encapsulates the principle that “How we think ripples out to how we behave.” Here, we want to return to Robin Wall Kimmerer’s essay on abundance and the gift economy, in which she continues to elaborate:

“If we view these berries, or that coal or forest, as an object, as property, it can be exploited as a commodity in a market economy. We know the consequences of that. Why then have we permitted the dominance of economic systems that commoditize everything? That create scarcity instead of abundance, that promote accumulation rather than sharing?”

Healthy Places, Healthy People

“Our hydroponic tower has been exploding with arugula, kale and herbs and is just starting to have cucumbers and tomatoes ready to harvest,” Common Good City Farm wrote in a blog post this month, accompanied by gorgeous photos of greens and ripe strawberries.

In the Ledroit Park community where the half-acre urban farm is located, one-third of residents live in poverty and nearly one in ten has diabetes. Their aim is to increase food access and nutrition education, and to build community around the farm space, especially for their neighbors who may have less access to those things. “We hold a weekly seasonal produce market — using a pay-what-you-can model — where we offer what we grow as well as bring in food from other farms to make sure our customers have a variety of fruits and vegetables to choose from,” Emily Richardson, their Youth Programs Director, wrote on DC Action. “Our goal is always to positively influence nutrition for everyone in our community.”

This echoes a belief that anchors the Inclusive Healthy Places Framework developed by Gehl and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which guided DC Greens‘ process for creating The Well at Oxon Run, a new urban farm and wellness space in ward 8: “Every neighborhood should provide people what they need to live a healthy life.“

At the Catalogue, we agree that place truly does shape health. We’ve witnessed how structural racism and long-term disinvestments are disproportionately concentrated in communities of color. A case study on The Well states that “While Oxon Run Park is the largest in the District’s park inventory and a major public health asset, Ward 8 has some of the highest health disparities in the District — a product of decades of disinvestment, rooted in structural racism.”

With the opening of The Well, an incredible example of resident-led design, DC Greens has “built a channel for resources to flow into this community… so that neighbors have what they need to define and create wellness on their own terms,” be it a pick-your-own flower garden, an orchard with chickens, or a community gathering space for theater and dance performances, elders and youth. As Absalom Jordan, Chair of the Friends of Oxon Run, said, “I have this in my heart — this idea of preserving and connecting with the land.”

This city is a beautiful place. All of the nonprofit partners we’ve highlighted here, and so many more, are working to — in the words of Omar Hakeem, local artist and architect who created an installation for FoKAG — “transform the legacy of ‘you’re not welcome here’ into ‘all are welcomed here’” so that everyone is free to “play, wonder and dream.” In a time with multiple crises that require our collective attention and action to address, we both need and have hope that we can shift from scarcity to abundance, and from accumulation to sharing.

The What, Why, & How for the DC Budget

Last month, the Catalogue for Philanthropy convened four of our nonprofit partners — the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, Jews United for Justice, the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, and Black Swan Academy — to share about the advocacy work they do around the DC budget, why such advocacy is important for residents to engage in, and where people who are unfamiliar with the budget can get started. This virtual panel was moderated by David Meni, Acting Chief of Staff for Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, and illuminated much of the city budgeting process and how the budget concretely impacts our lives from year-to-year.

“You maybe only hear about the budget when it’s being formulated or when it’s before the Council,” David observed in his introduction to the event. “But budget season is basically year-round. There’s always something to do on it.“

Though the 2022-23 fiscal year budget was passed in June, not only does budget advocacy transition into other important advocacy as our partners demonstrated with the examples they gave, but the work of setting Councilmembers’ budget priorities also tends to start earlier than most people think. As David mentioned at the end of the panel, “getting your particular issue on a Councilmember’s priority list is something that can happen at any time or happen early and often.”

With this in mind, the Catalogue aims to summarize some of our biggest takeaways from the event about how to contextualize our city’s budget, why exactly advocacy is so important, what each of our nonprofit partners are advocating around and, finally, what you can start to pay attention to for next year’s budget.

Please note that panelist quotes have been edited and condensed for clarity. Visit this link to watch the full event.

Putting the Process into Perspective

“At the federal level, you see the President send down the budget and Congress rips it apart. It looks completely different by the end but it’s a much longer, much more resourced process,” Amber Harding, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, explained. “In DC, the Mayor puts something out and the Council doesn’t have that much time to work on it. They don’t have the same kind of committee structures and staffing that Congress has to fix it. So, often, even though it’s supposed to be the Council’s budget, the Council has a real hard time (making) major changes to the Mayor’s budget.”

DC is a city where many residents are politically engaged on a national level. While this is important and necessary, we also believe that staying updated on local news and getting involved in local politics is crucial to both understanding the place where we live and making it a better place to live.

“Budget advocacy is extremely important for anyone who’s doing policy work or community work, knowing that the decisions that are made impact our day-to-day experiences, particularly when we’re talking about marginalized populations,” Samantha Davis, Founder and Executive Director of Black Swan Academy, noted. “The budget has a huge role to play in terms of what resources are trickling down to us.“

In addition to being a document that reflects the values of elected officials in its choices, the budget is also the biggest piece of legislation the City Council passes. “What’s the city focusing on? Is it spending more money on police or on affordable housing? Are developers getting giant tax breaks — the same developers who are contributing money to elected officials?” Amber asked. “It’s probably the most impactful thing the city does every year because the budget is a demonstration of the priorities of elected leaders… It’s insight into how the city is run and (whether) the people you vote for are doing what they said they’d do when you elected them.”

Though the budget process is complex and can be difficult to understand, our panelists helped to demystify some of the ways in which the DC government operates. For instance, if bills have a fiscal impact, even if they are passed and signed by the Mayor, they still need to be funded in the subsequent budget. “You can’t find the money within passing a bill,” David mentioned. “If you don’t get legislation funded within something like three years, it basically lapses and gets repealed.”

This makes advocating for changes within the budget even more critical, since funding a bill is the way to make sure it’s implemented. “When we’re talking about creating these new systems, addressing various disparities that we might be experiencing, we can’t have really effective policy and legislation without having the dollars to support it, and vice versa,” Samantha said. “Engaging in budget advocacy alone is also something that I critique often, because we can’t continue to pour money into failing systems, so it does work hand-in-hand.”

What Does a Victory Look Like?

One example of how budget advocacy transitions into year-round advocacy is in the Legal Clinic’s fight to end homelessness. “The budget is very clear — when you fund permanent housing vouchers for people who are homeless, you are ending that person’s homelessness permanently,” Amber emphasized.

This year, they ran a campaign to reform rapid rehousing, a time-limited housing program in the city that nearly everyone who goes into an emergency shelter is placed into. While the time limit was extended during the pandemic, the Mayor instructed the agency to start terminating families in the program once the public health emergency ended, resulting in hundreds of families who are going to be evicted because only 3% of them can afford rent when their subsidies are terminated. 97% of these families are Black and most are extremely low-income. Many of them end up being displaced entirely from the city because they can’t find places that they can afford to rent.

Through the budget, the Legal Clinic was able to get 400 slots of housing for families to transition from rapid rehousing into a permanent program. The Council also recently introduced permanent legislation to stop the time limits and make it a program that transitions people into housing that meets their needs instead of dropping them off a cliff. However, even if this legislation is passed, it must still be funded. “So, next year, when we’re talking about the budget, we’ll be talking about how the only way to end that cliff is to fund the bill,” Amber said. “We continue to do the work to solve the bigger problems.”

Similarly, Jews United for Justice advocates around the budget with a multi-year plan in mind. “The big goal is making childcare more affordable and possible, particularly for families with lower incomes,” Sarah Novick, DC Director at Jews United for Justice, shared. “We know that’s not going to be possible until we are making sure that early childhood educators are getting enough money to sustain their families and lives, (so that we can) create a childcare system that will be able to accept more children into it.

Jews United for Justice partners with the Under 3 DC campaign and works to implement the Birth-to-Three law, a robust and far-reaching law made up of many programs to support families with young children ages 0-3 around health supports, behavioral health supports, education, and childcare. “It’ll cost hundreds of millions of dollars when it’s fully funded,” Sarah continued, “and we’re inching our way there. Every year, our advocacy to get it funded is very important… Even the small asks are important.”

A big part of their advocacy work is rooted in organizing with coalitions. “We work together to craft what our yearly campaign goals are, what we think is possible to win from year-to-year, what an ambitious win would be, and (we) make those calculated decisions as we go along,” Sarah elaborated. For them, this advocacy looks like making asks of Councilmembers, getting Councilmembers and staff to work together to find the funds, mobilizing their base to make calls and testify at hearings — all of which help to ensure that elected officials know that many people are making these requests, which emphasizes how badly the requests are needed.

“We wanted full implementation of Birth-to-Three to happen within ten years,” Sarah said. “We’re a handful of years in and, unfortunately, it hasn’t been fully funded every year.”

Especially when it comes to programs that have a big price tag, like the Birth-to-Three law or the Vision Zero plan that the Washington Area Bicyclist Association is driving toward, finding funding sources to implement these programs on a smaller scale is often challenging, let alone funding them on the larger level of systemic change, which many residents know is needed.

“(We actually want) to phase out traffic fines because we want to fix the roads, we want to change the infrastructure,” Jeremiah Lowery, Advocacy Director at the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, stressed when elaborating on the omnibus bill they’re pushing that will move DC closer to achieving its Vision Zero goals around transportation safety. Though they didn’t get funding for this bill the year before, in this last budget cycle, they were able to secure a funding source — getting dollars from new traffic cameras to fund the bill, as well as moving future dollars into bike repair and bus projects.

“That’s significant because, oftentimes, money from these traffic cameras usually go to the general funds,” Jeremiah explained, “and they’re not actually going to sustainable solutions that lead to preventing traffic deaths. Now… funding from (traffic cameras) will be used to prevent traffic fatalities and deaths, and will be used to fix roads, which is the purpose.”

Part of the complexity around securing funding is, as Amber mentioned, because “the Council, as a whole, is not great in coming together and saying, “here are our top priorities as a Council.” One of the biggest flaws in the way that this city budgets lies in the committee structure, where Councilmembers serve on certain issue-area committees that can surface competing priorities, including ward-level priorities. “We try to be very careful. What do you tell human services to cut when you’re asking them to increase a program?” Amber asked. This is why coalitions can be powerful when engaging in advocacy. The Fair Budget Coalition, for example, which the Legal Clinic, Jews United for Justice, and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association are members of, “came together to say, “you can’t cut housing to fund healthcare.”

Black Swan Academy has also found some leverage within the current structure. “We do push Councilmembers and staff to talk to each other and to other committees, and (we) leverage that and say, this is the connection between police-free schools and mental health. Don’t you care about mental health?” Samantha explained. Analyzing members of each committee and what other committees these Councilmembers also sit on is an important aspect of their advocacy.

For Black Swan Academy, whose work is primarily guided by their Black Youth Agenda, a win can look like making sure the voices of young Black people are part of the conversation. When they supported larger efforts around the rapid rehousing crisis, which was one of the issues named by young folk on this year’s agenda, they signed onto letters, testified, and shared stories to show how young Black people in the community are impacted when families are terminated out of their housing after their rapid rehousing lapses.

On a multi-year level, Black Swan Academy has been fighting for police-free schools — removing armed police officers from school buildings and investing in resources and people who would create care-based, healthy, and equitable learning environments. In 2020, they were able to reduce a $23 million contract held by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and move it to DC Public Schools (DCPS) so that instead of having MPD be in control of the training and hiring of security officers, it would be guided by people with backgrounds in education and who are working with school faculty. DCPS was also able to create a pilot initiative where schools should shift from hiring security officers to hiring restorative justice practitioners, additional mental health clinicians, and community members to do safe passage.

This year, however, the Mayor dedicated a lot of resources in her portion of the budget to cancel a planned phase-out of school police officers in the next five years, which the Council had previously passed. “We spent the past year organizing, again, to get the Committee (on the Judiciary and Public Safety) to say that we are actually committed to this phase-out and want to make sure the budget reflects it,” Samantha continued. The Council did vote again, recommitting to having fewer police officers in schools and investing in alternatives to policing in schools. “All the investments around school-based mental health, violence interruption, and safe passage (are) happening within the budget process.”

So, You Want to Advocate Around the Budget

“If it were easy, if everyone agreed, we wouldn’t have to do advocacy on it,” Amber said. “We’re doing advocacy because people aren’t automatically or naturally prioritizing the needs or wants of the groups we’re advocating for, and that’s why we’re down there.”

Having shared more context around the city budget, our panelists then gave some advice on getting started.

1. First, decide on the issue area(s) you’re most interested in to help narrow your focus.

When budget season rolls around, there are so many ways you can engage with it that the best place to start is by focusing on the issue area(s) you’re most interested in to avoid getting overwhelmed. “Look for those flashpoints,” Amber said. Because the budget is where the Council can step in to do some checks and balances, those flashpoints “are the places where you’re actually going to lift up where those conversations are happening, (and) where there are differences in opinion.”

From there, Jeremiah recommends building relationships with committee chairs for the areas you’re working on, which the Washington Area Bicyclist Association has found more success with. Samantha and Sarah also suggest attending both agency and budget oversight hearings.

“(The) agency oversight hearing process is useful for folks who are not connected to an organization as (they provide) an opportunity for anyone to come and talk about their own personal experiences with the agency,” Sarah mentioned. Doing so provides data for Councilmembers to later go back to the agency and ask follow-up questions, which will lead to conversations about how much money each of these agencies should have in the budget.

These hearings are then followed by budget oversight hearings, where directors of agencies present the budget, as well as give people time to testify and the Council to ask questions. “Most of the agencies have their own hearings or forums that are open to folks,” Samantha said, “and I’ve found those to be more helpful.”

2. Do your research outside of the Mayor’s resources.

Though the Mayor’s budget forum is often advertised, David explained that “it might be a good way of understanding the different components of the DC government, but not a great way of understanding what’s actually in the budget.”

Similarly, Amber recommended approaching the Mayor’s Powerpoint with care. “It’s often high-level, but sometimes pretty misleading,” she chimed in. “There’s federal money in there that was pre-existing or other things that don’t have anything to do with what she devoted this year (with) very little context.”

Sarah and Jeremiah advised signing up for the DC Council website’s newsletter, as well as individual Councilmember newsletters, especially for members who are chairing committees on the issue area(s) you care about. Staying updated on local news, such as through the Washington City Paper’s daily news digest, is also helpful.

The DC Fiscal Policy Institute shares a trove of resources about the budget, such as ‘A Resident’s Guide to the DC Budget‘ and their recent reflection on ‘What’s In the Fiscal Year 2023 Budget?‘ Be on the lookout, too, for events like budget briefings with agencies or agency heads that the community can attend and ask questions at.

Another great resource is to follow the organizations or coalitions doing advocacy in the issue area(s) you care about, such as these four nonprofit partners who spoke on our panel or the 400+ other local nonprofits in our network.

3. Don’t be afraid to talk to Council staff.

“You don’t need to go directly to members, especially around budget time,” David suggested. “Staff in the committees are the ones keeping track of moment-to-moment changes, (so) don’t be intimidated about talking to staff.”

Ask questions of the staffers on the committees relevant to your issue area(s). Most importantly, make sure that your ask is stated in more than one Councilmember’s priorities.

4. Sharing your story is important.

A common misperception around budget advocacy is that it is necessary to understand all the jargon and details in the budget. While being familiar with them can be helpful, as David shared, “it’s more about tone-setting.” When testifying — as all of our panelists have organized significant groups of people to do — people will show up and speak to the same theme about why they think ‘x’ is an important priority and why the Council should pull money from ‘y’ to fund this. “(Say) things in simple terms and put the onus on the committee to see how important that is,” David continued, “and then paid advocates and experts can follow up on the details of that work.”

In this vein, remember that you don’t have to be an expert! As Samantha added in the chat during the event, “We are not experts on the budget and that is okay. You don’t have to be and many are not.” Echoing this, Amber said, “I’ve been doing this work for 20 years and I still… have to ask a bunch of people, is this actually what this means?” Given that the budget is not a transparent document, it is absolutely okay to ask those follow-up questions.

Our Partners

The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless uses the law to bring justice to low-income, homeless, and people experiencing poverty in DC through direct legal services, community education, and policy and advocacy around housing, homelessness, and civil rights. You can learn more about their budget work this year through this article.

Jews United for Justice educates and mobilizes local Jewish communities and allies to take action on issue campaigns that pursue and promote social, racial, and economic justice. You can read their reflections on this year’s budget campaign at this article and learn more about their work in Montgomery County, Baltimore, and statewide in Maryland.

The Washington Area Bicyclist Association provides youth and adult education and conducts advocacy to expand the region’s trail network with the Capital Trails Coalition, complete a protective bike network around the region, prevent traffic deaths and fatalities through Vision Zero, as well as expand access to buses and multi-modal transportation options in areas that don’t usually have access.

Black Swan Academy supports Black youth in middle and high school in being social catalysts in their communities and creating the change that they know is needed. They meet the immediate needs of young folks through capacity-building and mutual aid, and organize through the Black Youth Agenda for police-free schools, and more mental health support, among other youth-driven issues.

Washington English Center: Building, Celebrating, & Empowering Community

For nearly three decades, Washington English Center (WEC) has provided affordable English-language instruction and workforce programs to adult immigrants using volunteers. From English-language classes to citizenship preparation to digital literacy training, they work with hundreds of volunteers each term to deliver their various support programs to thousands of immigrants from over 70 countries.

Since introducing online classes during the pandemic, WEC has been able to welcome even more volunteers and students from all over the world, in addition to helping students who live in the DC area but who may face barriers to attending in-person classes, such as access to transportation or childcare. This summer, the Catalogue for Philanthropy got a chance to speak with their Associate Director of Volunteers, Yaritza Abrego, and their Director of Development, Phillip Carlisle, about how WEC truly builds, celebrates, and empowers its community.

Catalogue: How would you define and describe the WEC community?

Phillip: Our community is resilient and warm. Resilient in that our students have come from around the world — because of economic reasons, changing climate, or political strife — yet they come to WEC wanting to learn more and improve the way they read, write, listen to, and speak English. Some of our students are in their early 20s, looking to go to college in the United States or find a fulfilling job and community among their peers; other students are grandparents who have lived in the United States for decades and raised their children here, but now they are looking to read to their grandchildren in English.

Along with students from so many backgrounds comes warmth. Our students know what it’s like to be a stranger in a new country and what it takes to acquire English, gradually, through practice and memorization. No matter the proficiency level, it’s not easy and takes time. That’s part of why they are so interested in supporting one another through the process — with a number of our past students returning to volunteer and to give back.

Yaritza: The WEC community is a melting pot of different cultures, languages, experiences, and ages but all with the same goal, which is to be able to connect and communicate with others.

Catalogue: Who in your community are you inspired by and why?

Yaritza: I am inspired by both our students and volunteers. I think it is inspirational to see our volunteers give so much of their time and effort to our students. Many of them are brand new to teaching so, in a sense, it is a true act of courage. Many, if not all, of our students display courage — coming to a new country and not knowing the language is challenging and scary. Many of our students have faced hardships back in their home countries and yet, here they are, showing up day after day to learn a new language and acclimate to their new home.

Phillip: For me, it’s helpful and humbling to remember that these are adults — many are parents — with busy social schedules and demanding jobs. No one has made them attend class, but they choose to become students. They make time in their schedules and apply themselves to the classwork. For some, that means becoming students again for the first time in fifty years. For others, it means giving up their evenings (almost ninety hours of class a term!) to improve the way they read, write, and speak English. How amazing is that?

Catalogue: How does WEC empower its volunteers and students?

Phillip: Every year, 740 individuals volunteer with WEC to teach group classes, to tutor students one-on-one, to host clubs, and so much more. Those volunteers spend hours preparing to teach, and teaching, because of the folks we serve. In total, over 1,250 immigrants and refugees from 70 countries come through our doors or join us via Zoom to improve their understanding of the English language. These students are eager to learn and we are ready to meet them wherever they are.

Yaritza: Our Academic Programs team empowers volunteers by creating opportunities to show appreciation to them. Each term, we have an online volunteer appreciation event where we show videos that we have compiled of students thanking our volunteers for their time. During the event, we give out awards to volunteers who went above and beyond.

We also give out prizes and cards to all our volunteers at the end of their volunteer service, and we have online and in-person volunteer socials. Additionally, we provide training and continuous professional development opportunities that help volunteers gain confidence and enhance their teaching skills in the classroom.

For students, we put together our online graduation event where we celebrate our students’ achievements throughout the term. During the event, we display student certificates and recognize students who had perfect attendance. Everyone in the WEC community is welcome to attend — and if you’re reading this, you’re a part of our community. We have also recently encouraged advanced students to become teachers and serve as role models themselves!

Catalogue: What about your work with WEC brings you joy? And what about it brings joy for others?

Phillip: Our students bring me joy. When a student is grappling with a phrase or pauses to think of the exact right way to express themselves in English, there’s this pride that shines through once they’ve conquered the phrase and with it comes joy. I think any of our teachers could tell you, there’s something really wonderful about a student who shows up, wants to learn, and is determined to get the most from their class. And WEC is filled with those students.

Yaritza: I think the best part about WEC is seeing our students succeed and gain confidence in their speaking and writing abilities. I also love to walk through our hallways and see students interacting and building friendships with one another.

Something I am never asked is why I choose to work at WEC. In a way, I am relieved because it is very personal to me and stirs a lot of emotions. My mother and father both immigrated to the US from Central America and left everything behind. In the ’70s and ’80s, there were little to any resources available to immigrants. I saw firsthand how difficult it was for the two of them to communicate with others, which led to many different challenges, from finding jobs to housing to healthcare to schools, etc. A lot of the burden fell on me to be a translator for them, which I know, even today, a lot of first- and second-generation children face to help the family.

I think organizations like WEC help alleviate a lot of that and empower immigrant families and parents to learn English and ultimately advocate for themselves. In a nutshell, working at WEC is a way to honor my parents and others like them. My work has also given me the opportunity to honor my own experience as the daughter of immigrants.

Interested in becoming a volunteer with the Washington English Center? Visit their website to learn more, or sign up to receive their newsletter and stay up-to-date on their volunteer opportunities, upcoming teaching workshops, and social events!