 Welcome to Rational Alchemy. I'm joined today by John Jones, who works for the United Way. What's the United Way? Let me give you a couple of facts and you'll learn a lot. Since 2016, 500 homeless veterans have found stable housing in northern Colorado. 500. Think about that. 192 elementary school students worked one-on-one, and that's important, with tutors to increase their reading skills. 83.8% are now reading at or above target. 117,000 diapers have been given away, 1,775 packs of wipes have been given away, and 14,500 ounces of baby formula has been given away. But you've heard enough from me at the moment. John, welcome to Rational Alchemy. Why don't you tell us a little bit about United Way? It's a name that everybody has heard, but I don't think many people really understand the depth of what your organization does. Well, thank you, Nigel. Thank you for having me on. The United Way is an amazing organization which has one of the best starts for any organization. It began here in Denver, Colorado, and I believe the story goes something like a couple priests, a rabbi, and a nun. And it grew out of in the late 1800s a movement of mutualism, of trying to support communities and to give them the needed resources where other entities, be it private or public, were not filling those gaps. And so the United Way has continued on that mission of trying to fill those gaps in people's needs. We do this primarily through working with partner agencies. It's not that the United Way runs specifically, all the time, a program. It's that they look for other nonprofits, agencies, or partners in the community and try to empower them to meet those needs that they've identified. But the United Way is also in sort of a renaissance at the moment with Collective Impact. Collective Impact is a shift from our usual community funding. So typically inside a community, you will give to your United Way to pay for those programs inside of your community so everything's local. And that is done by those nonprofits submitting applications to the United Way for funding for a grant. Now, rather than having a piecemeal approach where we have one program that's working on a piece of the puzzle here, another program attacking it from a different side, but the two not communicating, Collective Impact is about bringing those community partners together to have a strategic framework to identify how do we tackle these problems in a logical manner? How do we use the resources that we have, the community volunteers that we have to leverage them to move this forward in a really impactful way, something like with our veteran homelessness. We're on the verge of eliminating veteran homelessness in Weldon-Larimer counties. It will be a thing of the past. That's an amazing piece of news. But before we carry on, you did mention about the monies coming in and the monies going out. What sort of percentages does United Way put out to all of these programs? So not money that's used to run the organization, but monies that actually go where it's needed. So the United Way of Weld County has done these audits, internal audits, and we also have external auditors. And for the most recent numbers, it's about 85% of all monies that come in locally go to local programs. I think it's important to raise a point here. 85% is an incredibly good percentage for a charity to be giving back to the community. There are far too many charities, and I use that word very loosely, that give back maybe 10%, 15%, but way below the 50% mark. So before you give to a charity, please, please, please, if you get a cold call, ask them what the percentage is. If you get something through the mail, do some research. All of this information is online about what the charities actually do give back. I notice that you're wearing an AmeriCorps T-shirt. Where does AmeriCorps fit into all of this? Well, I'm glad you asked. Just like United Way, everyone's heard of it, but no one truly knows all the ins and outs unless you're one of these partners. AmeriCorps is perhaps even more mysterious. It's a national service program. So we're neither employees of the federal government, but we're also not purely volunteers. We're national service participants. This grew out of my program in particular, 1964, and the birth of Volunteers in Service to America. It was initially identified as a sister program by John F. Kennedy in 62, to Peace Corps. So Peace Corps goes out into the world to help raise communities out of poverty. AmeriCorps has as its mission to go into America and increase the health, the education, the veteran services, and generally the economic opportunity of Americans in low socioeconomic status communities to help raise the amount of poverty. So basically AmeriCorps is really a Peace Corps but homegrown. Very much, yes. Oh, I did not realize that. Yes. And I think you'll find there aren't many people that have heard of AmeriCorps to be honest with you. You know, sort of one of those tightly held secrets that, and we need to get the word out there what you're actually doing. Let's go back to United Way. What sort of programs are you running in northern Colorado? So right now, the United Way of Weld County and Larimer County have partnered together around five key programs. One is Reading Great by Eight, because about 40% of our children are leaving grade three and entering grade four actually ready to read on grade level. So that means 60% are not. So we as a community identified this as one of those key drivers of success for our community in the future. And that sets the stage for the other programs as well. The second one, after you have started reading great, we want to make sure that you're thriving by 25. So as you transition from high school into the adult world, we need to make sure that everyone has a livable wage that they're able to find housing and that they're able to participate and contribute fully to the community. After that, we have Aging Weld, which is really trying to help our adults that are leaving the workforce and making sure that you have a secure retirement because there's so many people over 55 that are actually finding themselves housing insecure or maybe even food insecure, meaning that they don't always have consistent access to enough food or affordable housing. And similarly, we're also Connecting Weld, which is an overarching program which connects all of these attributes together. And that's where AmeriCorps fits into this collective impact measure. AmeriCorps is helping to connect all of these different partner agencies by building their capacity. AmeriCorps helps build capacity behind the scenes rather than directly sometimes, at least AmeriCorps VISTA does. And we strengthen and build sustainable solutions, sustainable in that future volunteers or staff members of those agencies can pick up where the AmeriCorps member left off and use those to build and empower their community to alleviate poverty or eradicate it completely. Indeed, there's about 270,000 AmeriCorps members each year across all of our programs. And there's about 5,000 VISTA members this year. Over a quarter of a million people in this country are all working along the same lines, the same goals, trying to improve the lives of people that live in America. That's an amazing statistic, that really is. So you first talked about the educational side of it. Is that all wrapped in with Bright Futures Scholarship? It is. Bright Futures is one of our great partners and they are addressing that transition between learning because we often say in education, grades one through three, you're learning how to read. And then after that, you're reading to learn. So supporting our students as they're reading to learn involves a lot of one-on-one mentoring. It involves math tutoring. It involves continued reading tutoring. And Bright Futures is one of those. It's also helping connect and prepare these students for that transition into adult life. And it's helping them both on both sides, both the before graduation and after graduation. And you really look after us. You literally follow someone through the whole process. Certainly. There are programs, certainly, that will pair you with a mentor. Similar to the way one of our partners, Boys and Girls Club, they've had many mentoring opportunities to follow the same child as they grow and develop. Big Brothers, Big Sisters, another community partner has done this for years across the nation. And there's also something else I noticed written down here. The Career Pathways Program. And I think this is where American schools let their students down, to be honest with you. Because I had three kids that all went through the American school system. And one of the things that... It was as if the schools wanted to cover them in cotton wool. That the big, wide world doesn't exist. All of a sudden, when you leave high school, everything's rosy. Do these programs help the students move into a workplace, for instance? Certainly. Yeah, the Career Pathways Program is another great program that is part of this community impact. They are an organization that really sort of helps identify, first, those directions that a student has available to them, those opportunities. And then pairs them with a local partner, employer to sort of do a little bit of job exploration. Many times when you may not truly know if you love a job until after you've been in it, and then there's a little bit of a catch, right? Can you leave a job which you desperately need because you made the first incorrect choice some months ago before you really had any experience? Right. It needn't even be the first job. I remember in my, when I was a young'un, no responsibility whatsoever, of course, being me, I got into printed circuit board design. I was doing that. I then got a bit bored with it, and I decided to try sales. Biggest mistake I ever made. I couldn't do anything in industry, but the one thing I cannot do, I'm a useless salesman. So I immediately, of course, wanted to drop out of that. But luckily at the time, there are enough jobs available within the industry I did know to find a job fairly quickly. But of course today, it may not be quite that easy. Indeed. There are many barriers that many of our people are facing, some of them being the proper training, some of them being just the algorithms that are sifting through your applications on online websites. Some of them also may have some legal barriers to employment. But these programs, so many of them, and the ones that we support, are about connecting one-on-one, a person with an employer, building a relationship. This idea of an internship is becoming increasingly valuable because you need experience to get the job, but you need a job to get the experience. Yes. It really upsets me when I read through some of the want ads, and you see it's an opening-level position, maybe paying a little bit more than minimum wage by a couple of dollars, bachelor's required. Hold on a second here, guys. There was a time when your educational level was actually not that important. It was you as a person they used to interview. And they used to make a judgment called, could this person who I'm interviewing succeed in the job? That was the absolute number one priority. Now it's all changed around because as you mentioned, there's algorithms software out there that scans these things and makes decisions based on what you wrote at probably 10 o'clock at night. Exactly, yes. And that's just totally wrong. And the way they've taken the human interaction out is just amazing. It really is. Also, I'm going to raise a point here. I think it's important that, you know, if you are in a job that you don't like, find another job first before resigning from the old job. Oh, yes. Because it's always easier to find a new job when you're working than it is if you're unemployed. It's good advice and I should have taken it several years ago. I probably should have taken my own advice as well, but that's beside the point. And that's, you know, speaking of these, that's another place where AmeriCorps comes in. Oh, really? Exactly. Nice. If you're looking to get into nonprofits, if you're looking to get into health, education, human services, many of these government positions, AmeriCorps is an outstanding avenue of approach because you are, as a national service participant, you are getting training, professional development. You're getting to make those personal connections with these nonprofits and the nonprofit leaders. And you're also going to get at the end of your service an education stipend or an educational award called the Sequel Education Grant. Oh, excellent. Yes, it's equal to the federal Pell Grant. So that's $6,000 towards either previous loans or future education that our members can use it for. Quite outstanding. If you're serving in particularly AmeriCorps VISTA, as I am, you also get non-competitive eligibility for federal jobs. Oh, okay. So non-competitive eligibility for federal jobs really means that for one year after your service term, you will have the same credentials as Peace Corps members or other government employees because as an AmeriCorps VISTA member, we do take the oath. We take the oath of office. So we swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I've never heard of an organization outside of the government that does that. That's kind of interesting. We won't go into whether I agree with it or not, but that's another story. Okay, so you've done a lot of work with the homeless. You've done a lot of work within the education areas. Obviously, a lot of work working with families on raising their kids, as I mentioned from your booklet here, about the amount of diapers and formula you've given away. Any other programs that you're involved in? Not you personally, but United Way. One of the greatest that we're exceptionally proud of has just concluded. It was last week, Weld Project Connect. So this program brings together several hundred service providers for a one-day event. It's all free. Anyone that is housing food or medically insecure in some way or even have legal issues, all of these underserved groups in our community come to a central location. This year it was at Island Grove Park. And we have a system for bringing them in, pairing them with a navigator. That's one of the roles that I played this year. Oh, nice. And navigating a person through all of these different community services that we have available. It's all pro bono. It's all organized for just one day only. And we can check off so many boxes. One of the gentlemen that I helped this year. He was a cancer survivor. He was also a former AmeriCorps member. And he has been going to school despite his cancer diagnosis and also heart disease. And so he has a few things here or there, services that either time, transportation or other circumstances, he hasn't been able to get there to those appointments because the wait lines are long. And so we stopped over in the community services area connected with one of the other great programs, 2-1-1. So I don't know if you've heard of 2-1-1. No. But I'm about to find out, aren't I? Yes, you are. Oh, wonderful. So similar to 9-1-1, which is a telephone code that works throughout the nation, 2-1-1 is also one of these special telephone codes. 2-1-1 is for community information that connects you with resources. Most often it's staffed by United Way members or volunteers. And they have a large database of every possible service that could be available in that particular county. It's all anonymous. So suppose you're looking for help with substance abuse. Suppose you're helping, you know, food access or legal systems. We don't care who you are. We just care what zip code do you live in so that we can connect you with a resource that's very close to you. And it's outstanding. I've used it myself as an AmeriCorps member to find food pantries because we are given a living stipend that is very simple, very much the basics. And so every now and then we need a little bit more. Yes, to get us through. And there's a number of wonderful services available there. So that was the first place that I took my guest. Another place that when we went, we got a free vision check. We got a free hearing check. We got a free dental check. All at World Project Connect. We also got a free health screening at World Project Connect and sort of checked on some medical issues with his Medicare, Medicaid, those sorts of things. So it's really a one-stop shop where in one afternoon, in just a few hours, you can take care of a litany of other things that would have taken you weeks. About how many people actually attended this? Not from your side, but from the general public. So at this particular one, I believe that we had about 550, which is a little bit lower than we wanted. We think that a lot of our seniors are still a little bit anxious about COVID and being in a public space like that. I'm a senior. I can guarantee you they are. Indeed. Especially in Weld County. But we'd love to... I think some of the previous numbers are around a thousand or more. Okay. Every Weld Project Connect. I think you'll find that 2022 you'll be back to the thousand, if not more. Outstanding. I also, I like the word navigator, rather than guide. Exactly. I think navigator is excellent, because that tells me that you're going to listen to what your client needs, mentally work out the best way through the situation, through the map. Exactly. There's so much prioritization that has to happen. Absolutely. Because in such a situation, you have to both gauge what services are available and which one's going to give you the biggest bang for your buck, especially if they're pressed for time. Some of our people have to go back to work or school afterwards. Some of them have children. Yep. We do provide free childcare in a very fun room, which I was tempted to go play in myself, but unfortunately they knew that I should probably be helping the guests, rather than playing with the toys. 211, I have never heard of that number before. Really? Make a note of that, folks. If you are running into trouble, and I guess this is nationwide, we're not talking of Well County, we're talking of the entire nation, if you're in trouble and you literally have just heard everything that these organizations are involved in, if you've got a problem, 211, that's important. But let's also talk a little bit here. How do people research United Way and AmeriCorps? What's the best way of doing this? Obviously you have websites. www.ay-weld.org Perfect, perfect. And don't worry, we're all human. Are there any other points that you'd like to raise? I forgot to mention the AmeriCorps website, AmeriCorps.gov, nice and simple. There are many different ways to serve. So AmeriCorps has maybe two big branches. There's AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps seniors. Each of those have three flavors. AmeriCorps has NCCC, which is the National Civilian and Community Corps, which is one of the 24-year-olds. And I'm going to say that it's a wonderful experience as a gap year for these members to go out. And you could be part of a trail crew maintaining our national park system. You could be doing disaster response with FEMA Corps. Or you could be in our newest Corps, which is going to be Health Corps, I believe, which is partnering with the Department of Health and Human Services to really look at what other needs that we first became aware of during the pandemic, but there's so many other health needs that need to be addressed. So that's one of our flavors. There's AmeriCorps State and National, which every state has its own service commission. What's a service commission? Well, it's sort of like a governing body, often associated with the state government. So our Lieutenant General of Colorado is over the state service corps. And it administers direct service programs. So these are the people that are going to be AmeriCorps members that are going to be in a school tutoring. They could be at a health clinic doing in-processing. They could be at the Department of Human Services doing other direct service actions, or at a food pantry, or at Habitat for Humanity, any one of our partners. Then there's also AmeriCorps Vista. AmeriCorps Vista, not really doing the direct services, again, behind the scenes, building capacity so that that nonprofit can grow in its effectiveness, grow in its reach, and become more efficient over time. Over on senior course for Americans 55 and older, really seniors get the best of both worlds because you can do basically these two programs of AmeriCorps State and National as well as Vista, as well as these other three in AmeriCorps seniors. You have foster grandparents, which is a way of supporting people who are grandparents taking care of children or of other people that are in the foster system. And it gives you a living allowance as well as some other guidance in helping them. There's RSVP, which is Retired Senior in Service, Retired Senior Volunteer Program. Then I suppose the last big thing that I'd like to talk about today is there's a whole of government push by this current administration to really get people who are eligible for the child tax care credit to apply to it. Now, right now, we've already reached about 60 million children throughout the United States whose families are now getting the full $3,000 for children 6 to 13 or $3,600 if your child is underneath 6 in terms of monthly payments of about $300 or $250 up until the end of this year. People that we're concerned about are people that did not file taxes in the past two years because maybe there were a couple that made less than 2,000 or 24,800 or single parents because most, we actually have a very large proportion of our children that live in poverty are actually the children of single parents. About 30% of households with a female single parent are below the poverty line at this time. So we'd like to reach them because this money is already theirs. It was encumbered as part of the American Rescue Plan. It belongs to them and we want to connect them with that money. It's not going to be counted as income so it doesn't increase your tax burden. It doesn't reduce any of your current benefits like social security insurance. It doesn't reduce your SNAP benefits. It doesn't reduce Medicare, Medicaid, anything like that. It is just something that you as an American that has lived through this pandemic and in recognition of how much it costs to raise a child, you have this money given to you. Some of the statistics regarding that are it can cost between $12,000 and $15,000 for childcare in a year. That's more than in-state tuition. Isn't that amazing? It makes me a little bit frightful to have a child anymore. But I'd have to say... Well, look how it's affecting the workplace. There are so many families that would like to get back into the workplace but they can't because they just cannot afford to put their kids into childcare. Exactly. In Colorado, from National Statistics, we know it has one of the fewest rates of certified childcare providers in the state. There are some counties that don't even have one that is officially certified. We also know that in terms of people accessing the child tax care credit, as well as their economic impact payments, we're in the bottom five of states and Weld County, especially so, as far as counties. Weld County has over 4,000 square miles, about 300,000 people, and it has, you know, depending on the year, somewhere between 10%, 11% poverty, unemployment, there's a lot of people that could use access to that money. That's why the government has started this initiative. It's in every single federal department. So, if you go to the IRS website, if you go to Social Security, if you go to the VA, if you go to any of the federal departments, they'll be advertising this. And it all links to a very simple and easy to use registration form. It's a simplified tax form. It's at www.getctc.org. Perfect. Perfect. It really has been fascinating, and I've learned an awful lot. I had no clue United Way and AmeriCorps were involved in so much good, and it really is, and with the 85% going back into the community, they're doing some incredibly good work. It takes a lot to impress me, and I'm bloody impressed, I'll be honest with you. It really is amazing what you guys are doing. Thank you so, so much. Thank you. Thank you, Nigel. United Way, AmeriCorps could well be the organization that you need to talk to first, because they're going to guide you and navigate you through some complex issues. Thank you very, very much for watching the show. Goodbye.