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Director: Kirsten Moy
The Economic Opportunities Program (EOP) helps the people who help the poor escape poverty. The program provides practical tools, training and information to organizations that help low-income individuals start a business, find a better job and build wealth.
EOP employs a technique known as participatory learning that is designed to help project stakeholders – including funders, policy makers, nonprofit leaders and community representatives – engage in self-assessment, collective knowledge development and joint action. As part of the process, stakeholders help: identify research and dialogue issues, design key questions and research methods, collect and analyze data, and determine the actions to be taken based on evaluation findings.
EOP currently is working in these areas:
| >Access to capital and credit |
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Research in this area focuses on efforts to help low-income individuals and communities gain access to mainstream financial services, including financial education and support, high-return savings products, investment opportunities and the purchase and maintenance of assets.
| Highlights from: Access to Capital and Credit |
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Read an article appearing in a special edition of the Chicago Federal Reserve's publication Profitwise News and Views that explores ways CDFIs are collaborating and integrating with mainstream financial institutions today. Authors were: EOP Director Kirsten Moy, Michael Berry, Robin Newberger and Gregory A. Ratliff.
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We also have a special interest in how "scale" can be achieved within the community development industry, as well as within other industries and organizations. To further that work, EOP and the Federal Reserve System are co-hosting a series of conferences in various cities across the country to delve deeper into the question of how to create scale and sustainability.
Our current work focuses on:
- Scale and Sustainability
- Financial Services
- Credit Path®
- Earned Income Tax Credit
- Individual Development Accounts (IDAs)
- Community Development Innovation and Infrastructure Initiative
Contact Kirsten Moy, EOP Director, Kirsten.moy@aspeninstitute.org for more information.
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| Microenterprise development |
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FIELD, the Microenterprise Fund for Innovation, Effectiveness, Learning and Dissemination, was created in 1998 after research showed that, despite growth in the U.S. microenterprise industry, there was a clear need to improve practice and overcome key challenges including expanding efforts to reach more low-income entrepreneurs. FIELD’s mission now, as then, is: to identify, develop and disseminate best practices in the microenterprise field, and to educate funders, policy makers and others about microenterprise as an anti-poverty strategy.
| Highlights from: FIELD |
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To help donors understand the microenterprise field in the U.S. and where their investments can make a difference, FIELD has produced a Funder Guide Series. Read more.
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FIELD grew out of the Aspen-based Self-Employment Learning Project (SELP), a multiyear evaluation program focused on microenterprise development programs and their clients. Over time, FIELD has spearheaded the development of key pieces of infrastructure to support the scaling up of the industry, including:
MicroTest, a performance measurement system that has contributed to the establishment of industry standards and is now the largest database on performance and client outcomes.
MicroMentor, an Internet-based service that links entrepreneurs to experienced business experts in mentoring relationships. Operation of MicroMentor transferred on October 1, 2006, to Mercy Corps, the international humanitarian relief and development agency. MicroMentor has its own Web site: www.micromentor.org.
FIELD’s Web site details our many other projects.
Contact Elaine Edgcomb, FIELD Director, elaine.edgcomb@aspeninstitute.org for more information.
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| Workforce development |
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Through the Workforce Strategies Initiative we evaluate and document a growing strategy among employment programs that takes an industry-specific or "sectoral" approach to developing the workforce. This approach differs from traditional employment training models in that programs seek to develop a keen understanding of business needs and community dynamics, identify a set of industry-specific job opportunities, create tailored services for their predominately low-income constituency, and more effectively prepare workers to succeed in the workplace. WSI succeeded EOP’s Sectoral Employment Development Learning Project, which helped demonstrate the potential of this approach.
| Highlights from: WSI |
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WSI will manage a new demonstration project, Courses to Employment: Sectoral Approaches to Community College-Nonprofit Partnerships, set to launch in 2008. This Mott Foundation-funded project will illuminate the role these partnerships play in addressing the special supports low-income adults need while they work and learn, and subsequently make employment advances. Learn more.
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Our current emphasis is on broadening use of the strategy across various institutional, geographic and industrial settings and to develop tools to support effective practice. With that in mind we recently produced a toolkit to help program leaders better capture the value of their services for employers.
WSI’s current work focuses on:
- Sector Skills Academy
- Methods to Assess the Business Value of Workforce Services
- National Association of Manufacturers’ Sectoral Employment Demonstration
Contact Maureen Conway, WSI Director, maureen.conway@aspeninstitute.org for more information.
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The Community-Based Forestry Demonstration Program was part of EOP until its conclusion in Fall 2005. Learn more about this project, which focused on ways to build vibrant local economies while protecting and enhancing the surrounding forest ecosystem.
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