MDC works to develop the South's philanthropic assets by focusing those assets on reducing poverty and promoting social equity, as well as helping communities develop their own assets. In developing philanthropic resources and serving philanthropies, MDC:
Programs
Work Supports Initiative
- is a national outreach effort to connect low- and moderate-income Americans with tax credits, public benefits, and student financial aid using a Web-based service called The Benefit Bank .
MDC is founder and managing partner of the Work Supports Initiative
(WSI). The supports provided through the WSI are proven to increase employment,
education levels, and welfare-to-work success ratios--and reduce
poverty, hunger, homelessness, and recidivism. Supports such as the
Earned Income Tax Credit boost local economies as recipients spend
mostly federal dollars to buy goods and services. More than $54 billion in work supports are unclaimed every year by
eligible Americans who don't apply. WSI builds on the success of
outreach using The Benefit Bank in Arkansas, Florida, Kansas,
Mississippi, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In Ohio, the effort
has grown to include over 1,200 Benefit Bank sites sponsored by
faith-based and community organizations and over 5,300 counselors in 87
of Ohio's 88 counties, who have served more than 150,000 Ohioans by helping them submit applications and claim
over $262 million in work supports since 2006. WSI is designed to replicate and expand the Ohio model in
other states by recruiting and coaching ''State Affiliates,'' which in
turn recruit local organizations to sponsor Benefit Bank sites and
train volunteers and staff from those groups to serve as counselors.
Project Director: Ralph Gildehaus
EITC Carolinas
- is a statewide resource network to help communities assist low- and
moderate-income working families during the tax season to reclaim and
keep their earnings. Membership in the network is free, and it provides
access to free resources, training, and promotional materials. EITC
Carolinas has its own Web site at www.eitc-carolinas.org.
Eligible taxpayers in North Carolina lose between $93 million and
$176 million of their own money each year because they do not claim
federal taxes due back to them through the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Some working families lose even more money because they pay high fees
for tax preparation services and short-term, high-interest, refund
anticipation loans. At a time when so many of North Carolina's working
families are struggling to make ends meet, no one can afford to leave
this money on the table. EITC Carolinas
was created to help these families, and in helping them, to help their
communities and the state. Test your tax and poverty IQ with the EITC Quiz. See a PowerPoint overview of EITC Carolinas.
Project Director: Lucy Gorham
FEMA Emergency Preparedness Demonstration Program
- is a program to better prepare disadvantaged groups for future disaster events.
A joint initiative of MDC and the Center for Urban and Regional
Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the
demonstration program is supported by a $1.5 million grant from the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to help disadvantaged
communities in six states and the District of Columbia prepare for
disasters. MDC is the lead partner for the two-year program, which
will alert residents to the hazards of natural, technological, and
manmade disasters and communicate what they can do to be better
prepared.
The program was carried out in Delaware, Maryland,
North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington,
D.C., all of which received major presidential disaster declarations as
a result of damages inflicted by Hurricane Isabel in 2003. The
devastation and displacement wreaked by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita add
urgency to this project.
The project received an additional $500,000 to extend its work into areas affected by Hurricane Katrina. This part of the project focused on the Asian immigrant community in South Mobile County, Alabama, whose seafood businesses were devastatingly affected by flooding from Katrina.
Project Director: John Cooper
Rural People, Rural Policy
- is a program to strengthen the voice of rural Americans in influencing policy at the regional and national levels.
Funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Rural People, Rural Policy
energizes and equips organizations and networks to shape policy that
improves the lives of rural people and the vitality of rural
communities. Rural People, Rural Policy is a multi-year national
initiative based on the premise that rural America has abundant assets
and that the brightest potential for rural America emerges when a
critical mass of rural people are stronger, more organized policy
actors. Rural People, Rural Policy builds and strengthens skilled
networks and organizations to advocate and act in the rural policy
arena. MDC is part of the management team for this program, along with
several other organizations.
Project Director: David DodsonStrategic Philanthropy
Strategic Network for Community Philanthropy
- is a Ford Foundation initiative to develop resources and community
capacity, particularly in the American South, to promote social and
racial equality. MDC is managing partner for the initiative.
While the South has made progress in overcoming the challenges of
racial injustice, there is still work to be done in developing the
healthy civic culture that true equity requires. The Ford Foundation's
initiative, the Strategic Network for Community Philanthropy, aims to
develop a healthy civic culture in the region's communities through a
dual approach: by increasing the pool of philanthropic assets in the
American South to build equitable communities and to address the racial
divide; and by equipping Southern philanthropies to work with business,
government, and the nonprofit sector to promote racial and social
equality in the region. MDC is supporting local, regional, and national
nonprofit organizations engaged in this initiative through a peer
learning network, resource development, and technical assistance.
As part of the initiative, MDC and the Aspen Institute?s
Roundtable for Community Change co-hosted a convening in October 2009 that
explored the ways that place-based philanthropies in the South can advance
civic equity. Conference participants examined two case studies of foundations
that are already working in their communities to reframe the civic agenda and
assessed options for moving attention to equity from the margins of community
philanthropy to the mainstream.
Project Director: David Dodson
Danville Regional Foundation
- was established in July 2005 to invest and manage assets of $220 million from the sale of the local hospital, the Danville Regional Medical Center. The foundation looks for strategic ways to deploy its philanthropic dollars.
MDC is taking the Foundation through a community assessment process that examines economic development prospects for the area as well as education, workforce, and health outcomes so that the Foundation can be strategic in its work in the region. The Foundation has a Web site and hired Karl Stauber as its President and CEO.
Project Directors: David Dodson and Joan Lipsitz
- is a community development initiative to promote change that will benefit children, families, and neighborhoods.
The Jacksonville (FL) Community Foundation, with funding from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, is managing a community development initiative to effect community-wide, systemic change on behalf of children, families, and neighborhoods. Goals include leveraging additional investments; increasing the resources and strategies for promoting positive life outcomes for all children and families; and developing the capacity of local nonprofits to assess their work and collaborate on change efforts. MDC is providing strategic technical assistance and documenting the Community Building Fund's experiences.
Project Director: David Dodson
Past Projects
Learning from Constructive Failures
- is a project, supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, to learn
from mistakes made in the field of community economic development.
The objective of this project is to identify the lessons learned
from mistakes made in the design and implementation of economic
development initiatives so that nonprofits can boost their capacity to
manage complex community economic development efforts. The project will
compile papers that identify mistakes and constructive failures and
will present results and discuss implications in a conference of
nonprofits and other interested parties.
Project Director: Colin Austin