GreenLight Fund's data-based investment moves the needle on poverty

Jun. xviii, 2020

Omar Woodard says it shouldn't surprise anyone that he works in philanthropy.

Growing upward in N Philadelphia, he was a direct casher of the largesse of Stephen Girard: He spent eleven years at and graduated from Girard College, which was founded nearly 170 years ago in i of the greatest acts of American philanthropy.

"Stephen Girard was really the Warren Buffett, the Jeff Bezos, of his fourth dimension," Woodard says, acknowledging that Girard personally lent the U.Due south. government money to fight the war of 1812. When he died, he left a pregnant portion of his money to the City of Philadelphia to launch a schoolhouse for low-income white boys; it desegregated in 1968, which opened to doors for Woodard's eventual enrollment.

"When you're in a school like that growing up in North Philly, you lot realize the benefits that accrue to individuals who are beneficiaries of philanthropy," Woodard says. "It was considering of philanthropy and a man who lived in the 1800s that I was able to go a fantastic education," ane that ultimately positioned him to earn scholarships that covered 90 percent of his undergraduate career and a graduate fellowship that covered his master'due south degree.

"Philanthropy has actually powered the style for me, and been crucial to the personal and professional success I have had," he says.

Then, yes, information technology is fitting that Woodard is now the executive director of GreenLight Fund'south Philadelphia site. GreenLight Fund was founded 15 years agone in Boston and now has outposts in nine U.S. cities. It works with residents in high-poverty communities to identify their needs, find the best solutions to their needs from around the country, and bring it to their communities for the long-term.

Woodard's goal is to make a true dent in eliminating poverty here, something other programs take not been able to effectively do. Different many of the countless other poverty-relief organizations in the city, GreenLight's innovation lies in listening to the needs of the community, and then bringing together stakeholders from the public and private sector to import and scale programs with data-backed success.

"The community itself identifies a demand, and then GreenLight brings together public and private capital to solve that claiming," Woodard says.

A gift for pushing government to act

If his name rings a bell, it could be because, yes, he's the same Omar Woodard who planned to run against Darrell Clarke for City Council last twelvemonth, only to driblet out when he didn't acquire the necessary number of valid signatures to meet the eligibility requirements.

"Authorities really is the all-time vehicle to scale innovation and social change, particularly at the calibration of this problem," he says, acknowledging that that'due south what initially drew him to want to run for Council. Just Quango's loss—Woodard has no plans to run once more—is the city's gain, as Woodard is said past those who work with him to be peculiarly gifted at pushing authorities to human activity.

When working with government, he applies the basic principles of any successful negotiation. "There are ii things that I focus on with GreenLight in terms of how to become authorities to calibration innovation. The first is to place the business challenge facing government."

Every government, like whatever other business organization, has constrained resources, which drive their prioritization. "And then when I'm thinking about partnering with regime, the question is what's their hurting point? What's the problem they're trying to solve? Then the 2d part is how can I work closely with their constituents so that their constituents are pushing the importance of moving forrard."

"We're not moving forrard an calendar that's ours or special interest groups'," he says. "We're amplifying the interest of the constituents that government officials really care most about."

For case, in 2015, the 6-year graduation rate at Community College of Philadelphia (CCP), a public institution, was 17.5 percent, co-ordinate to The Pew Charitable Trusts. "CCP needed to advance persistence and graduation outcomes, especially for first-time students with depression incomes, to create more graduates more chop-chop," Woodard says.

Recognizing this need, GreenLight Fund provided a $i.1 million investment to introduce and scale Unmarried Stop, a program that now supports more than 21,000 CCP students with "1-terminate" resources. This addressed an of import business claiming for CCP: The longer it takes to complete a degree, the greater the pressure on the arrangement.

"Addressing a student's cardinal barriers to completion, similar lack of wellness care, child care, and financial stability, is proven to boost persistence and caste completion," Woodard says. "Of class it is the right thing to do, but information technology also creates greater throughput for the community college system that increases both course capacity and the number of CCP graduates."

A recent evaluation of Single Stop plant improved outcomes in every category the plan aims to address: semester-to-semester persistence; pass vs. fail grades; and GPA.

Another example of Woodard'south success at catalyzing government action: Most recently, GreenLight Fund's $600,000 investment in Compass Working Capital and Clarifi scaled a highly evaluated asset-building solution for residents of the Philadelphia Housing Authority.

Before GreenLight's investment in 2018, at that place were 100 households in the federally-funded Family Self-Sufficiency Plan. In 2021, Woodard says, more than than 1,000 households will participate in the plan, which captures increased rental payments, helps participants divert them into savings accounts and coaches them on saving to purchase a business firm.

"These systems-alter investments can shift taxpayer money and regime efforts to programs with proven evidence of impact, and engage residents in loftier-poverty areas on solutions to the challenges they face up in their neighborhoods," Woodard says.

By partnering with communities, GreenLight roots its arguments with the brownie and the know-how of the constituents that political actors care most almost. "Nosotros're not moving forward an calendar that'due south ours or special interest groups'," he says. "We're amplifying the interest of the constituents that authorities officials actually care most near."

"We will stay until the task is done"

The pandemic has only highlighted further the importance and power of approaches like GreenLight's. "Covid doesn't mean we pivot," Woodard says. "Information technology means we double downwards and practise exactly what we've been doing."

They have brought five empirically successful programs here that address public housing, public education, public workforce, public health, and the corrections system—the pillars that largely underlie systemic poverty, and are deeply tied to institutional racism. None are airplane pilot programs. "We desire to bring a programme to Philadelphia that will stay until the job is washed, and that has a revenue model that allows information technology to do so," Woodard says.

Annually, their programs touch the lives of 6,700 households and individuals.

Since 2013, GreenLight Philadelphia has made $4.2 million in investments, which have leveraged $fourteen million in public and private philanthropic capital. Each of the models they bring here requires a partnership with a local entity or institution, similar Philadelphia Housing Authority or the Department of Corrections.

"We're focused on scaling innovation in those systems in ways that dramatically accelerate economic mobility in the city," Woodard says.

Included in the portfolio is Centre for Employment Opportunities, which offers comprehensive employment services to men and women with recent criminal convictions. At that place's ParentChild+ (formerly Parent Kid Dwelling Plan), which provides under-resourced families with the skills and tools to aid their children thrive.

Year Upwards's mission is to close the opportunity separate, by empowering urban young adults with experience and support to reach their potential through professional careers and higher education. There's the above-mentioned Single Stop, which helps low-income individuals persist through college and achieve financial cocky-sufficiency and economic mobility by providing access to benefits and services. And that newest improver to their portfolio, Compass Working Capital, which, once more, is working with PHA residents to help them salvage for and invest in their hereafter.

"Covid doesn't hateful we pivot," Woodard says. "It means we double down and practise exactly what we've been doing."

"The partnership between Compass and the PHA would not have happened if not for GreenLight," says Markita Morris-Louis, chief strategy officer at Compass Working Capital. "Both from the perspective of providing the initial source of funding that allowed u.s.a. to retrieve about how to calibration the piece of work at Philadelphia. But as well GreenLight, because of their process, their diligence, and their proper name recognition, helps united states attract additional support to the programme."

"They put their coin where their mouth is"

GreenLight does not operate through endowment spending: As a venture philanthropy organization, all of their investment is raised, just as it would exist in any venture capital fund. Some of Philly's most well-known investors, entrepreneurs, and leaders are supporters of GreenLight. In that location'southward Banking concern of America and TD Bank; Michael Rubin and Saj Cherian of Kynetic; Josh and Rena Kopelman.

Marc Singer, of Osage Venture Partners, and Katherine Rosqueta, of The Center for High Touch on Philanthropy, are GreenLight'south co-chairs.

"These folks are non but leaders in the region simply they put their money where their rima oris is and provide non only time only capital to assist our portfolio organizations succeed," Woodard says.

All of the organizations who've come here accept scaled, and will continue to practise so. And if, for example, GreenLight had twice the funding, it could double its portfolio and bring twice every bit many programs to the city.

"We've already seen promising outcomes for families in the area of credit edifice," says Morris-Louis. "PHA actually has a number of really strong programs, only we've heard from clients and residents who've been involved in a number of different programs that Compass' is the most transformative i they've experienced."

GreenLight does something else unique in Philly: It brings together unlike sectors to solve problems. Woodard points to the organization'due south advisory quango, which includes leaders from the schoolhouse commune, regime, nonprofits, and business. "They're all at the aforementioned table when ordinarily they're not," he says.

Real alter towards progress requires hearts and minds, and coin. But it as well requires leadership. And Woodard, partners say, has a atypical souvenir for that.

"Omar brings this amazing mix of experience and talents and skills from the perspective of someone with lived experience of poverty," Morris-Louis says. "Being a Black man in America, having his particular feel in philanthropy, and also just being such a critical and nuanced thinker well-nigh approaches to service-delivery, to scaling, to finding deep connection to the families and the communities that nosotros want to serve."

Woodard puts it only: "I only want to solve the problems that me and my family faced growing up, so hundreds of thousands of other families that look similar mine no longer experience the indignity of poverty and marginalization."

The Citizen is one of 20 news organizations producing Bankrupt in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the urban center's push button towards economical justice. Follow the projection on Twitter @BrokeInPhilly.

Photograph courtesy GreenLight Fund

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/greenlight-fund-philadelphia/