Home | Contact Us

Pathways Past Poverty Committees

Where the Eight Approaches Came From: Communities across the nation have addressed poverty in several different ways. The eight different approaches were based on national research showing that the causes of poverty are multi-faceted and must be addressed in tandem to create community wide change. Supporting information:

• Thriving Communities- created by Study Circles www.studycircles.org
• Bridges out of Poverty, Strategies for Professionals and Communities- by Philip DeVol, Ruby Payne and Terle Dreussl Smith research and support

Once community input was garnered at the Mobilization to Impact Poverty meeting held on October 18th the approaches were finalized and recruitment for the committees began.

• Oversight
• Steering the community wide effort
• Overall coordination- keep this effort on track and that the process and outputs make sense
• Review PPP Committees, look for overlap and how they might partner
• Ensure the committees develop measurable goals
• Select and solidify PPP Committees
• Advocacy
• Strong representatives and educators for this effort
• Use your influence to make connections throughout the community
• Help to break down the ‘silos’ that currently exist and hinder cooperative efforts
• Support Effective Partnerships
• Recruitment! Ensure the right people and organizations are involved
• Supporting changes that may need to occur within established organizations and systems
• Supporting Implementation
• Be a resource for the committees as their needs arise
• Participate and take action
• Help to overcome obstacles we may face
• Assist with garnering resources
• Work to open doors

Introduction of Fundamental Principles- To complement the Vision, the Fundamental Principles were developed by the Steering Committee to help guide this initiative. These Principles are significant because they are the values underlying the changes we want to see in our community. They fall into the structure of this initiative like so:

1. Vision- where we’re going; our dream/aspiration for the community
2. Fundamental Principals- guide our work
3. Goals- measurable target to get us to our vision
4. Strategies- actions or tactics to make the goal possible

As this Approach Committees begins to develop their goals these principles should be used to better define and evaluate the scope and content of the proposed goals.

All Pathways Past Poverty goals must incorporate as many Fundamental Principles as possible with a minimum requirement of 5:

• Leads to systemic change
• Removes barriers
• Assumes long-term viability
• Encourages synergistic approaches
• Promotes respect and diversity
• Educates the community
• Promotes economic health
• Shows measurable change
• Empowers individuals
• Increases community ownership of the solution

To get involved, or for more information contact:
Mary Atchison (matchison@uwaylc.org)
Nicolle Gregg (ngregg@uwaylc.org)
Martin Carcasson (Martin.Carcasson@ColoState.EDU)