LIFT (nonprofit)

LIFT Communities
Motto "We work to lift people out of poverty for good"
Founder Kirsten Lodal and Brian Kreiter
Founded at New Haven, Connecticut
Type nonprofit organization
Purpose advocacy
Headquarters Washington, D.C.
Region
 Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York City
Services anti-poverty initiatives
Membership
 100,000 served
Website www.liftcommunities.org
Formerly called
 National Student Partnerships (NSP)

LIFT is a national non-profit organization whose mission is to ”combat poverty and expand opportunity” for all people in the United States by "LIFTing them out of poverty for good". Every year, LIFT trains a corps of student volunteers to assist low-income individuals, known as Members, to secure housing, income, healthcare, education, and other necessities. LIFT has no eligibility requirements and provides free services. Yale University students Kirsten Lodal and Brian Kreiter founded LIFT in 1998. Currently, LIFT has offices in Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Washington DC (which also houses LIFT's national headquarters). Before 2009, LIFT was called National Student Partnerships (NSP).

History

Kirsten Lodal and Brian Krieter founded LIFT in the fall of 1998 while students at Yale University. Lodal and Kreiter originally conceived the idea to start LIFT after volunteering in various child services programs around New Haven, Connecticut. They were struck by the lack of services for the parents of the children in these programs. Lodal and Kreiter developed the idea of establishing a single center within their community where families could receive assistance from trained volunteers across a spectrum of social services. Initially, these services included finding employment, securing housing, obtaining public benefits, and making connections with other service agencies.

In their effort, Lodal and Kreiter consulted with community members and leaders from New Haven, Connecticut as well as policy experts in Washington DC. The goal of their model was to bypass the traditional shortcomings of episodic and thin volunteer service programs. LIFT established their first center in New Haven, CT and soon recruited student leaders on college campuses across the country to build these community service centers using the LIFT model within their communities.[1]

In 2004, Kirsten Lodal and Brian Kreiter received the Samuel S. Beard Award for Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards, for their work with LIFT.[2]

In 2015, Kirsten Lodal was selected to join the prestigious 2015 class of Aspen Institute Ascend Fellows. She was chosen based on her entrepreneurial leadership and her implementation of bold ideas that change the trajectory of low-income families' lives throughout the US.

In May 2015, LIFT was chosen as one of 12 organizations to receive funding from NBC's inaugural "Red Nose Day".

Approach

LIFT volunteers work side by side with Members individually to secure stable housing, to utilize public benefits and tax credits, and obtain referrals for services like childcare and healthcare. Simultaneously, LIFT trains volunteers to help low-income individuals while also preparing volunteers to explore the problems in their local communities related to poverty, race, and policy. As of 2012, LIFT Communities had worked with 50,000 low income individuals.[3]

LIFT focuses on five essential asset areas: basic necessities, employment/financial stability, housing, education/training, and healthcare. LIFT volunteers help Members holistically address their immediate and long-term needs while creating goals and making concrete steps towards achieving them. This focus allows LIFT Members to develop an internal “toolkit” in order to independently overcome current and future challenges. Specifically, volunteers concentrate on strengthening Members' goal setting and problem-solving skills, knowledge of community resources, self-confidence, and an ability to advocate for themselves.

References

  1. ↑ Fenton, Dominique (29 November 2010). "HuffPost's Greatest Person Of The Day: Kirsten Lodal, Combating Poverty With LIFT". Huffington Post.
  2. ↑ http://www.jeffersonawards.org/pastwinners/national
  3. ↑ Attoun, Marti; Levine, Beth (February 29, 2012). "The Kindness of Strangers: Helping the Homeless". Woman's Day. Retrieved March 30, 2015.
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