LIFTing Families From Generational Cycles of Poverty

Posted by Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity on July 6, 2021

Michelle Rhone-Collins, CEO of LIFT, describes the organization’s experience during the pandemic and her “skeptical optimism” that the country as a whole has learned more about how to help families find more opportunity and prosperity. LIFT is a 20-year-old national organization with nearly one thousand members and a mission to partner with parents and invest in them to break generational cycles of poverty. LIFT matches parents with trained coaches who support setting educational, financial, and employment goals and developing action plans to meet those goals. Rhone-Collins says that when the pandemic hit, families expressed the need for cash to help make ends meet, resulting in LIFT raising and distributing over $1 million. She believes the pandemic showed that bold action is possible and stresses the need to dig deeper to combat systemic disparities as the country begins to recover. “We need to center our focus on those who have been most marginalized, structurally and historically, and know starting there is going to benefit everyone,” Rhone-Collins says. “We need to constantly keep these lessons front of mind now, as we’re in this moment of ‘building back better.’”

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