The five-year Northwest Project, a $1.2 million initiative funded by the Community Foundation of the Ozarks aimed at lifting people out of poverty with education and resources, released its Year Five Annual Report in April.

The Northwest Project influenced 464 lives in southwest Missouri through programming provided by Drew Lewis Foundation at the Fairbanks. 

The original $1.2 million was leveraged to secure an additional $850,000. This includes the Missouri Foundation for Health Healthy Homes Initiative grant of $205,000, an anonymous $255,000 grant to expand the RISE (Reaching Independence through Support and Education) program, local resource and mental health grants totaling $50,000, and CARES Act grants and local donations, such as Heart of America Beverage’s $340,000 donation between 2017 and 2021.

When consideration is given to in-kind donations from the partners — Drew Lewis Foundation, Missouri State University and Drury University — as well as community volunteers, legal services from Springfield Metropolitan Bar Association members, banking education, and other community resources, the grant total value grew to an estimated $6.5 million.

“The past five years have been a great learning experience that has shaped the new program RISE. Without losing the personal touch in our neighborhood, we hope to expand our programming across the country —teaching others how to implement RISE and develop human-intensive initiatives,” said Amy Blansit, CEO of the Drew Lewis Foundation and project director for RISE.

Curriculum

The year-long RISE curriculum consists of weekly group classes in financial literacy, health and wellness, parenting, and other key topics; individual case management (personal development); and financial coaching (with partners such as Multipli Credit Union). Participants enjoy a community dinner before classes begin, and child care is provided.

Upon graduation from the program, participants are paired with a community ally. Allies are community volunteers who volunteer to assist a RISE member in achieving their goals to move to self-sufficiency.

To assist participants with food security concerns, DLF partnered with Ozark Food Harvest, community volunteers and the National Guard to organize food distributions that helped deliver resources to 1,000 people each week, totaling a quarter-million pounds of food (valued at $822,500) since April 2020.

The program will continue into a sixth year thanks to donations from the Community Foundation of the Ozarks and other funders. Drew Lewis Foundation has approached foundations, businesses, and local area resource agencies to enable the program to continue to operate at full capacity. In addition to continuing to serve Zone 1 residents, the program will be expanding and replicating in additional neighborhoods, rural communities and state-side.

Success stories

Grant Beach Neighborhood Association Vice President Kathy Lutz and her husband Bruce are two Northwest Project success stories.

“I went from hopeless to beyond hopeful,” Kathy Lutz said. “I was initially a naysayer. I could not see what they could possibly do to help us. We had a car title loan and four payday loans.”

In 2014, Lutz had open-heart surgery and a month later was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The mounting medical bills prompted the Lutzes to take out a car-title loan, which carried a 155.13% interest rate. They borrowed $900 and paid $1,500 in interest.

Through The Northwest Project, they qualified for a debt-consolidation loan from CU Community Credit Union. Also, the Lutz family opened checking and saving accounts, and were later approved for a credit card.

Increased credit scores and household income

The NWP/RISE program has had significant success in assisting participants with increasing their credit scores, refinancing and reducing debt and making sustainable progress toward education and employment goals. The program’s objective was to impact the lives of 500 individuals. Although setbacks were experienced in year 5 due to COVID-19, the project was still able to impact 464 lives (123 households). Two new cohorts started, increasing the total lives impacted to 512. However, the data reported includes members who have two data cycles; therefore, the new members were not included in the report.

Seven households moved above the 200% Federal Poverty Guideline and 70% of active households moved above the 100% Federal Poverty Guideline. Monthly household income increased by an average of $568 per month ($6,821 annually) for all households. Participants who remained active in the program for 36 months had an average monthly income increase of $798 ($9,577 annually).

The average credit score for a participant increased 48 points, improving their bankability, access to low interest loans and even mental and health outcomes. Tracking credit scores is important to understand both financial health and physical health outcomes as credit scores are also predictive of health.

Within just six months of joining the RISE program, the average household income increased $477 per month. Considering 102 households have completed six months of RISE, the total annual increase in income at six-months is $583,848. At 36 months, the household income increased $798 per month for active participants.

The RISE retention rate of 62% was used to determine the annual ROI per 100 households at the three-year mark. The predicted annual increase in household income of 62 families equals $957,600. This value compared to the annual investment of $240,000 is an investment gain of $717,600.00 or an ROI of 299%.

Importance of social capital

The RISE programming built a scaffolding for the emergence of a social economy among participants and staff during the pandemic.

According to the report, participants who remained engaged in the program found themselves in good company as the public health crisis of 2020 unfolded. Especially during the difficult times attributed to COVID-19, participants shared resources for child care, health, banking, utilities and other essential services in the absence of public assistance.

Those interested in getting involved with the RISE program as a participant or a volunteer should contact DLF at 417-200-2223 or email info@drewlewis.org.