A Tradition of Transformative Action
By Steve Uram, National Director of Poverty Programs
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is composed of individuals who seek personal holiness through works of charity – in other words, we are called to action. When you think of advocacy, your mind may immediately move to our National Voice for the Poor Committee, legislative advocacy through Voter Voice, or to our new Washington DC office, led by National Director of Public Policy and Advocacy, Ingrid Delgado. These groups take action to influence policy and change the systems that trap people in poverty.
It should come as no surprise that our other National Poverty Program Committees are also all about action: our new Poverty Action Committee and our Homelessness Prevention Committee. Both committees meet monthly over video chat and are open sessions that Vincentians can listen to.
The Poverty Action Committee is charged with engaging more Councils and Conferences in systemic or transformational change. Valuable webinars are available to watch, like last fall’s webinars on “The Benefits Cliff” (Part 1, Part 2).
The Poverty Action Committee is focused on how to encourage Conferences and Councils to build and expand their systemic change programs. One way to inspire such change is through the Systemic Change Grant. This annual grant provides up to $20,000 a year for Councils or Conferences to create or expand a transformational program that will shift the conditions that hold poverty in place. The grant application asks Conferences and Councils to draw from encounters with their neighbors, survey the needs of their community, and build sustainable and replicable programs.
“I have reviewed systemic change grant applications for over four years and have seen the innovative programs presented by Conferences and Councils to address the barriers faced by our neighbors,” said Deb Zabloudil, Chair of the Poverty Action Committee. “This grant program allows conferences and councils the opportunity to pilot a new program or implement a more established program such as reentry, workforce development, or Getting Ahead, that are prevalent across the Vincentian Family network.”
The grant application, scoring rubric, and a recording of last week’s informational webinar can be found on our website. Applications are due July 11th.
The Homelessness Prevention Committee is charged with providing guidance and best practices in homelessness prevention and shelter diversion to Councils and Conferences. They are working with likeminded national homelessness organizations to create a series of training courses and toolkits for Vincentians, continuing our long-standing mission to prevent homelessness in our local communities.
Denise Fisher, Chair of the Homelessness Prevention Committee said of her committee, “Our goal is to help Vincentians become confident in their knowledge of the homelessness response system and potential interventions to help neighbors avoid the trauma of homelessness. By using best practices in program design, we hope to help councils and conferences become more intentional about who they are serving, more effective in the way they are serving, and more confident in their ability to communicate and advocate for homelessness prevention efforts in their community.”
“Each one of us plays a vital role in this beautiful network of charity. We as Vincentians know we need to work together to tackle issues of poverty: we cannot do it alone. We cannot feed the hungry, shelter the unsheltered or pay for all our neighbor’s utilities by ourselves: we gather up, go out two by two to do that work together,” said Bobby Kinkela, Chair of the Voice for the Poor Committee. “Countless small acts of service combine to make meaningful impact in the world.”
Advocacy and action are, by definition, transformative. Those actions will become part of your culture. That culture will become a tradition. That’s how systemic or transformational change takes place, one action step at a time. Ask yourself, do you regularly make advocacy and action a part of your meeting agenda? If not, consider how you might do that.
SVdP Poverty Programs consist of the Homelessness Prevention Committee, the Poverty Action Committee, the Voice for the Poor and the following shared interest groups: Reentry, Workforce Development, Housing, and Getting Ahead.
