Catholic Charities of San Jose

It started with a teacher bringing some students over from Santa Clara University to prepare taxes for low-income people and grew into a program managed by Catholic Charities of San Jose with 4 sites serving 595 clients and bringing back $617,000 in refunds the first year of its expansion.

Catholic Charities of San Jose is a large organization with a $15 million budget and staff of about 250 running diverse programs throughout the county. When they saw the taxpayer response to the students' work, they crafted a grant application and sent it to the Knight Foundation, which is interested in improving the economic security of low-income families. The foundation responded with a $900,000 grant spread over 5 years for free tax preparation services for low-income families in Vietnamese- and Spanish-speaking communities in San Jose and Gilroy.

Once it received the grant, Catholic Charities had to hire staff and get the program started from scratch. It sent program staff to the NCTC’s 2004 Fall Training in Chicago and received ongoing Technical Assistance from the coalition. Even with this late start to preparation, 100 volunteers were trained by the Stakeholders, Partnerships, Education and Ccmmunications  department of the IRS.



Most of the 60-70 active volunteers last season spoke either Spanish or Vietnamese as well as English. The majority of clients are Spanish-speaking, so Spanish-speaking preparers and volunteer translators were an important part of the program’s effectiveness. Volunteers came from the university, corporations and the community.

Libraba Hilario was participating in a state assistance program that offered volunteer opportunities. When she expressed interest in tax preparation, she was assigned to Catholic Charities. She was happy helping clients and participating in the staff group. When one of the initial program staff left mid-season, she became a “super-volunteer,” assisting with preparations in the office even after the season was over and clients still came in for help.

For tax preparation sites, the program enlisted a senior center, a Head Start center and a local Community Center. Each of the satellite sites was open for 2 hours in the evening on different days, and the main Catholic Charities office was open on 2 weekends.

For outreach, the program used flyers, presentations to community organizations and media releases. They succeeded in having a story run on Spanish-language TV and in a Spanish-language newspaper.

Because it was their first funded tax season, they invited all Catholic Charities staff to a pre-season “dry run” where they could have their taxes prepared, enabling the program to test its procedures and refine them before opening to the public.

In a survey at the end of the tax season, the majority of clients and volunteers expressed satisfaction. Many volunteers expressed high interest in doing it again. Clients noted that they increased their tax refunds.

Next year, Catholic Charities intends to use the same model. Observing that Saturday was a popular day, they may schedule site hours accordingly. It was also obvious that people prefer evening hours on weekdays. With time to plan over the summer, they intend to start recruitment and training of volunteers in October.

Arely Valeriano, one of the program staff, says the venture was successful and is keen to see it run again. “It was a great experience, being able to help clients. You can sense their gratitude and see a smile comes up.”