United Way of Greater Los Angeles
Serving one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States is no easy task. Luckily, the United Way of Greater Los Angeles has been working to serve the Los Angeles area for years, steadily increasing the amount of services it provides.
In 1998, the City of Los Angeles partnered with UCLA to produce a report around the viability of a living wage ordinance in the City of LA. In this report, they discovered that hundreds of millions of dollars were not being utilized because of the lack of awareness of the EITC. From this finding, the City of LA moved on to partner with the County of LA and United Way to form the Greater Los Angeles EITC Campaign Partnership, in hopes to better promote EITC. In December of 2007, United Way was asked to officially lead the Partnership. Under United Way’s lead, the Partnership was able to develop a strategy to better increase EITC awareness and access to free tax sites by specifically targeting areas that could grow the program in the future.
A volunteer at the United Way of Greater Los Angeles prepares a return for a client.
Today, the United Way directly supports 15% of the tax sites in Los Angeles County, serving 13,000 low-income clients. Of these clients, nearly 60% have a high school education or less and most are considered among the working poor. Because of the high need, the United Way continues to look to ways to expand their reach and effectiveness.
A new program the United Way offers is a website that identifies tax sites, regardless of whether they are affiliated with the United Way. “Just because we don’t fund you doesn’t mean you are not part of our partnership,” said Walen Ngo, Leadership Programs Officer at the United Way of Greater LA. Ngo added that the United Way indirectly supported programs that performed 39,864 returns, yielding $44.2 million in refunds.
Another program that Ngo is excited about is Ramp Up, which offers a product similar to Individual Development Account (IDA), without the restrictions that come with a traditional IDA. Ramp Up began as a pilot with 30 opened accounts. In 2010, the program opened more than 200 accounts and averaged just over $500 in savings after the 15-month program period. The number of bank visits, deposits, and retention rate are all better than those of the IDA program. It is also successful administratively: Ngo said that the cost of administering Ramp Up was about 1/10 that of the United Way’s traditional IDA program.
But while the United Way of Greater L.A. may be gaining momentum, it also faces momentous challenges in the coming fiscal year. The program did not receive any funding from Los Angeles County, previously a large supporter, because of budget issues. Without this major funding source, some of the programs that have made recent progress will be scaled back to their previous state. As Ngo puts it, “Without that funding, the partnership will go back to the way it was and all the momentum we worked for will be lost.”
Despite these challenges, the United Way remains steadfast in their resolve. Ngo said he finds encouragement from some of the volunteers that serve his program. “We have had a few volunteers that are actually VITA service recipients themselves. One particular VITA recipient/volunteer is a woman who happens to be mobility impaired and rides in a shared access van for long periods of time to be there to help others prepare their taxes. It’s really inspiring.”
Ngo also finds help in the form of other NCTC affiliates. By being an NCTC affiliate, Ngo finds it beneficial to learn from programs of different sizes and different areas of the country. With the budget crunch that many organizations are in, Ngo knows he will have to make more with less, and other organizations have lived through similar situations and can offer help. United Way employees take advantage of their affiliate status by participating in many of NCTC’s trainings. “A lot of what I’ve learned from the trainings and conferences I have been able to implement here in L.A.”
