Resources

Earn It, Keep It, Grow It Resources

On this page you will find resources related to RuFES outcomes. New and updated resources will be added to this page regularly, so please check back!

Earn It Resources

• Make Workers Ready
• Make Work Work
• Make Work Pay

Keep It Resources

• Count Every Dollar
• Make Every Dollar Count

Grow It Resources

• Build Family Prospects
• Build Community Prospects

Quilt It Resources

Resources that bring, or “quilt”, Earn It, Keep It and Grow It strategies and thinking together.

Earn It Resources

Make Workers Ready: Preparing for First-Time Employment

• Real Stories.  Read, T.  A PhD in Life: Cec Ortiz’s Journey from Low-Wage Worker to City Leader (2003). Annie E. Casey Foundation.  Story of Cec Ortiz—a fifty-two year old single parent—who goes back to school and becomes involved with the Family Economic Success Guidance Group, giving advice on workforce strategy development.
• Real Stories.  Hunt, K.  Meet the People Who Live in Making Connections Neighborhoods—Behrouz Pardakhtim: ESL and Jobs (2000).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  The story of Iranian-born Behrouz Pardakhtim and his struggle to learn English and find employment in Seattle, Washington.

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Make Work Work: Landing and Keeping a Job

• Strengthening Rural Families.  Affordable Car Ownership Programs: Transporting Families Toward Financial Stability and Success (2006).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  A report looking at innovative program helping rural low-income families acquire affordable reliable transportation as a strategy to stabilize or improve their employment situation.
• Carsey Institute Policy Brief #3.  Smith, K.  Rural Families Choose Home-Based Child Care for their Preschool-Aged Children (2006).  Annie E. Casey Foundation, Carsey Institute, W.K. Kellogg Foundation.  Relative child care remains a favorable option for many low-income rural and urban working families. However, unlike their urban counterparts, research indicates that rural families are often able to use family, friend, and neighbor care for free. This brief reports on the usage of family, friend, and family care within rural America.
• Real Stories.  Kim Jones: Meet the People Who Live in Making Connections Neighborhoods (2006).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  The story of an Indianapolic woman who runs a childcare center in her home and leads a SmartStart network of childcare providers who learn about early childhood development.
• AdvoCasey.  Who’s Taking Care?  The Staffing Crisis in Children and Family Services (Spring 2004, Vol. 6, No. 1).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  This issue explores the workforce crisis in the children and family service systems nationwide.  Areas covered in this report include staffing challenges facing early child care and foster care, juvenile justice, youth development, and welfare systems.
• Investing in the Child-Care Industry: An Economic Development Strategy for Kansas – Executive Summary (March 2003)  Kansas Action for Children; Mid-America Regional Council.  This summary reports on the reality that many employers cannot afford wages that are high enough to cover the cost of child care.  It discusses how public subsidies help these employers recruit and retain workers
• Race Matters.  Unequal Opportunities for Rural Family Economic Success (2006).  Annie. E. Casey Foundation.  This fact sheet provides a quick resource for analysis and strategies related to issues of inequity surrounding rural economic success.
• Casey Connects: Summer 2005.  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  This issue contains: KIDS COUNT Message Highlights Barriers to Employment, and Insites: Programs Open Doors to Employment While Alleviating Obstacles – a look at the employment difficulties faced by families living on the border in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California and how it effects their children.
• Rural Kids Count!  Sharing the Stories and Statistics from Oklahoma and Arkansas (2004).  Annie E. Casey Foundation; Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy; Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.  This report highlights the needs of rural families in poverty in Oklahoma and Arkansas, creates a deeper understanding of the issues that are barriers to self-sufficiency and increases the attention to rural poor families in policy discussions.
• The Rural South: Listening to Families in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee (2004)Annie E. Casey Foundation; VOICES for Alabama’s Children; Kentucky Youth Advocates; Tennessee Commision on Children and Youth.  This report includes an examination of the connections between economic opportunity, social networks, services and supports, and education in the rural south.
• A Rural Road: Exploring Economic Opportunity, Social Networks, Services and Supports that Affect Rural Families (2001)  North Dakota KIDS COUNT, South Dakota KIDS COUNT Project, Annie E. Casey Foundation.  In this report, the Great Plains Rural Collaborative examines how issues related to economic opportunity, social networks, and services and supports affect rural children and their families in Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

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Make Work Pay: Advancing in Career and Income

• Expanding College and Job-Skills Opportunities in Western Maine (2008)  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  This profile discusses Franklin County, Maine a group of local leaders has brought community college classes and job skills to their area, giving residents new opportunities to qualify for good jobs and higher expectations for their futures.  It is also providing employers – and prospective employers – with a new supply of well-education workers.

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Keep It Resources

Count Every Dollar: Establishing Financial Health

• Pursuit of the Dream: Building Credit for Life (2010).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  A documentary on how to build a good credit score and avoid money traps that can drag down credit ratings.  A companion discussion guide is also available on the AECF website.
• Strengthening Rural Famlies.  Southern Bancorp and Southern Good Faith Fund: Tailoring Financial Services to Help Families Get Ahead (2006).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  A profile on Helena, Arkansas’ community foundation, Southern Good Faith Fund, and their partnership with Southern Bancorp to develop better banking practices for low-income families and combat payday lending organizations.
• Strengthening Rural Families.  P-3 Community Foundation: Building a Community Coalition to Advance Rural Family Economic Success (2006).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  A profile of the community foundation in Deland, Florida, which is serving struggling families in three Florida counties and has launched a family economic success initiative.  This initiative includes “Money Smart” financial education courses, EITC campaigns and the development of VITA sites to assist low-income working families meet their immediate and future economic needs.
• The High Cost of Being Poor: What it Takes for Low-Income Families to Get By and Get Ahead in Rural America (2004).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  This publication outlines the challenges low-income families in rural America face in meeting their daily needs affordably and accessing fair and appropriate financial services.
• 2003 KIDS COUNT Resource Kit: Countering the Costs of Being Poor (2003).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  A companion resource kit to the 2003 KIDS COUNT Data Book, which provides strategies and resources for helping low-income families overcome the high cost of being poor.

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Make Every Dollar Count: Protecting Income and Decreasing Costs

• Ten Years of the EITC Movement: Making Work Pay Then and Now (2011).  Holt, S.  Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Ford Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, George Gund Foundation, F.B. Heron Foundation, Heinz Endowments.  Report on why the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is an important credit for America’s working families because it encourages work and reduces poverty.
• New England Issue Brief.  How Far Would You Drive for Fresh Food?  How Some Rural New Hampshire Residents Navigate a Dismal Food Landscape (Winter 2011, No. 25).  Esala, J.  Carsey Institute.  This report examines how the lack of access to grocery stories with healthy and affordable food is a significant obstacle families face in rural New Hampshire.
• Strengthening Rural Families.  Avoiding the Money Trap (2006).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  A twenty-five minute video highlighting financial problems that often ensnare rural working families – including payday loans, high interest car loans, high debt, poor credit and more.  This documentary is designed to raise awareness of these issues among policymakers, service providers and advocates, as well as to be a resource for financial education.  See the video options on the AECF website.
• AdvoCasey Preprint Article.  Repealing the Hidden Tax (2002).  Mendel, D.  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  An article that focuses on strategies and programs in Tulsa that help low-income working families avoid expensive tax preparers, maximize their refunds and begin saving for the future.
• AdvoCasey.  Making Work Pay: Tax Credits for Low-Income Working Families (Spring 2002, Vol. 4, No. 1).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  This issue explores the growing value of earned income and child tax credits for low-income working families.
• AdvoCasey.  “Above Average” Welfare Reform (Summer 1999, Vol. 1, No. 2).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  Articles in this issue examine the welfare reform and tax relief for working-poor families.

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Grow It Resources

Build Family Prospects: Accumulating Family and Community Assets

• Strengthening Rural Families.  Mortar and Muscle:  Building Community and Assets Through Self-Help Housing (2005).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  This report looks at the experiences of families working to build their own homes through self-help housing projects across the United States.

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Build Community Prospects: Increasing the Value of Family Assets in the Community

• Strengthening Rural Families.  Diversifying the Economy to Create Jobs and Help Families Prosper in South Dakota (2008).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.    The story of the residents of Howard, South Dakota and the surrounding county who, when faced with the challenges of outmigration and a dying agricultural-based economy, looked to the economic engines of the future to create employment opportunities and increase income.  From developing wind energy-related businesses to organic beef production, Miner County has reinvigorated its citizens, revitalized its economy and recaptured some former community members.
• Reports on Rural America:  Demographic Trends in Rural and Small Town America (2006).  Johnson, K.  Carsey Institute, Annie E. Casey Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation.  This report examines the changing demographics of rural America and discusses how the migration of retirees and baby boomers into amenity-rich areas often displaces younger residents who leave in search of better economic opportunities.
• Casey Connects.  Applying Casey Lessions to Rural Poverty (Winter 2005, Issue 19).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  This issue focuses on applying Casey lessons to rural poverty and using deposits to invest in community well-being.

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Quilt It Resources

Earn It, Keep It, and Grow It

• Strengthening Rural Families.  By the Numbers, Using Data to Drive Action on Behalf of Children and Families (2007).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  This practice brief highlights how data collection and analysis can be incorporated into the Casey Foundation’s framework for rural family economic success: Earn It, Keep It, Grow It.  Specifically the brief portrays how data collection and analysis have underpinned decision-making efforts to improve the well-being of low-income working families in Minnesota.
• Strengthening Rural Families.  An Overview of Rural Family Economic Success: Earn It, Keep It, Grow It (2006).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  An introduction and overview of AECF’s E-K-G Program to help low-income parents increase their income, build assets and accumulate wealth in order to have strong, capable and economically successful families.
• Strengthening Rural Families.  RUBAN: Briding Economically Isolated Rural and Urban Communities (2004).  Annie E. Casey Foundation.  An Earn it, Keep it, Grow it look at state, federal and regional community development policy and practice assumptions regarding the similarities and dissimiliarities in the rural and urban condition and outline of systemic ways for stakeholders to shape and define coalitions based on fact, core values and shared, but broadly defined, vocabulary.
• Hand in Hand: Community Economic Development in Tupelo (1999). Vaughn Grisham and Rob Gurwitt. An invigorating story of how the citizenry of small town Tupelo and its hardscrabble-poor rural region bootstrapped an economic success in their corner of Mississippi.  Currently available on CSG’s website as a PDF for download.  You can also purchase hard copies of the book HERE.

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