EMPath’s Economic Mobility Exchange™ is upending the status quo in human services for everyone involved. Through this global learning community, we offer trainings and share our research-backed method for helping people living in poverty climb the economic ladder. Exchange members share their lessons learned and what it takes to adapt best practices locally. Together, we are revolutionizing the way the social safety net works when we put people’s potential for positive change at the center — and then take the results to scale.

The United Way of Bartholomew County (UWBC) in Columbus, Indiana is one such member. UWBC works with local partner agencies to maximize opportunities for individuals and families living in the county. Their goal, through collaborative work with local agencies, is to support the self-sufficiency of their local community through holistic economic mobility coaching and a robust network of support.

Drawn to the brain science-informed approach to self-sufficiency and coaching, UWBC joined the Exchange in late 2017 to explore how EMPath’s coaching model, Mobility Mentoring®, could support the organization’s goals of increasing economic mobility in the communities they serve.

UWBC works with local community partners to offer empowering services like economic mobility counseling, employment opportunities, education resources, child care, and more. UWBC leads a diverse collaborative of eight local partner agencies who provide a breadth of services. UWBC serves as the connector, linking community residents to partner agencies based on need.

UWBC joined EMPath’s leaning network after analyzing community-wide data and discovering that over a third of their local population was not financially self-sufficient. Feeling that this was unacceptable given the amount of local resources available, UWBC convened a group of cross-sector individuals to look at the issue and collaborate on a solution. The group identified the need for a program focused on boosting economic mobility. Their search for best practices in building self-sufficiency led them to EMPath.

Flash forward to today: UWBC is fully implementing the model and has seen great success. 500 program participants have engaged with the program’s 22 coaches. 62% of participants increased their incomes in the first year of coaching, and 13% are now 200% over the federal poverty level.

The impacts of the pandemic have proven the program’s effectiveness even more. “Those in the community who had not been part of the program had considerably more devastating struggles when COVID hit compared to those who had been actively working with a coach,” says Cheri Stone, Community Impact Director at UWBC.

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Interested in joining our network? Want to learn more? Contact us today!