The Tsuha Foundation’s annual Breaking the Cycle Award celebrates the organization that has best used its funding to interrupt the cycle of poverty.

Foundation representatives noted: “Circles USA works at both a grassroots and systems level to achieve measurable results toward poverty elimination. The Tsuha Foundation admires how Circles USA exemplifies its values of respect, accountability, and engagement to create lasting change for the people and communities affected by poverty.”

Circles USA received this surprise award at the conclusion of the 2019 Leadership Conference in Greenville, SC. Here’s our team, pictured from left to right: Scott Miller, Chris Tinney, Jamie Haft, Kamatara Johnson, Gena Atcher, and Courtney Cowan. Congratulations to the entire network for creating a lasting impact by consciously building thriving communities!

This summer, Jamie Haft was appointed Executive Director to manage the strategic planning and operational functions of the organization. Scott Miller is continuing as Founder, advancing key partnerships and research. With a model of collaborative leadership, added capacity will expand our growing network of 70-plus locations reducing poverty. Here’s our Q&A with Jamie, who served as our Deputy Director for the last year.

What’s your personal connection to this work?

I vividly remember the first time I witnessed global poverty. I was 20 years old and had won a college scholarship to study in India. When I arrived in Mumbai, I saw a station so crowded that people were riding on the outside of the train cars, gripping for their lives. Our guide explained how workers needing money must reach their city jobs at the expense of their safety. I felt sick sensing the desperation of their circumstances, and so I wanted to dedicate myself to addressing the suffering caused by poverty.

Why was I born into a life with access to education, among other freedoms, while others are struggling to get by? Growing up, my family often discussed inequality. My grandfather, Harry Haft, was violently persecuted during the Holocaust before emigrating to the United States. In my Jewish culture, there is an imperative to repair the world, called tikkun olam. After college, I became a community organizer and worked in communities across the United States, which eventually led me to Circles.

What’s your favorite aspect of Circles?

The relationship between Circle Leaders and Allies is so important. During a difficult time in my own life, I could not imagine a way forward, but I was fortunate to have allies who listened to me and encouraged me to find new strength. That’s why I’m passionate about experiences that expand our imagination about what’s possible for our lives. I appreciate that the goal in Circles is to create heart-felt relationships and personal growth for all involved.

Plus, community leaders are empowered through Circles to tackle the systemic issues that prevent people from getting out of poverty. They are pursuing solutions to the chronic problems of affordable housing, childcare, transportation, healthcare, financial literacy, the cliff effect, and quality jobs. Through Circles, people expand imagination about what’s possible for their community’s future.

How will you approach the job of Executive Director?

I’ve been influenced from studying the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and especially Ella Baker’s philosophy: humbly listen to those doing the work and support them into positions of power. In that spirit, my priority is to listen closely to Circles USA’s longtime members and partners and see what our office can do next to support them. My role is inviting dialogue, bringing what’s heard into a shared vision, and directing operations to meet our collective goals.

Our Chapters have been the heart of this organization for 20 years, and we will soon launch new multimedia tools and training programs. In the coming year, I’ll focus on enabling Chapters to become Regional Hubs. Additionally, I’ll continue developing our pilot Poverty Reduction Lab initiative, which is already leading systemic change in three states.

What has surprised you about Circles USA?

I was thrilled to discover Circles USA’s attention to changing the narrative about poverty. My bachelor’s degree is in theater and my master’s degree is in public relations, so I want to draw on this experience to gain a national commitment for ending poverty. As Founder, Scott Miller’s books and methods have called for the eradication of poverty so that everyone has enough money, meaning, and friends for a sustainable future. I’m excited to collaborate with a new generation of leaders to expand this call with as much urgency and creativity as possible. To do so, I’m developing a communications campaign with leaders from Circles and our partners. We will create multimedia publications about how solving poverty also solves problems with the economy, health, justice, and the environment. We will offer our success stories with practical strategies for reducing poverty rates across North America.

What are some of your ideas for Circles USA’s future?

Most important to me is supporting leadership throughout our network. For Circles USA to adequately build an inclusive community for ending poverty, I believe the organization must reflect this country’s cultural diversity, with attention to ethnicity, gender, age, geography, disability, and sexual orientation. The Haas Institute’s framework of Othering and Belonging is a great resource. As an activist for LGBTQ+ rights, I am acutely aware of the need to provide safety, visibility, and economic opportunity to those who have been marginalized in our society.

I’m proud of how we incorporated these values into the recent development of our new multimedia training materials for Circle Leaders and Allies. Because our 2018 Impact Report revealed that 79% of Circle Leaders identify as female, we added new content about gender equity. We also added new content on structural racism and white privilege in support of race equity.

Long term, I want Circles USA to more intentionally address issues facing women, survivors of domestic and sexual violence, people of color, indigenous, and LGBTQ+ communities. Let’s have Circle Chapters and Poverty Reduction Labs created with, by, and for these communities. We’re currently establishing relationships with new partners who are committed to social justice. Our upcoming Leadership Conference – October 14-17 in Greenville, SC – will feature some of these organizations. I’m looking forward to meeting you there!

To share your aspirations for the organization’s future and to get involved, contact jamie@circlesusa.org.

The European roots of the United States come from nations that had significant disparity between a small ruling class and the masses, where poverty was typical. Severing political connections to Great Britain, the 1776 Declaration of Independence aspired for equality, although the systems that were created replicated many old patterns. European settlers imagined a boundless wilderness to tame in America and created disparity with indigenous populations. The Industrial Revolution of the mid-1800s followed patterns established by military organizations originally meant to serve the interests of kings and queens. Schools were built to serve agriculture and new industrial enterprises. Today, these systems still resemble early efforts to create a conforming labor pool.

While the Declaration of Independence aspired for everyone to have “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” the United States has not accomplished the political changes necessary to realize equality. Slavery was not abolished until 1865. Black males achieved the right to vote only in 1870, women the right to vote in 1920, and it took until 1964 to ban segregation in public places and employment discrimination based on race. At present, the United States has one of the world’s highest rates of incarceration. The culture of racism continues to negatively influence who can move out of poverty. White males have approximately a 300-year head start in getting ahead financially. To use a baseball metaphor, if one starts on third base, did they actually hit that triple and deserve all the entitlement associated with the feat?

The American Dream was established on an expectation that hard work could lead to social mobility. With a mantra of “bigger is better,” business leaders have argued against putting any limit on what people might earn, with fear that it will stunt economic growth domestically and push entrepreneurs abroad. Meanwhile, the world’s population has grown approximately 10 times in the past three centuries. Having seven billion people share the Earth challenges the idea of unlimited growth: How can our biosystems be sustained while rewarding unlimited growth and the consumption of the natural world?

The economy that was first installed in the United States did not produce a middle class. The growth of a middle class came from the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862, which made land available for farms and schools; the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that made banking secure for citizens in 1933; the establishment of the Federal Housing Administration in 1934 that made home buying financially safe; the labor policies of the mid-1930s and the Social Security Act of 1935 that provided an array of new benefits and protections to workers; the 1944 GI bill that gave grants to millions of veterans to attend college; and the Pell Grants of 1965 that made it possible for even more people to attend college. Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, I directly benefited from these policies that produced a strong middle class. In the 1980s, principles of free market enterprise influenced economic development. Financial crises in the 2000s led to a major recession. In recent decades, many policymakers have become concerned about a middle class that is shrinking. To reduce poverty rates, transformational leaders can advocate for policies that serve the majority of Americans.

Reducing Poverty Rates

War on Poverty legislation was introduced in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, creating programs that became our modern-day social safety net. In 1963-64, a Social Security administrator named Mollie Orshansky devised a poverty rate based on a formula using the cost of a subsistent food budget. Income roughly three times the cost of that food budget was considered to be above the poverty line. The official poverty rates have remained an important longitudinal barometer.

However, unequal inflation rates for necessities such as healthcare and housing have caused census analysts to create updated calculations known as the Supplemental Poverty Measure and Alternative Poverty Measure. Using these more accurate calculations, researchers at Columbia University calculated these new poverty rates from 1967 to 2012 and compared them to the official poverty rates. While the official poverty rate was stable from 12% to 15%, the updated measures showed that the poverty rate was 25.6% prior to 1967 and has dropped to 16% today.

Furthermore, researchers compared the updated poverty measures for a five-year time period (2007-2012) with and without government safety-net programs such as U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); and others. Without government programs, poverty rates would have increased 5.1%, but with those programs, poverty rates rose only 1.3%. (For more detailed information, please see the 2016 report by the Office of Human Services Policy, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, titled Poverty in the United States: 50-Year Trends and Safety Net Impacts.) While the updated measures are more accurate indications, all metrics reveal information about how many people are financially suffering.

To inspire a community-wide intention to reduce poverty, Circles USA emphasizes getting children out of poverty as a focus of necessary system changes. Instead of saying, “Let’s get all the children out of poverty right away,” we recommend the goal of supporting 10% of the children out of poverty as a starting place to provoke a tipping point that over time could more quickly help the other 90% out of poverty. Plus, it’s easier for people to withhold judgments about poverty when focused on the innocence of children.

The content for this Blog Series is drawn from the Poverty Reduction Lab program, a collaboration with CQIU. Review the entire series on our Blog. Stay tuned for more about:

• Dismantling the poverty management system,
• Leading your community through the four stages of change, and
• Creating a pathway to end poverty.

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Warm regards,

Scott. C. Miller, Founder and CEO, Circles USA