“Circles is one of the best models for long-term poverty reduction I have ever encountered. It sets up a new dynamic that puts the families who want to become economically stable in the driver’s seat rather than being viewed as clients choosing predetermined options. All involved create a community conversation to reduce poverty regionally.”
— Lynette Fields (Executive Director of Poverty Solutions Group)
Circles USA Annual Impact Reports
®
“Welcome to our 2025 Impact Report, Pathways of Hope. This year, we reflect on a tumultuous year of collective breakthroughs, renewed spirit, and deepening of our most important personal and professional relationships. As always, we send deepest love and appreciations to the Circles USA national community of practice: the many staff, Allies and volunteers, champions, coaches, partners, and (of course!) Circle Leaders who have helped build community to end poverty for 25+ years and who have contributed to this year in particular. The outcomes and stories of lives transformed continue to inspire and create pathways of hope for a thriving future.”
— Kamatara
(Circles USA Executive Director)
Circles reports chapter results at individual and community levels. Participants steadily grow skills and income, decrease dependence on public assistance, and expand resources and support networks. At the community and national levels, Circles USA connects diverse peoples across class lines and ideology, changes attitudes about poverty, and contributes to policy change.
Circles USA collects participants’ survey data prior to the start of the initiative, after training, and then every six months during the initiative. Longitudinal data is collected at 24, 36, and 48 months.
2025 Impact Report
Case Studies
Denny, Justin, Brian Garvey, Lenie Nguyen, and Abia Sebaka. “Poverty Reduction and Determinants of Health.”
Journal of Poverty, January 13, 2024, 1–14.
Public health professional students at the University of Western Australia (UWA) Sebaka and Nguyen, along with UWA Associate Professor Denny, analyzed multiple years of Circles USA data and found significant income growth for participants. The UWA research team, along with Garvey (an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University), synthesized this data into a new resource for academic and independent sector workers in poverty alleviation.
Circles USA’s Cliff Effect Report for New Mexico First:
Policy Recommendations for Advocates, Leaders, and Stakeholders around the Cliff Effect
Circles USA has identified the cliff effect as the biggest barrier to families to getting out of poverty. The cliff effect occurs when working families lose public benefits faster than they can earn income to replace the lost resources. This report will examine the cliff effect felt by New Mexico families using three hypothetical cases. The cases are followed by recommendations for possible remediation to lessen the impact of the cliff effect. The data presented in this report is based upon the cliff effect estimating tool (CEPT) developed by Circles USA for New Mexico.
Office of Family Assistance Brief:
“Social Capital Initiatives
To Achieve Employment Goals”
In 2019, Circles USA was featured as an innovative strategy for TANF programs in a brief from the Administration For Children & Families’ Office of Family Assistance This brief was part of the Office of Family Assistance’s Emerging Practice Series, highlighting how TANF agencies and their partners are helping low-income individuals gain and sustain meaningful employment.
Cliff Effect Report Released in Michigan:
Policy Recommendations for Advocates, Leaders, and Stakeholders around the Cliff Effect
The report focuses on the Cliff Effect from Michigan’s Family Independence Program (FIP), Food Assistance Program (FAP), and Child Development and Care Program (CDC). Policy-level recommendations focus on bringing awareness to key stakeholders (public officials, community leaders, and Michigan employers) about the impact of the Cliff Effect on families seeking economic self-sufficiency, development of community assistance programs to help families avoid cliffs, and the development of employment training programs to help displaced workers in Michigan.
Patty Herndon
(Circles Davis County)
“I wake up to new possibilities every morning. “
– Patty, Circles Davis County, UT
When she walked into a Circles meeting in 2023, Patty “hadn’t been able to dream in years.” Here, Patty shares how Circles helped her recover the hope and support she needed to pull herself out of poverty and into financial, social, and emotional wellbeing.
Annual results show positive impact for local communities.
“In 2023, we strengthened our offerings and tools to support our chapters wherever they are in their journey, whether just launching, serving their first cohort of Circle Leaders, supporting multiple cohorts, or even expanding into multiple locations. So this has been a year of deepening and expanding Circles, not only in what we do as a successful anti-poverty initiative but in understanding who we are and what we really do. Circles USA is a teaching organization offering the model, the messaging, the coaching, and the support for the community of practice to do the work. 2023 has given us great clarity around what’s ours to do and what’s next for Circles USA.”
— Kamatara Johnson (Circles USA Executive Director)
Results are reported on the individual and community levels. Participants experience increased skills and income, decreased dependence on public assistance, and expanded resources and support networks. At the community level, Circles USA connects diverse people across class lines, changes attitudes about poverty, and contributes to policy change.
Circles USA collects survey data prior to the start of the initiative, after training, and then every six months during the initiative. Longitudinal data is collected at 24, 36, and 48 months.
Circles USA Leadership Team
Board of Directors
Board Chair and former
Executive Director of Wider Opportunities for Women
(Washington, DC)
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Board Member, Director & Founder of "Universal Soldiers" Men's Group, and Collegiate Basketball Coach
(Sacramento, CA)
Board Advisory Council
Circles USA proudly launched a new Advisory Council in July 2022. This group, tasked with amplifying diverse participants’ voices to guide the national board’s decisions, has met eight times to date, addressing topics ranging from “What does success look like at Circles?” to mental health; building community across chapters; and long-term chapter sustainability. The inaugural Advisory Council consists of 10 people from 10 different chapters—rural, urban, and suburban; new chapters and veteran ones. As this Council cohort winds down, we are considering the best timing for the next cohort. We look forward to bringing together more fresh perspectives to serve this important role in the Circles family.
Consulting and Support Team
Amy Brooks, Content Writer & Editor (Minneapolis, MN)
Lynette Fields, Expansion Advisor, Director of Poverty Solutions Group (Orlando, FL)
Alexis Jorgensen, Assistant (Lowell, AR)
Jenny Lipfert, Graphic Designer (Cornish, NH)
Natalie Oh, Marketing and Communications Consultant (Boston, MA)
Lise Porter, Mental Health Specialist (Glendale, CA)
Sarah Thornburg, Poverty Alleviation Systems Liaison (Ypsilanti, MI)
Dr. Evie Trevino, Quantitative Psychologist and Consultant (Bixby, OK)
Founder
Scott Miller, Founder (Albuquerque, NM)
Since the late 1970s, Scott has initiated numerous projects in North America to help families and communities more effectively address poverty. He has spent decades developing tools and best practices for helping low income people navigate their way out of poverty for good. Scott is the author of several books about poverty reduction. Scott retired from Circles USA in 2021.
Our Partners
The Circles model is unique because it easily integrates into existing support agencies. A Circles chapter can be launched by a range of organizations, including social service agencies, food banks, chambers of commerce, or houses of worship. The diverse nonprofit organizations, foundations, and corporations listed below have all been instrumental in launching and/or supporting Circles chapters across the country!
“Our group spoke to Circles USA personnel, leaders of Circles affiliates, and representatives of other kinds of self-sufficiency and community-building programs. The decision to choose the Circles model came down to this: Circles is an established program with a proven track record of success.”
Sarah Thornburg, former executive director
of Friends In Deed (Ypsilanti, MI)
The Big View:
Leading Systemic Change from Within
The Big View represents the broad, transformative nature of Circles USA’s approach to ending poverty. While many initiatives focus solely on either serving individuals or advancing policy reform, we recognize that radical poverty alleviation (that is, “getting at root causes” of economic instability) requires both personal initiative and widespread systemic change. This strategy, combined with our commitment to centering the agency and leadership of those closest to the challenge—our Circle Leaders—drives the change process that our chapters and national network need for long-term poverty eradication.
Our Dual Approach to Ending Poverty
At Circles, we have two primary goals: to help families get out of poverty and to remove the barriers that keep people in poverty. The Big View is the wing of Circles that prioritizes our systems change work to remove those barriers. Research consistently shows that poverty alleviation efforts are most effective when led by those with lived experience of economic challenges. We are committed to supporting and resourcing Circle Leaders as they drive systemic change, advancing poverty eradication goals on the local, regional, and national levels.
What is the Big View Policy Platform?
Originally authored by board member Joan Kuriansky, our policy platform is built to address the challenges faced by low-income, working individuals and families who are earning just enough to disqualify them from many public benefits yet far too little to meet their basic needs. People experiencing poverty are also least likely to engage in the democratic process and most likely to be marginalized by systemic oppression.
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Increasing Economic Stability
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Smoothing Benefit Cliffs
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Building Social Capital
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Increasing Health, Wellness, and Family Supports
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Supporting Education and Workforce Development
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Elevating Equity and Democracy
These families are navigating a precarious financial landscape in an uncoordinated and non-responsive system that discounts their voice and value; however, their success is critical to breaking the cycle of poverty in our communities.
Our approach blends individual empowerment with community-driven strategies, uniquely positioning us to advocate for systemic changes that create sustainable pathways out of poverty.
Check out our Informational One-Pagers
Increasing Economic Stability
Policies that support fair wages and benefits, affordable housing, food security, reliable public transportation, and affordable childcare are essential to create a foundation for economic stability.
What is the Cliff Effect?
As part of our Big View Policy Platform, Circles USA specially assists local chapters in identifying, bridging, and eliminating the Cliff Effect. This phenomenon (also known as a “benefits cliff”) happens when a raise or other income gain triggers the loss of benefits worth more than the wage increase. Our multi-pronged approach supports workers facing the Cliff and offers alternatives to employers and policy makers hoping to mitigate its effects.
How is Circles USA resolving
the Cliff Effect?
For seven years, Circles USA has been conducting research and developing tools to better inform families and policy makers about this barrier that too often keeps people trapped in poverty.
Circles USA recently produced a policy platform that provides local, national, and federal recommendations for mitigating the Cliff Effect.
In previous years, Circles USA prototyped a planning tool to estimate the income levels that prompt the loss of benefits. Additionally, several states commissioned our researchers to make recommendations. For Michigan, Circles USA produced a field scan of solutions nationwide. For New Mexico, our report included case studies that point to ways to resolve the Cliff Effect. Several Circles chapters also piloted an online calculator developed by Leap Fund. This tool helps recipients of public benefits understand whether they will hit a cliff, when it will happen, and how long it will take them to recover.
More recently, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Community and Economic Development department created the three tools to uncover the barriers to, and opportunities for, improved economic mobility. These tools make the data easily accessible for community planning and decision-making. Circles chapters piloted these resources to better support those who are facing the benefits cliff.
Resources for Understanding and Addressing the Cliff Effect
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Three tools to uncover the barriers to, and opportunities for, improved economic mobility
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Snapshot—Assists in understanding the potential short-term financial impact of a new job or income change.
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Dashboard—Assists in long-term career planning and flags potential financial barriers to career advancement.
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Planner—Assists in detailed career planning while creating a customized budget that helps users navigate potential financial barriers to career advancement.
Know Your Community’s Wages and Cost of Living
National Trends
For more information or to get involved, contact us.
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