Growing LISC Phoenix FOC network banks on data and trust to serve clients

“Know your numbers” takes on rich, new meaning for three Phoenix-area nonprofit organizations using the LISC Financial Opportunity Center model to better help the people they serve improve their financial health. 

Data providing detailed insight into personal finances of clients wanting to climb out of poverty — at long last and forever — is a central focus of FOC work and the key to success for organizations in the growing LISC Phoenix network. 

“LISC has an amazing data tracking system that makes all the difference in the world for organizations,” Mariana Torres, LISC Phoenix program officer, said. “That’s probably one of the biggest wins when it comes to being a Financial Opportunity Center.  You get that data. Along with it, you get an individual who is helping you understand that data and ensuring that you’re being successful in how to properly view your data.” 

Torres, who brings a background in workforce development and financial coaching to LISC Phoenix, is that individual for Arouet Foundation, Live & Learn and RAIL CDC. The organizations are in various stages of meshing the FOC model into their work for the community. 

The nonprofits are already doing the work of helping the people they serve improve their financial health. The FOC model enables them to do that work better with data that helps tailor support to individual needs and shape plans to meet goals of clients. 

Arouet, which helps women successfully re-enter society after stints at Perryville state prison, has operated within the FOC model the longest of the three organizations currently in the Phoenix FOC network. 

Alison Rapping, CEO of Arouet, said access to data is a next-level opportunity to provide clients a clearer path to financial stability. Arouet also leverages data to showcase how well the foundation addresses its mission, she said.

“We work in a very complex, complicated industry,” Rapping said. “We have people’s lives in our hands every day, and so does everybody else that does what we do. We can all do all kinds of things, but if we’re not testing it and understanding what the key things are … we are not going to be able to keep people from recidivating because the financials will destroy them.”

Some of those key things that must be understood are savings rates, credit scores, and the minimum you must earn each year to pay housing costs. 
Rapping said Arouet is one of a few nonprofits with an in-bound program in a prison. That’s one of the reasons for the Arouet FOC high participation rate, she said.

“We start talking about the FOC while they’re still inside,” Rapping said. “They know they’re going to have this opportunity; they know they’re going to get to be part of our program. Because the LISC model is so perfectly aligned with what women coming out of incarceration and their families need, it is very easy for us to matriculate them out of the prison and into the FOC.”

LISC-informed, in-depth, one-on-one financial coaching is the extra special something FOCs provide to the communities they serve. 

“Financial literacy happens at organizations a lot and not financial coaching,” Torres said. “With the financial coaching, we’re able to better track individuals on how they progress through their own financial goals.”

Live & Learn, the newest LISC Phoenix FOC, is on a mission to empower women to break the cycle of generational poverty through employment support as needed, connecting to community resources that help improve the bottom line of the individual or family, and financial literacy and financial coaching. 

Kristin Chatsworth, Executive Director of Live & Learn, recognizes that the data collection tools and ongoing program evaluation support from LISC will be a game-changer for the work their staff do every day. 

“As a small nonprofit, serving a large number of clients, the ability to really measure your impact is not always feasible,” Chatsworth explains. “We know that the women who come through our intense, two-year program are upskilling, earning new certifications, and embarking on good-way career journeys. With LISC’s data collection tools, we will now be able to measure the full impact of our program on these women’s long-term financial health.

“The expertise that LISC Phoenix brings to this work is incredible,” Chatsworth continued. “It compliments the work of our community-based agency perfectly, and our staff are excited to see how this progresses.”

Live & Learn hopes to launch expanded FOC financial coaching services to some clients beginning May 1. 

While organizations in the LISC Phoenix FOC network are different in structure and purpose, they all share what Torres said is an important component of being a successful FOC: Having the trust of a group of individuals they already serve.

As a community development corporation focused on strengthening neighborhoods and small businesses in the Tempe-Mesa light-rail corridor, RAIL sees the FOC as another tool in the work it already does for community members, executive director Ryan Winkle said.

“All of these people are not just businesses,” Winkle said. “They’re people, too, and they have people involved and around them.”

RAIL hired a program manager to oversee the FOC integration into its community development work. It’s not different work but deeper work to provide services in a more comprehensive way. 

“Everything that we intake,” Winkle said, “every project, every art engagement we do, every community development thing we do in the city of Tempe or the city of Mesa, everything that we’re doing – we say, ‘Hey, we’re doing this with you, but did you know we have this also?’”

Torres said an important side benefit of the LISC Phoenix FOC network is the opportunity for the organizations to understand each other in hopes of finding ways to leverage their strengths for the benefit of the people they serve. They can also reach out to 130 other FOCs in the LISC national network. 

Growth likely is in the future of the LISC Phoenix FOC network. Torres said another organization could become an FOC by July 1.