Our Executive Director's remarks at our 5th Annual Everyone's A Philanthropist Spring Fundraiser:

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Thank you all for joining us this evening, I’m grateful that you chose to be here and celebrate 5 years of working to create paths out of poverty for under-served communities with us.

This has truly been a labor of love. A little over 5 years ago, to be exact on April 12, 2012, our Articles o Incorporation were filed with the state of PA, and almost exact to the day, our application for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status was filed with the IRS, and a few months later the doors of The One Less Foundation would open.

That The One Less Foundation, a little organization with big dreams and even larger ideas to transform the world, would still be standing 5 years later is an accomplishment in and of itself. There are many people with big dreams and plans to take on the world and change it for the better, and I am constantly overwhelmed in a good way, with the knowledge that this organization has managed to catch on, and shine in a very crowded non-profit space.

The One Less Foundation, was created not because of some brand new innovation, but it was born from the simple concept of, if you treat people with dignity, and respect, you can reach them on any level, and once you reach them you can educate them and they will in turn become empowered and they will make wise decisions that will better their lives. That is what we do at The One Less Foundation, we simply care about those we work with and act as the conduit to help them create their own path out of poverty.

Over the past 5 years, I’ve often been asked what led me to start this organization, and I generally respond with “I’m slightly crazy and I thought I could make a difference”. That’s only the partial truth. The real reason that I founded this organization is that I felt inspired to do so after some volunteer experiences I had with the church I was attending. To make a long story fairly short, a couple of high school seniors reached out to me in April of their senior year, and told me they wanted to go to college and asked if I could help them. I was taken aback quick a bit, because anyone familiar with the typical college application process knows that if you’re just getting started 2 months before you graduate, it’s near impossible to begin school in the fall. I was vaguely familiar with these young ladies and told them, yes, I would help. So in the middle of a busy consulting project for an international bank I was working with at the time, I carved out time to work with them. Over the next 2 months, I met with these two young ladies on a weekly basis, and gave them task lists to do during the week, to help us along, and by the time July had rolled around, they had successfully taken their SAT’s, found and applied to colleges that were still accepting applications, completed FAFSA forms and searched for scholarships. At the end of July, we found out that both had been accepted into schools out west and both would be the first in their families to attend college. A week before they were scheduled to leave in August, one of them stopped me after church and simply said to me “Thank you. You helped me to achieve a dream that I didn’t even know I could dream.” In addition to that experience, I also had the pleasure of helping an older woman transition back into the workforce after years of receiving welfare while taking care of her children. And to make a long story short that was when I knew there was something else I needed to be doing, and that was to help those around me who needed it. So I put my consulting company on hold and here we are today.

Over the past 5 years, we have accomplished so much, and I am proud every day to say this is where I work, and where I devote so much of my time. We have built programs that not only help individuals and families gain knowledge and tangible skills, but that thing that I am most proud of is that we have been able to help people see their full self-worth and regain dignity. That is what matters to me. I know when that happens we’ve changed a family for generations to come, not just for the short term. When we can change families for the long-term, we can change entire communities for the long-term, and that is how you solve poverty – by doing what works on the long-term instead of quick band-aid fixes.

I’ve heard from participants in our programs that one of the reasons they like us, is that we make complicated things easy to understand. I think that ability to bring sometimes difficult concepts down to an everyday common level has served us well, and has also led to us becoming successful in doing advocacy work as well. Last fall, one of the coalitions that we do state and federal advocacy work with, asked me to co-chair one of their sub-committees, because they thought I had unique insight being a grassroots service provider (one of a few among research organizations and think tanks), but also having the ability to take complicated legislative issues and turn them into easy to understand concepts and sound bites. It also probably didn’t hurt that at our bi-annual national conference late last November, when asked how I describe myself as an advocate; I said “I keep the barbarians from getting through the doors of underserved communities”. I may be little, but I’m a fierce fighter and protector of those who need it. In the 2 years that we have been involved in advocacy work, we’ve made a concerted effort to speak up about various legislations, we have quickly become known as an organization that is able to generate support for a cause, especially on social media. I’m excited to be leading the organization into this area, because laws matter, how laws are applied matters and they affect those we are working with on a daily basis, and our advocacy work only strengthens the tangible work of our programs in helping communities to alleviate poverty.

During our first 5 years, our organization has developed great partnerships within the Philadelphia metro area, which has helped us to expand our reach and even helped shape some of our programs. The One Less Foundation has made great inroads with the development of our partnerships with financial institutions, government agencies, schools and other service providing organizations which has helped to grow our reach across the Philadelphia metro area. Our programs now support organizations from Upper Darby to the Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia. While we have grown our partnerships we have also been working to expand the number of schools we are able to support with our in-school programs, as well as adding to our existing programs even more components that will help us to be effective in our work. We’re looking forward to rolling out our long-term financial coaching program, and this fall, adding an internship component to our RISE Mentoring program, with one of our newest partners, the Main Line Chamber of Commerce. One of the things we recently started working on with diligently is working to close the racial wealth gap. We started our Piggy Bank & Paint project this year to begin working with youth to help to engage them in building positive spending and saving behaviors – while we work on the legislative side.

Our programs are expanding, our partnerships are growing and we are making an impact – and with your continued support we can do more.

I don’t want to take too much time tonight, and I don’t want this speech to become an oral history of the organization, so I encourage you to check out our website, and we will be launching a brand new one next Sunday, and to connect with us on social media to see the work we’re doing and how we’re helping families find hope and opportunity to create paths out of poverty.