Since the beginning of this year, we have been working on a project with the RISE Together Innovation Institute, a new poverty alleviation center in Franklin County. The institute was created as part of a strategic plan led by Franklin County to help improve conditions for people in poverty.
RISE began in 2019 when the Franklin County board of commissioners convened community leaders to assemble a roadmap for reducing poverty. The roadmap settled on 13 goals to strive for, covering the categories of work, health, housing, and youth.
The RISE Together Innovation Institute (formerly known as the Innovation Center) was charged with being the body that worked with key stakeholders and community members to put the roadmap into action.
Today, RISE is led by CEO Danielle Sydnor, an advocate and community leader. Danielle began her career in the banking industry, but has for many years been working in community organizations working to improve people's lives. In addition to her work in Columbus, Danielle is the most recent past president of the Greater Cleveland Branch of the NAACP.
Scioto’s work with RISE began with a project to gather data and develop statistics for their website which launched earlier this month. We created a snapshot of what poverty looks like in Franklin County to better contextualize what problems exist and help dispel some of the most common misconceptions about poverty.
Some of the key takeaways from our report have already been published, but the full document is still going through some final edits before publishing.
All of this research culminated last week in the second annual Poverty Innovation Summit. At the Summit, participants discussed some potential policies that RISE could focus on trying to implement in the county. The three policies they discussed were paid parental leave, medical debt forgiveness, and accessory dwelling units.
These policies were all chosen because they already have some local traction in policy circles and they help advance the original roadmap’s goals of improving work, health, and housing respectively.
Another reason these policies are exciting is because they are all fairly well-researched. One of our core beliefs at Scioto is that there needs to be more evidence-based policy in state and local government, so it’s exciting that organizations like RISE are stepping up and helping make that a reality.
Going forward, we are excited to continue to work with RISE and research new ways to help alleviate poverty in Franklin County, as Scioto’s principal Rob Moore is the new policy analyst in residence with RISE.
This commitment to evidence-based policy is one of the many reasons the RISE Institute is an extremely exciting organization. Their commitment to community engagement and well-researched policies and support from the Franklin County government means they could have a strong possibility of improving conditions for people in poverty.
There is still lots of work to be done in Franklin County. Poverty rates are higher here than in other parts of the state. However, as more resources are invested into understanding poverty and the policies that can alleviate it, we can get closer to a poverty-free future.