Willie's Fundraiser for Prepare + Prosper

2020 has been a hard year. At Prepare + Prosper we, like many other organizations, have had to work hard to figure out how to operate in the current realities of social distancing and following public health guidelines. This at the same time as the need in the community for services that can put money in people's pockets is greater than ever. Tax refunds, stimulus payments, reliable and non-predatory banking and direct deposit options became even more vital to many people struggling to stay afloat. In March we had to close down our services in the middle of the tax season. At that point we were serving 800-900 people every week with free tax preparation as well as encouraging savings and opening savings accounts, referring on to other financial services programs to help tackle debt or credit issues as well as our own financial coaching program. Our in-person service model was no longer viable but we knew we needed to do whatever we could to keep providing these vital services. 

After finding some grounding in working remotely we quickly pivoted to helping in whatever ways we could. We realized quickly that the stimulus payments were going to be tied to tax returns so we gathered whatever info we could and stayed on top of the ever evolving ways that the payments were going out and who was getting payments automatically and who was not. We answered thousands of questions for community members at a time when the IRS's phone lines were not operating. 

We put our efforts into transforming our services. First we connected customers to volunteers over the phone to help guide them through filing their own taxes, a sort of tax coach. Then we built a virtual tax prep model so that customers could connect to staff and volunteers from home and join in a Zoom meeting to go through the required steps. We also learned that the digital divide is becoming more and more pronounced as many customers that we work with either don't have access to technology or comfort in using what they have. So we set up a quick drop-off or correspondence through the mail or over the phone options for those customers. This has aided in our plans for the upcoming tax season. 

We know that this work will have many new layers of challenges when we are not working with people face to face. We will not be able to replace the efficiency of in-person services but we are committed to providing high-quality services and being a resource to the community in whatever ways that we can. Your contribution will help ensure our work can continue to impact the community in a variety of ways. 

Also if you contribute $100 or more you will get a P+P deck of cards with pictures of customers, volunteers and staff and their reasons for supporting Prepare + Prosper (not me but many others)!