Posts by Phillip DeVol:

The research isn’t boring!

Research evidence supporting Getting Ahead Beth Wahler and Phil DeVol We know many of you have witnessed firsthand the effectiveness of Getting Ahead in the lives of investigators and your communities, and you look forward to the day when Getting Ahead is considered evidence-based by scholars. The goal of this…

Racism in the United States in a global context

The New York Times’ 1619 Project is a must-read for everyone working on poverty issues. It begins this way: “In August of 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon, near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the British colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were…

Podcast: Policy and Practice to Reduce Poverty and Build Communities Using ‘Bridges Across Every Divide’

Authors Phil DeVol and Gene Krebs talk about how to use their book Bridges Across Every Divide to make policy changes that reduce poverty. Stay tuned for Part 2!

National Getting Ahead graduate report

Many thanks to the Getting Ahead sites that are working with Getting Ahead investigators and CharityTracker from Simon Solutions to record the changes in stability and resources. New Getting Ahead sites are encouraged to join; the more data, the more we learn. The more we learn, the better we get…

MAMA program going strong in Arizona

Getting Ahead in a Just Gettin’-By-World is part of the MAMA (Mothers in Arizona Moving Ahead) Program in Tuscon, Arizona. These are remarkable results due to the hard work of the investigators and the comprehensive approach in Tuscon. The catalyst is the Pima County Health Department and the Community Services, Employment,…

St. Vincent de Paul prison reentry programs use Bridges, Getting Out

Upcoming St. Vincent de Paul prison reentry initiatives will use Bridges Out of Poverty and Getting Ahead While Getting Out, according to Catholic news site Crux. As the federal government and a number of states are changing criminal justice legislation, Bridges sites are gearing up to influence the implementation of…

‘Opportunity Atlas’ provides hard data to deepen community discussion

In Bridges and Getting Ahead we identify four causes of poverty.  One of the research clusters is about “Community Conditions.” The Opportunity Atlas can be used by Bridges trainers to deepen community discussions. Getting Ahead groups can investigate this information when they are in modules 4 and 8. People are…

National report: How are Getting Ahead graduates doing?

In the first 145 days, 43% of graduates reduced reliance on benefits! A growing number of Getting Ahead (GA) sites are using CharityTracker to celebrate the changes made by GA grads. Getting Ahead sites from 10 states reported on a total of 623 graduates. To arrive at a financial return…

Bridges Across Every Divide Podcast – Episode 4: There is nothing else, just us and the data

Phil DeVol: Having been in a position to watch Bridges Out of Poverty grow, and I wish I could say I was a visionary and all of this came about through my vision, but that would not be at all true, what I find is that Bridges is something that…

Bridges Across Every Divide: Background and facts

Philip E. DeVol and Eugene K. Krebs We have written a new book titled Bridges Across Every Divide: Policy and Practices to Reduce Poverty and Build Communities. Getting ahead is hard to do Poverty percentages have essentially stayed the same since the early 1970s. The middle class is declining. The…