Leading Community Action: Innovation, AI & Lasting Impact | Anne Bacon, Impact CAP

0:00Hello everyone, and welcome to the Fortell podcast. I'm joined by Anne Bacon, who's the CEO of Impact Community Action Partnership based in Iowa, not Iowa, as I've been told. And I'm also joined by Scott Shubert. >> Hi everyone. So, yeah, Anne, thanks so much for joining us. Would love to just kind of like hear about like your background, you know, also just kind of, you know, from from our time together, know that you have great recommendations restaurants, you know, great workout classes. So, you know, any of that. >> Fitness studios, right? Yeah. >> So, like >> Yeah. >> I don't know, Scott's frozen. >> A little bit about like what you do and why you do it. >> All right. I do what I do and therefore Impact does what it does

0:45primarily out of my own personal experience in needing assistance. It was a long time ago. I was a single mom, I was living in California, and I needed help. And everywhere I went I was treated like there was something wrong with me, like I had done something wrong, that all the choices I wanted or did make were incorrect, and that whoever I was sitting in front of knew what was best for me. And I pretty quickly then changed my schooling from teaching to social work. Which was also interesting cuz my mom was a social worker and told me do anything but don't be a social

1:28worker. But I got my social work degree and set my course for doing something that would change the way people were treated when they were experiencing poverty. And found myself in the community action world, also another small nonprofit that was anti-poverty focused. I actually also worked for the United Methodist Church for a time trying to get churches to engage in mission, and ended back in community action at Impact when Impact was an entity called Red Rock Community Action which then merged with a public cap. It was a public cap that was housed in the city of Des Moines and therefore I had to help merge a small

2:13private rural cap with a urban public cap and get the culture all moving in the same direction and so that's how I got here. >> That's a very cool story and actually it sort of resonates a little bit with me because you know my I don't know if I told you Anne when we met in February but a long time ago now the reason I got into this whole world was because my son was diagnosed with autism. He's non-verbal, non-speaking and the way we were trying to get help was just so impossible. This is back in in England and we just figured out like we need to if we can build technology which is what we do, you know, you can build technology for vulnerable populations around the world that feels like a great mission. So so it's really cool. But I

2:55wanted to ask you about Iowa specifically because for a Brit like me we just know Iowa is somewhere which is very important every four years when people vote. So tell us tell us about it but from what I from what I've read I know Scott's been there recently to your conference. Like it seems like a very rural community. What are the specific challenges that Impact is is solving that's specific to Iowa? >> Iowa. Yeah, Iowa is primarily rural but Impact itself also serves the most urban area in the state serving the state capital of Des Moines and so we have that unique experience of all the challenges that come with rural settings such as small populations, different attitudes around poverty and economics

3:42with then the urban side where you have to have lots of staff and there's lots of issues and working with partners a lot. So, I don't think Iowa is extremely different than other Midwest or states that have rural areas. I would say that Iowa has some what I would call political challenges with how our lawmakers currently view any sort of public assistance or any sort of need from the public. And so, that has created along with the the federal challenges kind of a dual battle around trying to protect the

4:25people we serve. >> Okay. So, I have a question. I'm going to have you like dream with me for a second. Is like you know, and that's you know, part of what we do as like leaders in these organizations is like what do you think, you know, as you think about your specific community and just like, you know, the Iowa community in in general, if you could kind of like have like this magic tool or magic thing, what would that be and like what would the impact be for your community? Like what what would that look like? >> It would be a way to engage the general public and lawmakers to more

5:08to better understand why people are poor and the systemic issues surrounding it because I believe when people have good, strong, real information that they make better choices. And many people in our community are not making great sort choices when it comes to their neighbors, when it comes to understanding the economy, when it comes to understanding why it is people are poor. And therefore, we as a society have continued to allow systems that create poverty to exist. So, I'm I spend a huge amount of time um my time

5:51doing presentations and engaging with people and providing as much education I can to help try to shift the tide. The analogy I talk about a lot is there's this story called the starfish story, which people really love. Have you heard the starfish story? Yeah. >> Please tell us. >> Oh, please tell us. There's a man on the beach and he's walking down and pretty soon he comes upon another person who is on the edge after the tide has gone out and there's hundreds of starfish. And so, this person is picking up each of those little starfish and throwing it back. And the man that comes along the beach says, "What are you doing? You can never

6:33save all those starfish. It doesn't matter what you're doing." The person throws another starfish and he says, "It mattered to that one." Now, that is a nice story, but here in the United States of America, we have systems of equipment and people and things that we could make every starfish go back in the water within minutes if we wanted to. So, the starfish story perpetuates the idea that we can only help people one at a time, that helping one if that's the best we can do, it's the best we can do, when I know that we have the mechanisms to make all those little starfish safe. So. >> So, your your point is that the starfish

7:15thing is a nice story, but actually we're not looking or trying to fundamental change, right? So, >> Correct. >> And what I'm interested in then, so having talked to Julie on your team and Mary and they've sort of in a quite nice way described you as the ideas person and you know, they're the ones that have to get on and do stuff. >> Yes, that's correct. >> Right, right, right. I think Scott Scott would also emphasize. So, what would you actually do then tangibly? So, like, you know, if you're if you're trying to change the stuff of the narrative, what would you do in an hour where if you were the person in charge for all the legislative money and able to do something? >> Gosh. Well, one is this idea of of education and getting everyone on the same page about what the true issues

7:57are. I've always wished, and since you're tech people, I'll tell you, I've always wished that there was an app or something that people could participate a participatory app that would help them understand what an individual goes through when they're in poverty. There's poverty simulations out there, there's all kinds of things, there's even this online thing called Place Matters, that's fairly good, but something that people could pick up on their phone and go, "Oh my gosh." That would help them see that. But, then coming down to setting our priorities around economics and around programming with that understanding that when you have anywhere between 33 and 40% of your jobs that don't pay a

8:42living wage with benefits, it's impossible to educate and train everybody out of poverty because we need those jobs to be done and those jobs are valuable and the people who do them are valuable. So, it's looking at our economic policies and practices and expectations of employers to look at all work as good work and to recognize that it's not an individual's fault if they're doing everything they can do if they can't make ends meet. This is a systemic problem. >> Yeah, no, that's a really, you know, like, great points. And, you know, I know that you guys do, you know, maybe you can talk a little bit more about the programs that you guys operate. Like, so, you know, I know you guys do LIHEAP,

9:26right? Head Start? Do you guys do Head Start? >> Nope. >> Okay. Yeah, so give me a rundown. >> Yeah, we really cuz I started talking and I am I the identified visionary of the agency. I always start with the big the biggest thing, but we as an agency look at the current issues through Maslow's lens when we deal with the individual people we serve. And so we know that until people's most basic needs are met, they can't create other change cuz they're so focused on those essential needs. So Impact focuses its direct assistance, which is the biggest part of what we do on those essential needs. So utilities, housing, food, and any other local programming that that

10:12somehow helps hit on those. And we do that with a lot of federal funding, but also state funding, foundation funding. We love donations because that frees up funding to be able to do things that aren't currently covered or that provide gaps. And Impact has a pretty good reputation for stepping in even if it doesn't even if it's not in our our portfolio right now. Years ago we did disaster assistance, then we weren't doing disaster assistance, but we had a major flood in one of our low-income housing projects recently. And Impact stepped up and said, "We're going to help. We're going to get staff involved. We're going to work with donors. We're going to and do that work because that impacted so many

10:55people." So we like to be responsive to what's happening and leverage the great staff that we have to be able to impact those immediate needs that families have. Yeah, we look at it in two ways that we have this big push on the systemic issues, but we know in the meantime until those things get fixed, until we figure out either how to keep all the starfish in the ocean or how to get them back quickly, in the meantime we still have to get the starfish safe. So all of our direct service is aimed at those essential needs. >> Robbie, yeah. And you mentioned how to leverage your staff. And that's one of the things we we think about a lot,

11:36right? And now, I'm going to sort of be talking my book a little bit when it comes to AI and technology here, so you'll have to put up with it. I know sorry. But the But the thing that we're kind of interested in, obviously, is like how you leverage technology to make case manager better. You know, how do we leverage technology to help the people you're trying to serve faster, better, give them It's And there are sort of a number of ways we look at it. The first is like, okay, can we use AI to do more of the mundane, boring, repetitive jobs so that, you know, your team, for example, can spend more time with people. The second is a little bit more esoteric. It's sort of thinking like, can you predict which people are more likely to become homeless, are more likely to get uh challenges, and therefore can we, you know, everyone talks about prevention,

12:18can we prevent these types of things happening earlier? And then the third one is this sort of area where which Scott is probably, I think, doing a really interesting pioneering job, actually, which is like, can AI kind of sit alongside manager? So, like, can someone who's coming in who's either at risk of homelessness or having a challenge, and, you know, case manager can have a great interaction, but they can't be with that person all the time. So, can you sort of use this either a voice AI or a text AI or something like that, which is nudging and coaching and trying to sort of be there in between the moments when, you know, that case manager can be involved. So, I'd love you to think about I'll just talk to me about how that kind of con- how those concepts might sit in your sort of world, but also where it doesn't work,

13:00and where you do need human connection, as well. >> Yeah, uh the the number one thing we want when we're providing services for family is to be efficient and effective. I mean, when people need their lights on, when they need their rent paid, they they can't wait, they can't get in the line. I mean, they do, they have to all the time, but we know that that adds another burden on the families we serve. So, we're constantly looking for how can we get to the end result as quickly as possible doing it the way that is best for the families we serve while maintaining the sanity and health of our staff. And currently, since we don't

13:44have any through Well, we we use technology all the time, but we don't we're not all the way where we want to be. During the LIHEAP season, for example, we have a lot of staff that work a lot of overtime trying to get those things done and processed. And they do it willingly, but it makes them tired. And we're not sure that that's best for staff. And when when you get a thousand phone calls a week and we cannot have a phone team that can handle that. And how do you manage those phones with keeping respect for the families, making sure they feel heard, making sure that the turnaround is good. You know, those are the things

14:27we're consistently trying to solve a problem for. The other is you know, with online applications and state systems that you have to use and databases and, you know, trying to do all these things that, you know, we're and I want Shortcut's not the right word, but uh efficient and effective is, you know, and currently we have a very low-tech way that's actually better. Uh we we found that families were really struggling with the state's provided online application. And once it was entered, it was very, very difficult for staff to manage it because of issues with the system. And so, instead, we created something super simple, a Jotform, which is

15:09probably the most simple uh form of all time that families could fill out, which was also easier for our our staff to manage. And so, sometimes we have to create workarounds to the systems we're forced to use. One thing we've always dreamed of as well when it comes to technology and have not quite been able to master is something that relieves some of the resource navigation knowledge that is required to do this really really well. Now we have great staff right now who are epic at resource navigation. But anytime we bring a new person on or anytime we bring a temporary person on or anything like that, that vast amount of knowledge is

15:53just so difficult to teach and learn and and it's everything. It's not just you need food, you should go to this food pantry. It's you should go to this food pantry because it's hours aligned with your work or you should go to this one because it's not connected to this one so you can get it at both places or you know, that really provides really deep resource navigation just from the information we learn about families cuz that's how our staff do it. You know, they learn what they need to learn about the families and with their deep knowledge, they're able to provide that resource navigation. But I do know that AI is great at mining mining information and aligning information and that that would be

16:36super helpful. So we're we're constantly looking for those things. With that, the other thing is we know that with federal state funding at best being level and when it's level, it doesn't keep up with inflation at all and nobody has to tell anyone else about what's going on in our economy today. We can't continue to pay our staff market rate wages which keep going up without our funding going up. And so we don't want to lose staff at all. But we have to find ways to be able to do more with who we have because of those constraints around funding.

17:17So that was a very long answer to I don't even remember the question. >> That you know No, that was that was super helpful and I love that, you know, everything from thinking about the client experience cuz that's something I struggled with often is like we were asking clients to come in to our center, you know, 9:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday, but I'm like that's actually going against what we were like talking about. Like I actually I want you at work. Like I don't want you to have to like take work off so that you can get assistance. So, you know, like what are some ways that, you know, I think about this often. What are some ways that we can use either technology or think differently about things so that people can still

17:59access services, but it's not like we don't create dependency on that system and we don't create something like barriers cuz I often had that where like somebody's like, "Well, if I work, then it's going to put me over income for this, you know, or if I do this, then this." And so, I want to think about ways that we can think about differently. So, I I really appreciate, you know, your perspective on that. And I I know you're heading to vacation, so I want to be mindful of your time. So, I'm I'm this is going to be my last question. Rob may have more, but you know, you kind of started with kind of your own personal journey and story and I really appreciate that and I resonated with that. And, you know, just want to take a moment and just on a personal

18:43level if you could just kind of reflect back on Ann when you were getting the assistance that you were were needing and, you know, frankly, you know, deserved and and you needed those things. So, looking at yourself now, what would you have told yourself then that you know now since, you know, we have this new knowledge or this, you know, wisdom that has come with, you know, time. What would you tell younger Ann that was going through that moment. >> What would I tell younger Anne? I would reassure her that she's not doing anything wrong, that the things that she dreams about and wants in life are valid even though you're in a bad spot,

19:26that there is a way to leverage the systems in front of us to help us achieve those goals, and learning how to do that should be the first step, and trying to find the entity or the person or the the that can help navigate those waters. Uh the other thing I would tell her is watch out for the giant pitfalls. One of my favorite stories was when I I was in California, it's a very different system, and I was a waitress, and I got sciatica when I was sciatica when I was pregnant. So, I had to go through all these things to get disability short-term disability,

20:08and during that in the meantime I had no money and all that, so I ended up on what was called AFDC at the time, and I got a check. So, when it was time when I finally got approved for disability, I got all this check this money, and I was so excited cuz then I could buy a crib, I could get a car seat, I could put the seat belts in my car. I had a car that didn't even have seat belts. I mean, all of this get all this done, and after I expend all this money, I get a letter from the state saying, "You got a windfall, so you're not going to get any AFDC for the next 5 months." And again, I didn't do anything bad or wrong. I didn't take all that money and go to the casino. I applied it to my life only to find out that no, you

20:53one step forward, 10 steps back, and I I would have warned myself about some of those pitfalls that people couldn't possibly know. >> That's a great story, Anne. That's a great story. It's really Yeah, you can imagine you in that moment thinking, "Oh, hang on. I I I was doing the right thing." and then being totally turned around. My last question is this. You've got a bunch of young people coming into the industry now. So, you've got, you know, people coming into the office, people coming into community action. And I think the world, if we, you know, if we can go forward 30 or 40 years, it's going to be quite radically different, right? In both in terms of jobs and in terms of what community action may need to do. What would be your kind of advice for, you know, the 22-year-old coming

21:35into to do their first job in community action about, you know, how they think about it, but also how they prepare for the future? >> The first thing I would say is you must absolutely have passion for the work. But, I don't mean working for community action or doing this. It's it's alleviating the pain of other people. And especially around the issue of poverty. So, you if you're not passionate about that, this is not your gig. And we'd appreciate it if you would get out of the way for the next person who really is passionate about that. So, the first thing I would tell them. The next thing would be always keep the end result in mind, which is meeting the needs of the people in front

22:18of you in the most effective, efficient way that removes a barrier for them. And so, we have we're constantly having this debate at work around, "Well, if I'm off work at 4:30, but someone walks in at 4:29, how how do we handle that?" And uh helping people understand that when your eye is on the family, that, you know, you know, so we're always adjusting our things. No, you don't work till 4:30, you work till 5:00, and we take our last appointment at 4:00. You know, there's ways to adjust the system. So, that's the other thing is keep your be filled with abundant expectancy. And in other words, believe that every problem can be solved, and the way we're doing it now is probably not the best way.

23:00And that's because if what we were doing now was the best way, we wouldn't be in the state we are around poverty because this war started in 1964. So, all the things we've done have kept people safe, many many people safe, but it hasn't solved the problem. Therefore, whatever we're doing probably isn't the best thing. And so, to be able to figure out what that next best thing is. >> I think that's a great place to end. And thanks so much. >> Thanks.