Northwest Indiana Asset Building Campaign

August, 2006

If you were a free tax preparation program, how would you respond to a CPA recently retired from Senior Executive Service ranks with experience doing radio and TV interviews, supervising staff, and who was looking for a community service position that could utilize her accounting expertise? The Northwest Indiana Asset Building Campaign snapped up Ida Gillis in 2004 and asked her to help develop their program.

Northwest Indiana Asset Building Campaign (NWI-ABC) was first organized in May 2003. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) gave them the impetus to organize a coalition targeting those families in Gary, East Chicago and Hammond, Indiana who work hard but may not be getting the most from their income. The local Community Action Agency, Northwest Indiana Community Action Corp., serves as the fiscal agent for the Asset Building Campaign.

Many of the steelworks which dominated the economy of this depressed urban area have closed, leaving an economic hole. Twelve to 17 percent of those eligible for the EITC are not claiming it, according to Gillis. “If you extrapolate this over our area, that’s a loss of over 10 to 15 million dollars a year. That’s a lot of money which is can be spent in our local community’s businesses. Part of their refunds help the entire community prosper.”

NWI-ABC is a coalition of community-based partnerships with the mission to link awareness and education, with tax preparation sites and asset building for low and moderate income taxpayers. It started in 2003 with volunteers only, but with grant money received in 2004 from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, it hired Gillis as the project coordinator and paid for some marketing and computer equipment. An increase in funding in 2005 enabled the hiring of part-time site coordinators and a computer technician.

With few corporations and a poor city government, NWI-ABC had to develop a model responsive to its conditions, rather than try to imitate its Chicago neighbor, Center for Economic Progress. The Knight Foundation provide the bulk of NWI-ABC’s cash support, while thirty municipal, non-profit, financial, and private partners provide in-kind support. Social service agencies like the Consumer Credit Counseling Services of Northwest Indiana have proved to be the effective partners, providing the free tax preparation sites and equipment, and recruiting their own employees as volunteer tax preparers.

Clients are mostly low- to moderate-income families. Their average income is about $15,000–$20,000.

Due to a working relationship with the AARP, many elderly people are also clients. When NWI-ABC was first created, IRS staff trained the volunteers, both from the VITA program and from AARP. Last year Gillis, jointly with the IRS assisted in the training and built upon this foundation of sharing resources. AARP came to NWI-ABC for e-filing training, while NWI-ABC sent some of their 30 volunteers to AARP for tax law training. Some AARP staff manages tax sites in branch libraries, where NWI-ABC provides the computer equipment. Any taxpayers, elderly or not, who meet the income guidelines, are welcomed at these sites.

The NWI-ABC is more than a tax preparation service. It is a group of committed community leaders who believe they have the power to change families and communities for the better. Part of its mission is to build assets for low and moderate taxpayers

Adding asset building to free tax preparation services is still in its infancy for most programs. NWI-ABC has tried distributing information about additional services while clients wait for the tax returns to be prepared. They took it a step further in 2006 by asking clients during intake to complete a survey form listing the different services that partners provide (such as credit repair, debt consolidation, and first-time homebuyer assistance). All of this information is now in a database, so it is easy to let partners know who to reach out to with particular services. Taking this further next year, they plan to ask their partners to report post-season on the actions they engaged in with people referred to them.

In addition, everyone who filled out the survey form this year will receive an invitation to NWI-ABC’s first Money Smart week in October. Invitations will target taxpayer clients according to their income level. Track 1 will be aimed at taxpayers with very low incomes; Track 2 at taxpayers with higher incomes who possibly could afford to purchase a home; Track 3 at taxpayers with more money, or elderly people thinking about retirement.

NWI-ABC gets the word out through both paid and free marketing. They have marketed on billboards in various communities, created radio spots, and paid for TV commercials. Free publicity has come through public access TV and newspaper coverage. Surveys of clients show that most hear about the free tax preparation through word-of-mouth, fliers and newspapers. The coalition is developing its own web site which will be fully functional before the start of the next tax filling season.

NWI-ABC’s first VITA site was opened on January 31, 2004, as a "Super Saturday." Taxpayers received free tax assistance as well as exposure to financial education and referrals to other services, such as energy assistance and home ownership seminars. On that day, volunteers completed 28 federal tax returns; refunds for 19 clients were deposited directly into bank accounts. During the whole of the 2004 tax filing season, they completed 2,081 returns, and brought $2,718,000 refunds back to working families.

By contrast, NWI-ABC completed over 2,700 federal tax returns and brought an estimated $2.5 million in refunds back into the community in the 2006 tax filing season.

Gillis explains how they conduct a “Super Saturday” now. They bring in as many volunteers as they can to supplement the few who usually staff the site, and open the site from 9am to 1pm. Consumer Credit Union was successful with five “Super Wonderful Wednesdays”, and other sites are looking to do more during the week rather than concentrate services on Saturdays.

Ida Gillis, who has overseen the development of the program, finds it exceedingly satisfying. The seasonal rhythm of the work suits her, and it is a great way to spend retirement.

Story by Don Wedd