The Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation holds itself to its highest standards for respect, partnership, effectiveness, and transparency in relationships with our grantee partners. In the fall of 2008, we participated in the Center for Effective Philanthropy's Grantee Perception Report in order to gain an objective, third-party reading on our grantees' experiences with the Foundation. The responses seeded important conversations amond the Babcock Foundation board and staff. With this report, we extend our conversation to our grantee partners. As always, we look forward to continuing to hear your feedback and advice.
The Babcock Foundation occasionally commissions learning papers to increase our board and staff knowledge of various pathways out of poverty, with a focus on the Southeastern US. Research for this paper on the relationship between housing and moving out of poverty was complete before the housing market collapse of 2008 and the paper was written as the scope of national foreclosures was unfolding. Questions addressed in the paper include: When is housing an asset? What is the relationship between affordable housing and other tools for reducing poverty, including jobs, education and community development? How do regional and cultural differences shape housing strategies?
The Babcock Foundation's mission is helping people and places in the Southeastern US move out of poverty. This document describes our beliefs about how people and places move out of poverty. It also depicts how we act on those beliefs and the outcomes we seek. We update our beliefs, assumptions, and strategy based on learning from our experience with grantees and other partners.
Even before the onset of the “Great Recession” in December 2007, the 2000s had proven to be a difficult decade for working Southerners. Across the region, the 2000s were a period marked by meager job growth, rising joblessness, rapid industrial change, and mounting economic hardships. And the decade’s developments offset many of the gains – most notably against poverty – made by the region during the 1990s.
These findings come from the recent briefing paper, The South's Difficult Decade, prepared by South by North Strategies, Ltd. for the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation in Winston-Salem, NC.
The brief summarizes key economic changes that occurred between 2000 and 2009 in the ten states where the foundation is active: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
For more information go to South by North Strategies, Ltd. website.
The Babcock Foundation occasionally commissions learning papers to increase our board and staff knowledge of various pathways out of poverty, with a focus on the Southeastern US. This paper on jobs and economic development was begun in 2008 before the recession became apparent and completed as the recession unfolded and deepened. The paper recaps the history of economic and workforce development in the South with an equity lens. It describes the potential and limitations of an alternative approach, job-centered development, to increase the number and availability of good jobs for Southerners.
