Our Approach to Breaking the Cycle of Poverty

There is no question that breaking the cycle of poverty requires tackling social, financial and cultural issues from a holistic perspective. What do we mean by that? At Agents for Change, we firmly believe that it takes a lot more than solving food insecurity or homelessness to bring about meaningful change in a young person’s life. We can’t just try and solve one problem while ignoring all the other issues that get in the way of success. Simply providing three meals a day without a stable home will not solve the problem. Providing housing vouchers without appropriate mentoring in school will not solve the problem.

Our approach is different. We are not trying to solve discrete problems like food insecurity. There are dozens of charities and foundations that already do a wonderful job in many areas to help break the cycle. Rather, Agents for Change works at the local, community level to bring together a complete solution for children and families;

• We work with city leaders to identify communities that could benefit from our comprehensive, holistic approach

• We work with other charities and foundations to coordinate a comprehensive approach to introducing all the required services to help break the cycle of poverty

• We work with community leaders to identify families that could benefit from our approach

• We provide gap-funding where necessary to augment the services provided by others, for example, mental health resources or other services that are not covered via other services providers

• We are NOT trying to compete with or replace other charities and foundations that are already performing a wonderful service; rather, we are augmenting their capabilities and bringing them together under a comprehensive umbrella to provide a complete solution to a community