The Fund has supported several messaging research efforts to support awardees and the field.

In 2012, The Fund contracted with a national polling firm (Hart Research) to support new research on EITC messaging through focus groups and national polling. Findings from this research are available upon request.

In 2015, building on the polling and focus group findings, The Fund contracted a messaging firm (Topos Partnership) to explore the set of messages that might shift how people think about the EITC. This research, using deep “talk-back” message testing in several locations across the country, explored how people think about the EITC as a mechanism to reduce poverty and their reactions to messages regarding fraud and abuse of funds and other key message points.

In 2022 The Fund contracted with SKDK to help support the creation of a centralized communications hub focused on the expanded Child Tax Credit that will work to promote the benefits of the policy, create and distribute a daily rapid response digest, and create new resources and additional communications capacity for advocates.

The Fund also provides support to two national field partners – Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and The Hatcher Group. Each year, these national partners work collaboratively to prepare a scan of the state EITC policy field and identify opportunities and challenges that The Fund could work to address. National field partners also provide direct technical assistance to awardees and share learnings with the field.

The Fund supported a retrospective evaluation of the Rapid Response and Policy Development Fund. Evaluation activities began in Summer 2016 and concluded in March 2018.  Evaluation activities included document reviews, awardee surveys and interviews, group data collection at convening(s), funder and leadership team interviews, awardee coaching on data collection, awardee capacity assessments, surveys of a subset of awardees’ peers/partners, funding landscape analysis, and in-depth case studies.

RRF evaluation outcomes and lessons learned.

PDF evaluation outcomes and lessons learned.

With support by the EITC Pooled Fund, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has launched a new Program Participation Data Dashboard, providing links and interactive tables of state-by-state data on participants in a variety of programs for families and individuals living with low income including EITC, SNAP, Medicaid and CHIP and SSI.

This tool will be incredibly helpful to funders and grantees seeking to better understand the reach and impact of these programs in local communities across the US.

Too often the foundations working on equity and the foundations working on policy are not in the same rooms sharing analyses and strategies.

With support from the Rockefeller Foundation, The Fund began exploring opportunities to support the connection of economic policy and engagement funders. This resulted in a series of activities including:

• A landscape analysis in of key civic engagement funders, donor tables, and grassroots networks funding strategies around building an equitable economy;
• A conversation for Florida funders to begin to connect the dots across their work to improve economic security and discuss strategies for building more impactful partnerships; and
• The commission of two case studies on successful EITC campaigns in New Mexico and Washington and an infographic on how policy and grassroots funders can come together to build ecosystems that advance economic opportunity.

Additional conversations in Florida and other select states are antcipated in 2022.

Learn more here.

Several state EITC campaign case studies of EITC Pooled Fund awardees and additional written products have been developed by EITC Pooled Fund national technical assistance provider, The Hatcher Group.

Advocating for the EITC in the World of COVID-19 (Dec 2020): The economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown millions of Americans into financial instability. The EITC is one policy that can help low-income families stay afloat. This guide highlights messaging advocates can use to advocate for the EITC in the world of COVID-19.

A 2020 GUIDE TO Effective EITC Advocacy (Dec 2020): A comprehensive list of strategies highlighted in all 21 TCWF case studies.

California: Strong Relationships and Targeted Messages: Enacting a Last-Minute CalEITC Expansion for ITIN Filers (Dec 2020)

Colorado: Moving Toward Equity: Lessons from Colorado’s EITC Expansion (Dec 2020)

New Mexico: The Power of Relationship Building: Lessons from New Mexico’s WFTC Expansion (Dec 2019)

Hawaii: There’s Power in Numbers: Lessons From Hawaii’s Campaign to Enact a State-Level EITC (Dec 2017)