2022 Budget and Tax Briefing Series — Part Three: 10 Years of the EITC Pooled Fund: Looking Back, Looking Forward

Launched in 2012, the EITC Pooled Fund has awarded more than $6 million to 39 networks, helping to advance economic opportunity for low-income workers and their families across the country through the creation and expansion of tax credits. This session explored what the Fund has learned over the last decade and engage funders in a conversation on the work that lies ahead.

Speakers:

Ami Nagle, Co-director, Economic Opportunity Funders (Moderator)

Rachel Isacoff, Manager, Economic Policy and Energy Justice, U.S. Equity and Economic Opportunity Initiative, The Rockefeller Foundation

Erin Currier, Senior Program Officer, W. K. Kellogg Foundation

Samantha Waxman, Senior Policy Analyst, State Fiscal Analysis, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Devin Simpson, Associate Director, The Hatcher Group

Cosponsor: EITC Funders Network

Webinar Recap:

On April 20, 2022, Economic Opportunity Funders hosted the third program in their 2022 Budget and Tax Briefing Series to reflect on the last ten years of the EITC Pooled Fund and look ahead to the future of the Fund. The event featured Erin Currier, senior program officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; Rachel Isacoff, manager, economic policy and energy justice at The Rockefeller Foundation; Devin Simpson, associate director at The Hatcher Group; and Sam Waxman, senior policy analyst for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The conversation was moderated by Ami Nagle, co-director of Economic Opportunity Funders.

In 2012, Economic Opportunity Funders and the EITC Funders Network launched the EITC Pooled Fund to advance tax fairness and economic opportunity for low-income workers and families through the promotion, protection, and expansion of the federal and state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Child Tax Credit (CTC) and other tax credits. Ten years later, the Fund has awarded more than $6.2 million to 35 state and 4 national networks across the country. Along the way, the Fund has seen political wins, lessons learned, and, of course, a global pandemic that shifted how many people think about tax policy in the fight against poverty. The Fund remained flexible and open to learning, and this meant supporting more long term, riskier investments; providing funding for subgrants to grassroots organizing partners to support meaningful collaboration; and supporting capacity building to prepare state and local leaders for any window of opportunity that might arise. Importantly, investing with a racial equity lens has helped create more opportunities for the communities who are most affected by these policies to have a voice in shaping them. The victories we saw around state implementation and expansion, and the inclusion of immigrant filers, younger workers and workers without children are to be celebrated and learned from.

Looking ahead, it’s important that we capitalize on the conversation and energy around tax policy and keep expansions to the EITC and CTC – among other credits – moving forward. We must continue to invite others into the conversation – workers and labor rights organizations – and build their excitement over the possibilities of progressive tax policy. And, importantly, we must continue to prioritize the communities who stand to benefit from these new policies – making sure they know how to access the credits and that their voice is heard in the tax policy conversation.