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Increasing Economic Self-sufficiency for Low-income Families and Individuals
The Community Foundation is committed to engaging our community to increase economic self-sufficiency for low-income individuals and families. Successful strategies that create and support economic self-sufficiency include improving educational attainment and increasing the assets of low-income families.
That is why the Community Foundation is proud to be the largest provider of college scholarships in Western New York. Our donors provided nearly $2 million in 2010 making it possible for hundreds of students to continue their education.
Why it Matters
- The under-18 poverty rate is 42% in Buffalo and 30.2% in Niagara Falls.
- 30% or 65,000 adults in the City of Buffalo are illiterate.
- In Buffalo’s Public Schools, one in three students entering ninth grade won’t graduate with their classmates in four years.
- A young person who does not graduate from high school is twice as likely to be unemployed in the future.
- A high school graduate earns approximately $6,700 more annually than someone who did not complete high school.
- A college graduate earns approximately $10.00 more per hour than a high school graduate.
- In Erie County, 22.5% of all families living in poverty had a head of household with less than a high school diploma; 38% for Buffalo.
Our Strategy
The Foundation focuses on four key solutions within self-sufficiency to address this tremendous need in our community and provides grants to organizations that do the following:
- Increase educational attainment for low-income children and adults
- Increase the number of low-income residents obtaining jobs that support economic self-sufficiency
- Increase financial assets for low-income residents
- Research and advocacy related to the above solutions
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