News

Elnora Angel’s Catering, one of Advance Memphis’ LAUNCH start-up businesses, is providing a southern home-cooked meal for Downtown Church’s Good Friday luncheon served with a Good Friday message: Embrace: A Pursuit of Love & Justice.  The event will be held at Clayborn Temple from 12 to 1pm on April 4, 2018. Cost is $10. Register here.

Memphis, TN – August 23, 2017 – Advance Memphis is very excited about a multi-year research study that was developed and started this summer by Josh Fikkert, an intern from Covenant College. The study will evaluate the long-term impact of Individual Development Accounts (IDA). IDA is one of the programs utilized by Advance Memphis and used around the country to stimulate savings, banking, and asset purchase as a means to financial stability for people who may be working, but remain trapped in poverty.  Most studies currently available on the effectiveness of IDA only follow participants for about six months after purchase, and tend to focus exclusively on asset acquisition. This new study will attempt to follow and compare our participants in Work Life, who receive little financial literacy training; Faith & Finances, who receive very specific training in financial management; and IDA participants, who actually enter into a matched savings and asset purchase program. The study will compare saving and banking habits of the groups for up to two years after they complete the programs. The study specifically asks two questions: (1) “Are Faith & Finances and/or IDA participants more likely to demonstrate long-term savings behavior?” and (2) “Is IDA participation positively correlated with long-term banking habits?”. Saving and banking are factors that contribute to financial stability in peoples’ lives.

Sylvia Turner recently opened an IDA at Independent Bank to save for start her own daycare business.

A presentation that introduces the research study and provides anecdotal information based on recent interviews can be found here: Evaluating the Impact of Individual Development Accounts on Savings Habits and Banking Relationships.

Josh Fikkert, a senior at Covenant College, is a Community Development and Philosophy major. We are thankful for Josh’s work this summer as an intern and for our continued relationship with Covenant College and the Chalmers Center at Covenant College. The Chalmers Center is a non-profit that works to equip churches and organizations to declare and demonstrate to the materially poor that Jesus Christ is making all things new. Advance Memphis has hosted numerous interns from Covenant College’s Community Development major over the years and is grateful for its ongoing relationship with the Chalmers Center as a training partner, a field-test site for curriculum development, and as a co-developer of the Work Life curriculum.

Advance Memphis will be looking for volunteers and interns to help gather and collate data from interviews and surveys of over two hundred program participants in the next several years to ensure study efficacy. If you would like to participate in any of our programs or help facilitate the study please contact Bryce Stout at bstout@advancememphis.org.

As you plan and dream for ways to learn, grow, and serve in 2016, please consider using our 2016 Involvement Guide as a resource. Those who pray, give, and serve at Advance Memphis are the lifeblood of this work. The Guide contains class schedules, contact information, and volunteer roles–everything you need to make a plan to share your gifts in a way that blesses others and fits your life. We created this guide because we need roughly 240 volunteers every year, many of them in the highly relational roles that are essential to our programs. These volunteers are truly the body of Christ at work in Memphis. We thank you for considering ways you can get involved this year. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE 2016 ADVANCE MEMPHIS INVOLVEMENT GUIDE.

Advance Memphis program grads and employees of the Staffing Program are seen here completing an Outsourcing project in the new Advance Memphis Warehouse, just blocks from our offices and classrooms on Vance.

In 2015, Advance Memphis, powered by 240 volunteers, 15 staff members, dozens of donors, and an incredible community of participants, operated programs that empowered the people of 38126 to move into financial security.

Below, you’ll see just a few of the tangible outcomes of the work this community did this year. There are many more life changes that are less easily measured: the 40 year old who opens his first bank account, the woman who stopped drinking, the man who proudly supports his children, the woman who earned her GED, the man with a drivers license and a new job.

THIS is how our Lord will “undo the straps of the yoke to let the oppressed go free.”

LEARNING

• 80 participants will complete job readiness training through Work Life.
• 61 participants received 12+ hours of GED/HSE instruction and 6 participants received their GED/HSE. The new, more difficult test is causing a nationwide decrease in pass rates. More info about this change: bit.do/gedchanges.
• 18 students received higher-ed counseling. 10 enrolled in courses or training.

SUPPORT THIS WORK

HEALING

• 165 counseling sessions were held, with 17 clients attending 3 or more sessions.
• 15 crisis counseling sessions were provided.
• 72 graduates attended 3 or more addiction recovery meetings this year.
• 40 participants will complete Anger Management training.

WORKING

• 73 graduates have been hired into temporary positions. 25 graduates have been hired into temp-to-hire positions. The average starting wage was $9.01, almost 25% above Tennessee’s minimum wage and 20 cents above our 2014 average starting wage.
• YTD, graduate employees of our Staffing Program have earned gross wages of $1,236,000.
• 199 graduates have been rehired after a period of unemployment.
• 13 graduates have received fork lift certification

GROWING

• 18 participants completed Faith & Finances training and 10 new matched saving accounts (IDAs) were opened. 12 people have been saving in their IDAs consistently for 6+ months. 3 participants purchased an asset using their IDAs.
• 12 participants completed LAUNCH entrepreneurial training. 64% of LAUNCH alumni are still operating businesses; 2 new businesses were registered  in ‘15.

PARTNER IN THIS WORK!

• The new Advance Memphis Warehouse (pictured above) is already providing job coaching and employment right here in the neighborhood. There is much more to come next year. Support this work through prayer and business referrals.
• Relationships are the key to the work we do. Mentors in most of our core programs provide relational support that changes lives. Support this work by volunteering as a Champion (day, Work Life), Ally (evening, Faith & Finances), or entrepreneurial mentor (evening, LAUNCH). Support this work by volunteering. Email: acoop@advancememphis.org.

 Volunteer hours, donations, and prayers are essential.  Get involved using the information below.

JOIN THE PRAYER LETTER TEAM: kate@advancememphis.org
VOLUNTEER: acoop@advancememphis.org
GIVE: Mail to  PO Box 2201, Memphis, 38101 or go to advancememphis.org/give.

 Each year 100+ Advance Memphis participants make choices and take steps to move forward with their educational and professional goals, such as: