Economic Security

Through our Economic Security program area, the Meyer Foundation aims to help low-income adults and families to stabilize their lives, build assets, and achieve financial independence by improving their access to living wage jobs and other economic and social supports.

Our grants in the Economic Security program area support organizations working toward these outcomes:

• Workforce Development: Low-income people have access to quality education and job-training programs that provide pathways to employment and reduce underemployment and unemployment.
• Rights and Benefits: Low-income people have access to justice through efforts that preserve and protect rights in matters related to employment, work supports and public benefits, economic and family stability, and immigration.
• Economic Supports: Low-income people have access to services that promote financial stability and economic mobility.

What We Fund

To achieve these outcomes, the Meyer Foundation supports:

• High-quality adult basic education (ABE), literacy, English language, job-readiness, and job-training and placement programs being offered in those parts of the region with the highest unemployment rates among low-income people. We give priority to programs that offer certified credentials, have career mobility options, target high-growth sectors, have established relationships with employers, offer or lead to living wage jobs, and are a part of a long-term individual or family sustainability plan.
• Pipeline programs (for example, ABE to certification to employment) that are partnering with other providers in the community—particularly those serving adults with limited education and work experience and hard-to-place individuals, such as individuals returning from incarceration.
• Legal services providers that provide both direct legal services and advocacy that enable residents to address legal status, housing, benefits, and employment crises. We give priority to organizations that conduct both direct service and advocacy work and are part of a collaborative continuum of service providers.
• Advocacy organizations and key coalitions that seek to address issues that disproportionately affect the financial and economic security of low-income communities of color and serve the most economically vulnerable populations, such as undocumented immigrants, day laborers, or individuals returning from incarceration.
• Programs that offer money management education related to credit, savings, and financial literacy.
• Comprehensive, multi-service anti-poverty organizations with the capacity to expand their services.
• Advocacy work that seeks to preserve and expand the use of federal benefit support programs, and advocacy to increase funding for education and training programs for adult learners and low-wage workers.

What We Do Not Fund

• Entrepreneurship, microenterprise, and small business development projects
• Individuals, either through scholarships or other forms of emergency financial assistance