State of Working Vermont Webinar Recording and Summary
January 14, 2022
|
2 minutes to read
On January 27th, the Vermont Community Foundation’s Insight Hub hosted a virtual event featuring the Public Assets Institute discussing its recently published State of Working Vermont 2021 report. If you missed the event, here are a few highlights of what we learned about how philanthropy can help working Vermonters:
Philanthropy can fund research and initial data collection to inform giving and allow public policy to respond quickly to emerging trends, especially when they reveal inequities and disparities. For example, the Vermont Health Department revised its vaccination strategy in 2021 when early data showed a lag in BIPOC vaccination rates. The change in course helped correct the disparity and serves as an important example of what data can do. Private funding can help fill the research funding gap when government support lags.
Philanthropy combined with unprecedented federal aid can maintain the progress made last year to reduce child poverty and address Vermont’s opportunity gap. The pandemic gave the public a new understanding and empathy for what it means to be in crisis. The rapid rollout of pandemic aid created a “plug and play” model for administering resources quickly. These factors create a unique climate to solve a broad range of social and economic issues affecting Vermont.
Philanthropy can lead with giving that recognizes and seeks to address inequities, especially around race. Funding for racial justice work, BIPOC business development, leadership, and community empowerment centers can help.
Philanthropy can respond to trends exposed during the pandemic, such as the heavy toll on working parents. Robust support for childcare and economic development that grows high-wage jobs can help. So do programs that seek to help some of the most vulnerable Vermonters, including low-income single mothers. In many ways, Vermont is failing this group now, and in general needs to invest more in families.
presented with
Speakers:
Dan Smith President and CEO, Vermont Community Foundation
Kate McCarthy Program Officer for Grants and Community Impact, Vermont Community Foundation
Stephanie Yu Deputy Director, Public Assets Institute
Julie Lowell Policy Analyst, Public Assets Institute
Stay up to date with the latest from the Insight Hub.
Vermont has some of the nation's most-forward thinking laws when it comes to recycling, composting, and the environment. But we have not lowered the volume of trash that goes to landfills. Instead, we are dumping even more waste pollution on future generations.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Charitable individuals can drive meaningful change and help fix the trash problem. Our new Insight Hub brief shares three actions that should be top-of-mind.
The broadband buildout underway in Vermont has the potential to dramatically strengthen the economy and fill an infrastructure gap that has left roughly 20 percent of Vermont households waiting for years to access reliable, high-speed internet and all of the vital benefits it brings. Charitable individuals can move the effort forward in numerous ways and know that as they build momentum, they are creating dividends for future generations.
Women outnumber men on most campuses in Vermont and in the nation, and not by just a little bit. At the University of Vermont, only 33 percent of this fall's first-year class is male, one of the lowest proportions in the school's history. Vermont philanthropy can help change this picture and at the same time continue to support the impressive gains made by female students.
