INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM TO: FROM: SUBJECT: DATE: CC: KIRSTEN LODAL GABRIEL MUNOZ LIFT BUSINESS PROPOSAL 7/13/2012

GABRIEL MUNOZ

After volunteering with LIFT since February and after working with the staff and clients over the summer, I have been able to attain a much better understanding of the way this organization operates. Founded in 1998 by Kirsten Lodal and Brian Kreiter, LIFT was started as an organization that would help the parents of students who were working multiple jobs, paying their taxes, and sending kids to school but who were still having their struggles with maintaining a stable household and (LIFT Our History). The goal was to try to establish an organization that would cover a large array of services that would assist adults with finding the appropriate services regarding employment, housing, public benefits, and professional references. LIFT has been successful and is assisting more and more clients year after year and today has offices open in Washington D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and is currently working on setting up a location in Los Angeles. Although there are other organizations, such as National Able and the Workforce Investment Act,Program that provide similar services, LIFT has the advantage of offering all the information for the various services in one location and LIFT also has some partnerships with certain organizations where their priority clients are LIFT clients. Currently in the Chicago Pilsen location we have six cubicles, which given the strategic location right next to a train Station, makes it one of the most visited locations but it has had troubles in its volunteer attendance and the amount of work that gets done during the meetings. It is understandable that given that our intake process will consume at least half of each clients first 50-minute meeting which does not leave much time for the client and volunteer to address their other issues. The worst possible event is when volunteers do not make it to their appointments and clients need to be rescheduled. In order to make sure that the clients get more done during their meetings, particularly in the first meeting, is to train volunteers to go through the intake process much quicker by only stressing the most important points of the Confidentiality Statement and the Clients Rules, Rights, and Responsibilities. This process along with creating the clients profile on the LIFT network should not take more than 15 minutes at the most which still leaves the client and volunteer 35 minutes to work on other things such as updating a resume and searching for employment. One of the most embarrassing things for any organization is when its own employees, or volunteers are not able to make it to their appointments at their scheduled time, which is why I suggest that more should be done to recruit people from universities that are closer to that specific location and therefore have less trouble making it to their appointment on time. Another possible option that could be used to address this issue is to put in place a 3-strike policy where any volunteer who has failed to make their time commitments without a proper excuse will be dismissed, which stresses the importance of attendance since many volunteers must do their service for a college class or for a scholarship. As a non-for-profit organization, LIFT has developed a strong reputation and has grown due to its commitment to combatting poverty by helping connect clients with the correct services that can assist them. With everything basically in place for LIFT to operate, such as partnerships, strategic locations, and diversified funding, it is important to make sure that each employee and/or volunteer is able to do their job as efficiently as possible. LIFT has the potential to continue to grow and help more people which is why it is important to be as efficient as possible to be ready for the future of LIFT.

Works Cited

http://www.liftcommunities.org/about/approach http://www.liftcommunities.org/about/history http://www.liftcommunities.org/about/team