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EITC Outreach

The target population for the EITC Campaign is the working poor, people who work hard every day trying to make ends meet and support their families but who are rarely in a position to leverage the output of their work to save and plan for their future. The Campaign focuses specifically on serving hard to reach populations, immigrants and refugees, people for whom English is not a first language, people with little or no connection to mainstream financial institutions and systems, and people who are currently or formerly homeless.

Our primary outreach strategy is to connect with people who are able to benefit from the EITC although we welcome people who are not EITC eligible to come to our tax sites and take advantage of the free return preparation service as well.

We've done well reaching our target population to date - 32% of our customers qualified for EITC - without using income limits at the sites. In 2005, our volunteers spoke 27 different languages, and our community outreach ambassadors spent more than 324 hours in their communities, including the Somali, Bosnian, Russian, East African, Vietnamese, African American and Latino Communities.

UWKC designs and produces EITC marketing materials including flyers, posters, buttons and brochures. EITC sites and their partners are responsible for local community outreach. Support from advocates such as public leaders, human service providers, financial service providers, the faith community, organized labor, the business community and residents creates energy and builds the trust necessary to use our services.

62% of customers heard about our tax sites via word of mouth