More than 37 million Americans live in poverty today. But it does not have to define their future.

Across the country, people are proving that when they have the freedom and opportunity to put their talents to work, they can build paths to prosperity for themselves, their families and their communities.

This is the mission behind State Policy Network’s Pathways to Prosperity Prize. The prize includes grants ranging from $25,000 to $75,000 to people and organizations “pursuing innovative, market-based solutions that will eradicate poverty in their communities.” These grants are generously made possible because of SPN’s partnership with the John Templeton Foundation, Rising Tide Foundation, and the Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation. The goal of SPN’s Pathways to Prosperity Prize is to inspire and accelerate projects that offer market-based solutions to the many challenges poverty presents to our communities.

It isn’t about “fixing” poverty – it’s about empowering people to lift themselves out of poverty through meaningful work, improved skills and the opportunity to thrive.

In 2025, the second year of the program, we are pleased to recognize two incredible organizations: The Illinois Policy Institute’s Center for Poverty Solutions and True Change.

The Dignity of Work

When the Illinois Policy Institute launched its Center for Poverty Solutions, the mission wasn’t to “lift” the needy or “give” them assistance. It was to provide people in need with the resources and dignity to lift themselves through work.

One of the first major campaigns of the Center for Poverty Solutions is called the "Community Based Employment Co-op." This initiative aims to reduce poverty in Chicago’s most in-need communities by tackling unemployment. The center’s co-op connects hard-to-employ and low-experience individuals to quality jobs and ultimately, long-term careers. The project leverages established community networks such as block clubs and faith-based organizations to facilitate employment connections for community members who have few opportunities available to them.

The co-op launched in Q2 of 2025 in two neighborhoods in Chicago experiencing some of the worst poverty and crime, Austin and Englewood. Its success will be measured person-by-person and block-by-block in those neighborhoods. As Eddie Kornegay, the executive director of the Center for Poverty Solutions says, “The No. 1 thing that people with good ideas lament is not having the financial resources to support their concepts. So, it’s incredible to look at the Pathways to Prosperity Prize and think about how we might be able to properly use this investment. And here in Chicago, that’s a key word: investment. So many promises are made to these communities and not kept. So, this gives us the opportunity to actually implement something we’ve been talking about. This is an investment in the West Side and South Side of Chicago, and our communities see it as such.”

Preparing the Future for Prosperity

When Kam Phillips left his corporate career in finance, he didn’t do it to climb a lucrative career ladder – he did it to help others get on theirs. Being raised in metro Atlanta, Phillips saw firsthand how opportunity gaps and mental health challenges hold people back. Entire communities suffer as a result. It was this reality that inspired him to start True Change. True Change is a nonprofit that works to equip youth in underserved communities with tools to strengthen their character development, emotional intelligence and career readiness.

It was this work, specifically True Change’s “Elevate Your Path” Career Readiness Program, that caught the eye of the Pathways to Prosperity Prize team.

True Change’s Elevate Your Path program equips under-resourced teens and young adults in North Carolina and Georgia with essential career readiness skills. It combines in-person workshops, virtual coaching, a digital student platform, and mentorships to foster both emotional intelligence and professional readiness. The program also uses an evidence-based method that enhances student engagement and job retention.

With the resources from the Pathways to Prosperity Prize, True Change will be able to launch a pilot expansion program which will serve as a blueprint for replication in other high-need communities. This pilot program will enable the True Change team to create a scalable model for career development and economic mobility. As Phillips explains, “They say you can't be what you don't see. We know that students need exposure and perspective. And we’ve worked with partner organizations and businesses in our program that have looked for different ways to engage with our students and bring us back, but we just haven’t had that capacity.” Now, with the resources from the Pathways to Prosperity grant, True Change can reach even more students and shape even more of the future.

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Harvard professor Arthur Brooks said it best when he wrote, “I am an expert witness to the fact that there has never been a better system than free enterprise for empowering real people to pull themselves out of poverty. There has never been a better system to allow people to unlock the unique sense of dignity that comes with earning their own way, deploying their talents to serve their community, colleagues, or customers, and taking home justifiable pride in – and rewards for – their efforts.” Brooks will be presenting at SPN’s 33rd Annual Meeting in New Orleans in August, and this is where we will also have the chance to honor and hear from our winners.

Poverty can be as cruel as it is common. But by embracing opportunity over bureaucracy and dignity over pity, it can be overcome. That is what SPN’s Pathways to Prosperity Prize is working to achieve in partnership with our incredible grantees, supporters and a movement committed to putting Americans on a path to success.