Antipoverty Organizers Stand Up to President Obama

President Obama shocked a nationwide network of antipoverty leaders a little more than a year ago when he singled out a social program in his State of the Union address—not to praise it, but to put it on the chopping block.

As part of his effort to control federal spending, Mr. Obama said, “I’ve proposed cuts to things I care deeply about, like community-action programs.”

He was referring to the Community Services Block Grant, which provides money to more than 1,000 “community-action agencies,” mostly nonprofits across the country that manage projects offering education, housing, and other services to low-income people. A few weeks later, the president spelled out the details—he wanted to slash the $700-million program in half.

“We took that as a challenge,” says Don Mathis, president of the Community Action Partnership, which represents the organizations, noting that Mr. Obama had been a community organizer himself in Chicago. “It was almost like the president, in the spirit of community action, was saying, If you’re so good, show me.”

So Mr. Mathis and hundreds of other advocates mobilized to persuade Congress that Mr. Obama’s proposal would devastate a program that was key to helping those in need at a time of economic distress.

The effort was a full-time job for David Bradley, executive director of the National Community Action Foundation, which lobbies for the program. He says he met with about three-fourths of the members of Congress and traveled to a “couple of dozen” Congressional districts for meetings between lawmakers and community-action groups.

Mr. Bradley, a registered lobbyist, paid special attention to key members of the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee, which was calling for deep cuts in federal spending—including Denny Rehberg of Montana, who chairs the subcommittee with jurisdiction over community-action spending.

Montana advocates also contacted Mr. Rehberg and other Montana lawmakers, including Max Baucus, the Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee. They rallied the groups’ board members, clients, elected officials, and other local supporters to make phone calls, write letters, and share stories with the lawmakers, says Brian Steffen, chief executive of Action for Eastern Montana, which manages community-action programs.

In August, Representative Rehberg met with Mr. Steffen, Mr. Bradley, 10 executive directors of Montana community-action programs, and others in Missoula. The congressman was blunt about his concerns about the federal deficit, Mr. Steffen recalls.

“We said, ‘We’re not here to advocate for increased funding, we’re not even here to advocate for level funding,’” he adds. But, they argued, a 50-percent cut was too drastic.

Community-action advocates across the country were making similar entreaties to lawmakers, even those who had always supported the program, Mr. Mathis says. “We went to them and said, ‘We need you to stick by us now more than ever.’”

When Congress adopted a 2012 budget in December, it allocated $677-million for the Community Services Block Grant program, almost as much as was spent in 2011—and almost $329-million more than Mr. Obama had requested.

To address one of Mr. Obama’s concerns about the programs, Mr. Mathis says his group is working with federal officials to introduce new ways to measure the performance of community-action agencies.

But its work is not over. Last month, President Obama proposed trimming Community Services Block Grants to $350-million. So the program’s supporters are gearing up for a similar battle this year.