August 12, 1999 | Read Time: 1 minute
Making Welfare Reform Work Better: How Diverse Organizations Worked to Improve Their States’ Welfare Policies, by Phyllida Burlingame, summarizes the efforts of three groups in Washington — the Center for Community Change, the Center for Law and Social Policy, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities — that solicited and shepherded grants to state and local non-profit groups to help them cope with the 1996 law that shifted welfare oversight from the federal government to states. The State Welfare Redesign Grants Pool Project distributed $1.4-million in 1997 among 44 organizations in 29 states. Most of the grants went to small grassroots and public-policy organizations that worked to help families adapt to the new law. For example, grant recipients in California and Massachusetts managed to resuscitate state-financed food stamps for legal immigrants, a benefit the new law had eliminated. Sections delineate organizations that received grants, issues that groups found to be top priorities, case studies, and recommendations for would-be grant recipients. The project raised $1.5-million from grant makers in 1998, and plans to continue awarding grants in 1999. Publisher: Center for Community Change, Publications Department, 1000 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., Washington 20007; (202) 342-0594; http://www.communitychange.org; 102 pages; $10; I.S.B.N. 1-890874-10-8.
