Growing a Partnership
Christin Kundert and the National Foster Parent Association connect foster parents to the specialized tax assistance they need and form a new partnership in the process.
The Opportunity
After first publishing The Federal Tax Guide for Foster, Adoptive and Kinship Caregivers in 2007, the National Foster Parent Association (NFPA) in Tacoma, Washington wanted to identify additional ways to help foster parents receive guidance and specialized tax assistance to file their tax returns.
“When it comes to this population, there are a lot of tax concerns that VITA trainings do not cover and even sending a foster parent to a paid preparer can result in mistakes on the tax return,” says Christin Kundert, former Program Services Director for NFPA. “Tax preparers don’t always know how to treat foster care payments and sometimes incorrectly conclude foster parents are ineligible for the EIC and CTC because they receive support through foster care payments. As a foster parent, I know first hand how overwhelming it can be to have to independently navigate through the tax filing process. Others shouldn’t do it alone like I did, but foster parents need to be able to trust that if they go to a tax professional they will receive complete and thorough service.”
Christin Kundert, 2006 Train-the-Trainer Participant.
The Opportunity Fulfilled
“It was clear that we would have to provide the specialized training for tax preparers on the specific tax issues related to foster care,” states Christin. Initially, NFPA decided to pilot a project to conduct training on those issues with VITA volunteers in King County. When coordinating the logistics of the training became too challenging for all of the VITA sites involved, Christin decided on an alternative: Enrolled Agents, or tax preparers whom the federal government has authorized to represent taxpayers before the IRS for audits, collections, and appeals. A former Enrolled Agent herself, Christin knew that these tax professionals would be able to assist foster parents with their tax returns.
Christin conducted a training for 30 Enrolled Agents on tax issues related to foster care so that they could provide their specialized skills to foster parents at ten different locations throughout the state on February 28, 2009, which NFPA designated as tax day for foster parents. Some Enrolled Agents also offered their services to foster parents at a discounted rate during the rest of the tax season. The Washington State Society of Enrolled Agents arranged a special toll-free number for foster parents to call Enrolled Agents for assistance.
“Enrolled Agents are used to working with higher-income taxes, so this provided a chance to become more familiar with lower-income taxes,” recalls Christin. “Enrolled Agents were enthusiastic about their participation, since the change of pace in taxes was like a break for them and they felt that they were giving back to the community.”
This pilot project was successful enough that NFPA is now working with the National Association of Enrolled Agents to create a national model for a partnership between Tax Credit Outreach Campaigns and local Enrolled Agents to provide free tax assistance to foster parents.
Through this experience, Christin learned some key lessons about developing successful collaborations.
Click here to find out Christin’s 4 Tips for Building Effective Partnerships.
Christin Kundert worked with the National Foster Parent Association for 5 years. For more information about the partnership with the National Association of Enrolled Agents email: ckservices@msn.com.
Share with us:
Have you used these tips before? What has been important for you to form fruitful partnerships?
I use these tips each tax season. They are implemented in our daily tax prep. The Money Talks Have You Heard? Outreach Kit has several great tips as well including strategies to help you better serve your target area. The great thing about forming partnerships is that we can offer our free services to help more people in the community. Since we also teach our clients how to develop better financial habits and how to manage money and balance their checkbooks, banks and credit unions have become great partners. Forming a good working relationship with city and county government is also helpful.
We use Christin’s Tips for Building Effective Partnerships before tax season as we gear up, as well as during the tax season when questions arise. When we held our December training, our attendees were very happy to receive the Money Talks Have You Heard? Outreach Kit and commented that the information provided would help them in reaching out to their EIC eligible clients. We were able to form a partnership with a few umbrella agencies who attended the training that ordered a large number of additional kits to distribute within their own organizations. This expanded the reach of our efforts exponentially. As a result of our training, we were invited to participate on a panel for a local Parish Social Ministry to educate clients about EIC and to stress the need for volunteer tax preparers.
Another tip for establishing partnerships is to have facts to back-up your outreach efforts. Hard numbers can convince organizations of the importance of sharing EIC info when they have other priorities and are hard-pressed to use their limited resources to focus on EIC or CTC. Using the Brookings Institution website which allowed us to generate reports specific to our area was especially helpful. The availability of Spanish language flyers enabled us to provide immediate outreach to a local Hispanic Cultural Center this year at one of their events and to forge a new partnership with them. We are still hoping to develop greater local government interest as it seems that the most successful programs across the US are those with solid government support. Evelyn, what are you doing to nurture relations with your city and county governments?
I will echo the praises for the “Money Talks Have You Heard” outreach kit. We began our coalition development very late in the year and found this packet to be invaluable in our outreach efforts. We have put together a very quick 10 – 15 minute power point presentation that includes the information from the CBPP and localized statistics from the Brookings Institution (with the help of CBPP) and have found it to be a powerful tool as well. We took our show “on the road” and presented the information in a variety of settings, all of which helped recruit members to our coalition development meetings. As Christin suggests in tip # 3, we have also found that meeting with individuals and groups face to face has been instrumental. We were able to present a very brief program to one of the local city councils and have subsequently had an elected official participate in EITC Coalition development. I also have used tip # 4. I agree that having a clear outline of the program expectations and development goals is very helpful.