From the Brookings Institution, this report includes an analysis of data on neighborhood poverty from the 2005–2009 American Community Surveys and Census 2000. The data reveals that after declining in the 1990s, the population in extreme-poverty neighborhoods rose by one-third from 2000 to 2005–2009. Additionally, concentrated poverty doubled in Midwest metropolitan areas and rose by one-third in the South’s metropolitan areas. Authors speculate that this rise in poverty from the recession will further increase the concentration of poor individuals in extreme poverty neighborhoods.

The Foundation Center issued this report on foundation giving trends in 2009. Education and health have the greatest shares of foundation grant dollars, which included areas of education, health, human services, and public affairs/society benefit. Human services had the most number of grants, but grantmaking did decline 2.1 percent from 2008 to 2009. Eight out of ten major fields experienced funding declines between 2008 and 2009 due to the economic recession.

In 2004, the Lumina Foundation for Education launched “Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count,” a national initiative aimed at improving success among community college students, especially low-income students and students of color. From the Annie E. Casey Foundation, this report examines the outcomes at the first 26 colleges that have joined the initiative, although there are currently 130 institutes in 24 States who are a part of the initiative. The report describes how the initiative has influenced the colleges and provides an overview of the strategies that have been implemented across the country.

In 2009, the United States ranked fourteenth in college graduation rates among industrialized countries, and this research highlights ways to improve college attendance and graduation rates at 4-year colleges. This working paper, through the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis, provides a review of 38 studies on the relationship between assets and children’s education attainment. Then, authors discuss Child Development Accounts (CDAs) policies, which have been proposed as an asset approach for helping to finance college.

Displaced workers often have difficulty finding new employment opportunities. This report, from the Monthly Labor Review at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, provides information on displaced workers across industries between 2007 and 2009. Twenty-three percent (1.6 million) of all long-tenured displaced workers, individuals who lost or left jobs they had held for 3 or more years, were displaced from manufacturing jobs. Around one million long-tenured displaced workers had held jobs in wholesale and retail trade, and more than 900,000 displaced workers had lost or left jobs in the construction industry.

The Office of Immigration Statistics at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released the 2010 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. The Yearbook includes a compendium of tables with data on foreign nationals who, during fiscal year 2010, were granted lawful permanent residence (i.e., admitted as immigrants or became legal permanent residents), were admitted into the United States on a temporary basis (e.g., tourists, students, or workers), applied for asylum or refugee status, or were naturalized.

From the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), the Scorecard provides a comprehensive picture of wealth, poverty and the financial security of families in the United States across all 50 states and District of Columbia. CFED offers state-by-state performance and policy measures across five issue areas: Financial Assets and Income, Businesses and Jobs, Housing and Homeownership, Health Care and Education. Across the five issue areas, CFED gives a detailed assessment of the strength of each State’s policies, recommendations to strengthen policies, and links to Resource Guides.

This resource was authored by the Alliance for Children and Families and was designed to help non-profit organizations plan for the future. The report identifies “disruptive forces” that will fundamentally change and transform the non-profit human services sector. Pulling from research, authors provide an overview of six “disruptive forces” to help organizations become adaptable to change, which include: purposeful experimentation, information liberation, integrating science, uncompromising demand for impact, branding causes, not organizations, and attracting investors, not donors.

More than 100 million Americans do not have high-speed Internet services in their homes and a significant percentage of Americans still do not own or have access to a computer. On Wednesday, November 9, 2011, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a new initiative and promising public/private partnership to assist many low-income Americans access the world-wide web. The Connect to Compete initiative will make available low-cost computers, free digital literacy training, and discounted broadband Internet access to low-income families impacted by the digital divide. The new initiative is part of the FCC's efforts to extend affordable broadband access to more communities and it is fully supported by $4 billion in in-kind donations from private partners. To qualify for the new initiative, families must qualify for free school lunches and have at least one child that participates in the National School Lunch Program. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is releasing funds for States, tribes, and territories through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) block grant. Designed to offset seasonal heating costs, the funds will help low-income families pay for other basic needs, such as food or medical costs. The funding is available for qualified families to help pay for the cost of heating their homes in the winter, but also to help pay for making homes more energy efficiency by helping families pay for insulation.