The people ate Mint.com recently posted up a great infographic on how companies take advantage of people who are low-income by offering up services that, in the end, cause people to fall into greater debt and lock them into absurdly high interest rates.

We at United Way of King County care particularly about making sure people who are low-income are able to build income and avoid paying fees when they don’t need to.  Every year, we run our Free Tax Campaign, which lets…

A Texas-based nonprofit, Mobile Loaves and Fishes, has created an interesting advertisement: they’ve bought up a billboard where Danny, a local who has been homeless for 15 years, will be “living”.

Danny will be up on the billboard for 2-3 hour stretches, trying to catch the attention of cars passing by.  This is both an awareness campaign and a fundraising campaign, where drivers can text to give $10.

It’s definitely a unique way to raise…

To celebrate National Volunteer Week, we set up our own little volunteer project which ended up being a blast!

A group of about 20 of us — which we recruited through this blog, Facebook, Twitter, and our mailing list — came out to Marra Farm on Tuesday.  When we got there, we learned more about Marra Farm (It’s one of only two historical farms in Seattle and the food grown goes out to the…

We here at United Way of King County are really proud of the work we do in the community and we love it when we can show off some of the cool projects we’re involved in.

Today’s featured project is Downtown Emergency Service Center’s (DESC) Drop-in Center meal program upgrade.  It was funded through our Response for Basic Needs which focuses on supporting and strengthening the organizations that are helping folks during this recession.

With our funding, DESC was able…

To celebrate National Volunteer Week, we’re hosting a volunteer meet up at Marra Farm (9026 4th Ave. S) on Tuesday, April 20th from 4pm – 6pm!  After volunteering, we’ll all head on over to watch the Mariners game that night — tickets are on us!

Marra Farm is located in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood and makes a big contribution to the community.  The farm grows organic produce and ships them out to local food banks.  Last year alone,…

The other day, we had the honor of having Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn stop by our tax site at the downtown public library.

Mayor McGinn learned more about the awesome work we do, toured the library site, and even volunteered to do some client intake!

We are thrilled that the city and Mayor McGinn supports our free tax campaign.  Thanks to a grant from the city, we are able to file 13,000+ returns that lead to over $17 million worth…

So this is really awesome news: a recent study has shown that homebuyers who used Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) to purchase their homes not only got better mortgage loan terms but also were two to three times less likely to lose their homes to foreclosure.

For the uninitiated, the IDA program is an innovative savings program that is designed to help low-income individuals save money towards a specific goal and to help them become more finanicially savvy.

The biggest…

Is it an unfortunate reality  that hundreds of people a month are losing their homes due to foreclosure and they don’t know where to turn.

If you or someone you are facing foreclosure, you should come to the Free Foreclosure Prevention Event on March 25 from 1pm to 7:30pm at the Hyatt Regenecy in Bellevue (900 Bellevue Way NE).

At this event, you will:

…

The folks at Stamp Out Hunger are getting an early start to their food collecting this year thanks to the help of Campbell’s Soup.  If you join Stamp Out Hunger’s Facebook fan page, Campbell’s will donate 1 can of soup ( up to 1 million pounds!) to Feeding America.

Stamp Out Hunger is one-day event where the postal service collects food left by mailboxes and delivers it to Feeding America.  Last year, they collected a record 73.4 million pounds…

[Image from LA Eastide]

Did you know that in L.A. County, certain “restaurants” accept food stamps? It is part of their Restaurant Meals Program that has been running since 2005.

For those that don’t know, food stamps (aka EBT) is generally only allowed for food products that must be prepared. So allowing benefits to be used at restaurants is a pretty radical shift in the program’s scope.

I put the word “restaurants” in quotation marks above because the participating…