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History

Burst for Prosperity, an initiative of Children’s Home Society of Washington (CHSW), was created by a grant from the Northwest Area Foundation (NWAF) that funds efforts to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable prosperity.

Burst for Prosperity Beginnings

Burst for Prosperity grew out of the NWAF’s desire to develop a long-term initiative that creates new ways of reducing poverty. Community based strategies result in systems change and lead to long term wealth building for people living in low-income situations. The NWAF was interested in strategies that would reduce poverty in cities surrounding major urban areas and selected the Washington communities of Burien, Renton, SeaTac, Skyway, and Tukwila. As people move south of the urban core to more affordable communities, these five suburbs of South Seattle have experienced an influx of low-income families.

To encourage sustainable change, the NWAF created the Burst for Prosperity initiative as an opportunity for communities to build solutions the NWAF would fund. Central to the NWAF’s goals and to avoid using stop gap measures, the Burst for Prosperity initiative was to be based on strategies that support people in poverty to gain wealth through economic initiatives, asset development, career pathway strategies, microenterprise, and leadership development

In 2005, a temporary coordinating council was formed and included community members who lived or worked in central-south King County. This council was charged with creating a 10-year plan that would be approved by the foundation. Not long after, Children’s Home Society of Washington came on board as a sponsor, creating a three-way partnership between the NWAF, CHSW, and the new organization, then named BuRSST for Prosperity using the first letters of the communities involved.

Permanent staff was hired starting in October 2006, and the 10-year plan was finally approved in April 2007. This plan was based on three major strategies: building community capacity, removing barriers to creating wealth, and overcoming generational poverty through education. Implementation of these strategies began in 2007.

Burst for Prosperity Today

In early 2009, Children’s Home Society of Washington entered into a new grant agreement with the NWAF in which CHSW assumed full responsibility for the Burst for Prosperity initiative. One key outcome of this agreement was the ability to expand the scope of Burst for Prosperity’s work beyond the original communities of Burien, Renton, SeaTac, Skyway, and Tukwila to allow a focus on regional and statewide systems change, which presents the greatest opportunity to reduce poverty. As a result of this new geographic range, the spelling of the initiative changed to Burst for Prosperity (from BuRSST).

Burst for Prosperity refined its strategic work as well as expanded development of its strategic partnerships in order to further the systems change vision in three core areas: Career Pathways, Asset Development, and Microenterprise. Burst for Prosperity’s systems change strategies are being tested through pilot projects and implemented through policy, practice, and replication efforts in various communities. These programs are designed to effect change in existing systems in ways that positively impact the ability of low-income people to achieve financial independence.

About Children’s Home Society of Washington

Children’s Home Society of Washington (CHSW) is Washington’s largest statewide non-profit children’s organization, serving over 39,000 children and their families through early learning, adoption, out-of-home care, family support, child and family counseling, and advocacy programs. CHSW’s mission is to develop healthy children, create strong families, build engaged communities, and speak and advocate for children.