Please join us in welcoming Anne Kandilis to Strategies for Children’s Board of Directors.
Strategies’ Board Chair Sally C. Fuller says, “Anne brings a wealth of experience to the board. She has worked in Boston as a tax professional and as the project director of the Springfield Public Schools’ Preschool Expansion Grant Strategic Plan. Her broad professional knowledge and networks will be invaluable.”
Amy O’Leary, Strategies’ executive director, adds, “We are thrilled to have Anne join our board. Anne has been a long-time friend and partner of Strategies for Children. Her work and focus on supporting families and the workforce aligns perfectly with our mission and we are looking forward to continuing our work together.”
Currently Kandilis, a native of Springfield, Mass., is the director of the Springfield WORKS Collaborative, “a community-wide initiative formed in 2016 with the Western Mass Economic Development Council and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Working Cities Challenge, to promote economic growth in under-served communities.”
One advocacy issue Kandilis has worked on for years is the “cliff effect,” which is what happens when workers get a raise that makes them ineligible for the public benefits they had relied on, such as health insurance and housing support.
“The cliff effect is just one piece of a larger, broken system,” Kandilis says in a 2023 Federal Reserve Bank of Boston article. “But it’s a real drag on our economy … (and) it’s a real disservice to the people who live here.”
To tackle this problem, Kandilis and the Springfield WORKS Collaborative are implementing the Bridge to Prosperity Pilot program, which addresses the cliff effect by “rethinking America’s safety net programs as a tool for mobility rather than a poverty trap.”
As a recent Boston Globe article explains:
“With $1 million of federal COVID relief funds and another $75,000 in philanthropic backing, the pilot will provide two years of ‘transitional assistance’ to 100 families who would otherwise be at risk of losing government benefits if their income grew. Participants in Boston, Springfield, and Worcester will be eligible for monthly payments of up to $500 to make up for diminishing public assistance tied to taking a higher-paying job.”
O’Leary and Fuller agree that Kandilis’ perspective will be essential to Strategies’ work.
“As we’ve broadened our view from early education to early childhood, we’re excited to work with board members who are eager to take on big problems and think about systemic solutions,” O’Leary says.
Fuller echoes this idea, saying, “Anne will be a vital part of our effort to develop a creative vision for change that centers abundance and that vastly improves the lives of young children and their families.”