Upper Cumberland spans 14 rural counties across 5,000 square miles of Tennessee. The region had job training, emergency assistance, education programs, and employers ready to hire. Each agency was doing good work. But families kept cycling back.
An assessment revealed why: benefits cliffs were punishing families for earning more. Programs weren't coordinated across providers. Nobody owned the journey from crisis to stability to independence. The system was designed to manage poverty, not end it.
The community used those findings to build Empower Upper Cumberland — a coordinated system where navigators guide families through every stage, where benefits transitions are planned instead of feared, and where outcomes are measured in families who moved forward.
0
Families served across 14 counties
0%
Increased their income
$0.0M
In annual wage gains
0
Children in stronger homes
“The data changed how our board thinks about poverty. We went from counting heads to understanding the structural barriers families were navigating — and how to remove them.”
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Every community is different — different programs, different partners, different history. We don't arrive with a template. We start with your community and work outward.
But over years of doing this work, we've found that the same questions keep coming up. Where are the barriers — and why? What's the gap between what programs offer and what families actually experience? Where are the handoffs breaking down? What funding is available that nobody's applied for? Who's being left out, and what would it take to change that?
An assessment is how we answer those questions together. The result is a clear picture of your community's strengths and gaps — and a path forward your board, your funders, and your partners can all see.
Where families lose more in benefits than they gain in wages — the mechanism that keeps people from moving up, and the one most assessments miss entirely.
How your programs, partners, and referral pathways actually connect. Where families fall between providers, and where small changes create big impact.
What you're eligible for, what peers in similar communities have won, and how to position applications so funders see a coordinated strategy.
Who's being served, who isn't, and why. The patterns your board needs to see to make honest, informed decisions about resource allocation.
We usually begin with a phone call — 30 minutes to learn about your service area, what your board is grappling with, and what you're already doing well. No intake forms. Just a conversation.
From there, we pull together publicly available data — including your counties' CLIFF Index scores — and combine it with whatever local context you can share: enrollment records, program parameters, partner networks, funding history.
The deliverable is a board-ready report and presentation — written in language your stakeholders understand, not academic jargon. You own everything. Use it in CNAs, strategic plans, grant applications, policy briefs — whatever serves your community.
Scope depends on what your community needs.
Some communities need a focused chapter for an existing Community Needs Assessment — something that complements what their CNA consultant is already doing. That's typically a few weeks of work.
Others need a standalone assessment — a deeper look at their full system, with enrollment data integration, employer landscape analysis, and board-ready recommendations. That takes a bit longer.
And some communities are ready to go further — stakeholder convenings, funding strategy, implementation roadmaps, ongoing advisory support. That's how Empower Upper Cumberland started. That's how St. Mary's County, Maryland is starting now.
We figure out the right scope together on the first call.
Every assessment starts with a conversation. Tell us what you're working on, what your board is asking, and what keeps you up at night. We'll share what we see.