For over 3 years I worked for FPWA, an anti-poverty policy and advocacy organization committed to economic opportunity and upward mobility in New York City.
I was brought on to FPWA as a Fiscal Policy Analyst to build, design and grow the Federal Funds Tracker (FFT).
The FFT is a tool designed to protect and strengthen federal grants that support New York City’s social services budget and sector. The FFT demystifies the federal budget’s impact through interactive data visualizations and storytelling, empowers advocates by democratizing the data, and offers resources and opportunities for federal budget advocacy.
Part of the impetus for this work is that because FPWA is a member organization, with nearly 180 members across NYC, many of FPWA’s members rely on the funding from federal grants to support programs that serve their communities.
Because many of the federal revenue that FPWA members receive are passed-through city agencies, the FFT tracks federal revenue of key federal programs from 8 NYC human-service agencies.
For example, one of the city agencies the FFT tracks, Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), federal grants have fallen by $233 million (19 percent) since FY 2010 after adjusting for inflation.
In addition to providing current data visualizations on federal funding to NYC, the FFT is an advocacy tool where not only members, but all New Yorkers, can leverage the research on the FFT to advocate for more federal funding to support their communities. This was especially prevalent last year as our team tracked and analyzed the federal response to the Coronavirus pandemic.
I also support FPWA’s Programs and Policy teams by utilizing my GIS expertise to produce maps that visualize data analysis. You can see two examples of the maps that I produced on page 11 and 12 on the Ending the Poverty to Prison Pipeline report. The recommendations found in this report was recently incorporated in a NYPD report, NYC Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative Draft Plan: Part 2. This report was produced by the NYPD as part of a Department-wide initiative that is aimed at transforming policing in New York City.