Golden State Opportunity

Golden State Opportunity (GSO) was founded to ensure the success of the California Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC) and to continue the fight for financial well-being for all Californians. GSO’s flagship program, CalEITC4Me, utilizes innovative digital outreach and storytelling, grassroots organizing, media outreach, public advocacy, and mobile messaging to increase participation for both the CalEITC and the federal EITC. Today, GSO is a leading statewide advocacy organization working to end poverty and ensure everyone can invest in their future. GSO’s leadership and advocacy for low-income workers led California to establish the Young Child Tax Credit and expand CalEITC eligibility, making CalEITC one of the strongest and most inclusive EITC programs in the country. GSO has helped over 5.5 million low-income Californians claim over $10 billion in state and federal credits over the last five years.

Issue

Where can Golden State Opportunity expand their outreach to additional lower-income people and families to support their ability to meet basic needs and invest in their future? 

Situation 

In 2022, GSO helped pass the Foster Youth Tax Credit through state legislation, creating a tax credit for young people who had gone through the Foster system, a group that often struggles to make ends meet.  GSO is looking for help to identify more groups that would disproportionately benefit from outreach around the California Earned Income Tax Credit and/or new California state tax credits for lower-income people and families. Example groups include veterans, renters, teachers, home healthcare workers, etc.

Project 

Golden State Opportunity is seeking research expertise and strategic evaluation to identify and prioritize new demographic, labor or affinity groups that would disproportionately benefit from outreach around the CalEITC and/or new California state tax credits.  

Project Deliverables:

1. Using secondary research sources, identify new demographic, labor or affinity groups that would disproportionately benefit from outreach around the California Earned Income Tax Credit and/or new California state tax credits for lower-income people and families.
2. Refine/propose criteria to profile and prioritize each of these groups for outreach by Golden State Opportunity. Example criteria might include average income, likelihood of being a parent, and presence of allies or funders already helping. 
3. Create a decision-making tool (e.g. matrix) that maps the groups identified to the criteria to support GSO targeted outreach to groups most likely to benefit.