Angel Investors

Please donate now. All donations are used to equip US communities to end poverty.

Angel Investor Donation Levels
Angel Investors support the critical capacity building plans of expanding Circles into 1000 communities and reaching a tipping point in our nation towards ending poverty.

$50,000 and up Gold Angel Investor
$25,000 - $49,999 Silver Angel Investor
$10,000- $24,999 Bronze Angel Investor

Partner Donation Levels
Partner donations provide us with the funds to refine our model, share innovation across communities, design new tools, perform quality research, communicate our positive message through the media, develop expansion plans, educate the public on solutions to poverty, and transform our nation.

$1-$149 Partners in Community
$150-$249 Partners in Learning
$250-$499 Partners in Design
$500-$999 Partners in Media
$1,000-$2,499 Partners in Expansion
$2,500-$4,999 Partners in Education
$5,000-$9,999 Partners in Transformation

What are Circles returns?

Frequently Asked Questions by Donors

Is my donation tax deductible?

Yes, MTM is a 501-c-3 nonprofit organization.

How bad is the problem? Do I really need to help now?

The research from the Center for American Progress (Poverty to Prosperity Report April 2007) shows that we are spending $500B a year now raising children in poverty. The current recession is proving too difficult for millions of families who are now finding themselves in poverty. People need support, direction, new education, new financial literacy skills, job retraining and a big dose of hope. We cannot sit back and hope government solves this alone. Individuals like you need to get involved if we want to finally end poverty.

Why invest in Move the Mountain over all the other nonprofits?

Move the Mountain is a private nonprofit established in 1992 to inspire and equip communities to end poverty. We work with long-lasting solutions, not band-aids. Our job is to find what works and transfer it to new communities. We have also developed our own holistic approach to helping families out of poverty known as Circles™. In our first Circles pilot, we helped 58 families off welfare saving taxpayers $491,000 a year and increased their income by nearly $1M a year. Today Circles™ provides the basic building block for ending poverty in communities in 20 states. We are taking our call to action to the nation with the credibility of stories from people across the nation behind us as to what it takes to get out of poverty.
Move the Mountain 990

Who are your partners in ending poverty?

The General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church has designated Circles™ as the US pilot ministry to the poor. We also work with United Ways, Goodwill Industries, Community Action, Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, community foundations, schools, universities and community colleges, and a diverse set of community and faith-based organizations throughout the country.
• Global Ministries--United Methodist Church
• United Way
• Community Action Partnership
• Goodwill Industries
• Community Foundations
• Salvation Army
• Catholic Charities

How can you leverage my donation so it helps the most people?

With every donation we receive, we typically generate 10 times that amount in new funds to help families out of poverty. We have a team of grant writers and fundraising consultants who help communities help themselves to generate new resources to help people out of poverty. Move the Mountain has already helped to generate commitments in 2009 for more than $5M towards new grassroots initiatives focused on ending poverty while keeping our own annual budget under $.5M.

How many communities do you hope to reach?

Our goal is to reach 1000 communities in the US in order to create a tipping point that will begin the eradication of poverty in our nation.

Can you give me an example of someone who has been helped?

The demographic of the highest percent of families living in poverty is a single mother and her children. Here is one of the families we are helping as they help themselves:

Katie and Angela have been members of the Circles™ Campaign since June 2007. Katie’s goals were to provide for her daughter a life very different from hers. She wanted to have a sense of community, a job that she loved and a stable home where they both could grow.

Since starting in Circles, Katie has enrolled in college, has been promoted at her job, has dealt with unhealthy personal relationships, and has been an advocate for Angela at her school. Angela is now attending gifted reading classes and is doing much better with her grades.

Katie and Angela now have what it takes to not only survive poverty but to move beyond it and help others to do the same. They have a strong support system, a plan, new skills for getting and handling better paying jobs, and the attitude necessary to turn adversity into opportunity. People need all of this to succeed. It can’t be a little of this and little of that. Katie has peers and mentors who are opening up new doors as she does everything she can to become financially sound.

You can learn more
about our approach to
ending poverty in our book:
“Until It’s Gone, Ending Poverty in our Nation, in our Lifetime.”

 

 

Endorsements

• Circles™ has been designated by the United Methodist Church as its US pilot ministry to the poor.

• A United Way (Lane County, Oregon) study on innovative models declared Circles as “…theoretically sound, creative, flexible and strongly endorsed by its practitioners… and is the strongest, most comprehensive model we have found...”

• Circles™ was recently featured on National Public Radio

• Goodwill Industries featured Circles™ as its keynote address to its national leadership June of 2009. Over 25 Goodwills are developing next steps to adopt Circles in their service areas.

• $5M have recently been committed to Circles across the country from foundations, local, state, and national governmental agencies, and individuals and churches.

• Circles was selected for presentation at the national 2009 Community Action Conference

• Move the Mountain has been selected as a delegate to the 2009 International Opportunity Collaborative in Mexico.

Testimonials

Circles boosts self confidence and helps people attract promotions and raises:
“There are a lot of underlying benefits to the program, including increased self-confidence for participants. It really positions people to be more marketable and gives them vital connections…One Circles Leader was recently voted employee of the year at her company; others have received promotions and raises...and they think that the training and Circles initiative have a lot to do with their successes.”
Holly Fuller, Longview, Texas

Circles helps people find their public speaking voice:
“A barely literate man came with his wife to support her as a Circle Leader. He was scared and uncomfortable at first. As he attended more meetings he became more confident. After going through the program he got up in front of 70 people and spoke articulately about his situation.”
Todd Lare, Bloomington, Indiana

Circles changes the way agencies function making the more effective
It is difficult for agencies to shift their mind frames. They tend to work in ‘silos’ doing program work and it is difficult to change the mindset to understand poverty in a comprehensive light, but once they do, they all want to get involved.”
Megan Shreve, Gettysburg, PA

Move the Mountain is an effective coach to communities.
MTM is “open and available. The conference calls with coaches have been extremely helpful, as has the assistance with grant ideas.”
Donna Potts, Pensacola, Florida

Circles puts people who want out of poverty in charge of their own destiny
“The key strength of this model is that Circles Leaders are at the CENTER of the program. This is essential to planning and it is vital to include them at each step along the way of the process.”
Chris Porter, East Syracuse, New York