A place to help people with modest needs

Founded in 2002, Modest Needs is a non-profit organization with a unique, threefold mission. Modest Needs exists:

To responsibly provide short-term financial assistance to individuals and families in temporary crisis who, because they are working and live just above the poverty level, are ineligible for most types of conventional social assistance but who (like many of us) are living one or two lost paychecks away from the kind of financial catastrophe that eventually leads to homelessness;

To lessen the burden of state and federal agencies charged with the care of the truly indigent by doing everything in our power to stop these at-risk households from slipping into the cycle of poverty, despite the burden posed by an unanticipated, emergency expense; and

To promote compassion and generosity on the part of individual persons living in the United States and Canada, the areas that we serve, by standing as a living testament to the power of human kindness to change lives, no matter how much (or how little) a person has to share.

ModestNeeds.org

MODEST NEEDS: Help for the 'working poor'

At Modest Needs, we work to promote the self-sufficiency of the 'working poor' - the hard-working but low-income individuals and families that conventional philanthropy has otherwise forgotten.

We have elected to undertake this mission because we recognize that a significant gap exists in the social service 'safety nets' of developed nations like the United States and Canada.

This gap leaves low-income but generally self-sufficient individuals and families without access to small amounts of short-term, emergency assistance in favor of providing significant amounts of long-term assistance to these same individuals and families once they've fallen deeply into the cycle of poverty.

In keeping with our mission, Modest Needs offers grants to low-income but generally self-sufficient households, displaced workers struggling to return to the workforce, permanently disadvantaged persons struggling to afford medical care, and small non-profit organizations. Our grants are designed:

• To prevent otherwise financially self-sufficient individuals and families from entering the cycle of poverty, when this might be avoided with a small amount of well-timed financial assistance;
• To restore the financial self-sufficiency of individuals who are willing to work but are temporarily unemployed by providing these persons with the means to return to work;
• To empower permanently disadvantaged individuals who otherwise live within their limited means to continue to live independently, despite a temporary, unexpected financial set-back related to their medical conditions; and
• To strengthen small non-profit organizations by providing a forum whereby such organizations can apply directly to the general public for the help they need to complete the relatively inexpensive projects that will allow them to better serve their clients and communities.

To the best of our knowledge, Modest Needs is the only legitimate non-profit organization of its kind serving the United States and Canada.

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