Jamie Keene, a fellow at Economic Security Project and former Special Assistant to the President for Equality and Opportunity in the Biden-Harris White House, presents a blueprint of four executive actions a future progressive administration could take to expand cash assistance without waiting on Congress. Drawing on her experience inside the administration — where she saw how much time gets lost building internal consensus rather than implementing policy — she argues for using the next governing moment’s first weeks to act, not deliberate.

Her four proposals: (1) broadening TANF into more of a child allowance by expanding non-recurrent short-term benefit authority; (2) using a Medicaid 1115 waiver to offer a “birth grant” during pregnancy and postpartum; (3) unlocking Title IV-E prevention funds for cash-based child welfare prevention, to address poverty-driven family separation; and (4) pairing cash with a market-focused agenda — stronger competition/consumer-protection enforcement and a price-capped “basic basket” of essentials, modeled on Mexico’s canasta básica — so cash stretches further. All four proposals are framed as complements to, not substitutes for, a bolder legislative agenda in 2029.

PHLHousing+ is a five-year randomized controlled trial run by the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation (PHDC) and the University of Pennsylvania testing direct cash assistance as an alternative to Housing Choice Vouchers for very low-income households with children in Philadelphia. The pilot was motivated by evidence that landlord rejection rates for voucher holders exceeded 80% in higher-income Philadelphia neighborhoods, effectively making the voucher inaccessible for many families who needed it most. Rachel Mulbry (PHDC) and Vincent Reina (Housing Initiative at UPenn) presented early findings from the trial, which compares outcomes for households receiving monthly cash, those offered a voucher, and a control group still on the PHA waitlist — with results strongly favoring cash on access, housing stability, and housing quality.

In this session, Nina Olson and Gabriel Zucker of the Center for Taxpayer Rights walk us through a deceptively simple question: what exactly are 530A accounts (“Trump Accounts”), and how should families and funders engage with them? Grounded in the statutory details, they cover what these accounts actually are — think head-start retirement fund, not general savings — how enrollment works, and what nonprofits and foundations need to know before contributing, including a critical tax trap that could make charitable dollars less valuable than a direct cash transfer.

In this session, Daniel Mintz and Jenn Thom of Code for America explore a practical question: can AI actually reduce bureaucracy in public assistance and guaranteed income delivery? Grounded in real-world examples, they will walk through where automation can meaningfully improve staff workflows and client experience, where it can introduce new risks, and what it takes to deploy tools responsibly in high stakes systems.

In this powerful spotlight, Paula X. Rojas—organizer, healer, and trainer—invites us to reimagine care as collective, political, and liberatory. Drawing from decades of movement work, Paula shares how communities can reclaim care as a source of power and resistance, especially for those navigating systemic harm. Rooted in Black and Brown feminist traditions, her presentation bridges healing justice and organizing, offering a vision of care that is not just responsive but transformative.

Spitfire’s Nima Shirazi and Briahnna Brown take the GICP through a narrative session to help community members understand what role deep narratives about class, race and gender — and the concepts of deservingness and shared responsibility within our society — play in communications and how your community can leverage narrative strategies to move your key audiences and decision makers.

Watch here.

Tonaeya Moore, the Director of Policy for the CASH Campaign of Maryland, and Robin McKinney, Co-Founder and CEO of the CASH Campaign of Maryland,  share an overview of the Baltimore Young Families Success Fund (BYFSF) Pilot Program. The Baltimore Young Families Success Fund (BYFSF) is a guaranteed income pilot project launched by Mayor Brandon M. Scott to provide 200 young parents, between 18-24 years old, with an unconditional cash payment of $1,000 per month over the course of 24 months.

Featuring Maura Cuffie-Peterson, Director of Strategic Initiatives for Guaranteed Income with Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY), this spotlight highlights the role of artists in their community, and the importance of ensuring artists have support both inside and outside of artistic spaces. CRNY currently manages the largest guaranteed income pilot for artists, serving 2,400 artists, both urban and rural, across New York state. Hear from Maura how to create equity in program development when serving artists and others making nontraditional incomes, and how to overcome potential hurdles when building with these communities.

Mona Masri is the Senior Director with the Asset Funders Network. Here, she discusses leveraging philanthropic funds to support state-wide policy solutions by highlighting the collaboration between the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) Guaranteed Income program and the California Guaranteed Income Pooled Fund (GIF). Learn how this state program and private philanthropically funded effort support equitable grant making for guaranteed income pilots across California.