Nonprofit Networking-Poverty Simulation 

As part of our Nonprofit networking series we are excited to bring you an interactive program related to poverty.  Poverty Simulations are used nationwide and have been a great way to help those in the community understand the challenges, barriers, and logistics of managing life with limited income. 

The poverty simulation experience is designed to help participants begin to understand what it might be like to live in a typical low-income family trying to survive from month to month. It is a simulation, not a game. The object is to sensitize participants to the realities faced by low-income people.

In the simulation, participants assume the roles of up to 26 different families facing poverty. Some are newly unemployed, some are recently deserted by the “breadwinner,” and others are recipients of TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, formerly AFDC), either with or without additional earned income. Still others are senior citizens receiving Social Security or grandparents raising their grandchildren.

The simulation is conducted in a large room with the “families” seated in groups in the center. Around the perimeter are tables representing community resources and services for the families. These services include a bank, super center, community action agency, employer, utility company, pawn broker, grocery, DFS office, payday and title loan facility, mortgage company, school and child care facility.

The experience lasts from two to three hours. It includes an introduction and briefing, the actual simulation exercise, and a debriefing period in which participant and volunteer staffers share their feelings and experiences and talk about what they have learned about the lives of people in poverty.