In the Spotlight: Friendly Temple Church VITA Center
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The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program has completed another successful tax season. The Friendly Temple Church VITA center in the Hamilton Heights Weed and Seed site, St. Louis, MO, was one of this year's most successful centers. It has been helping residents prepare their income tax returns for about 9 years.
The center's phenomenal growth started 4 years ago, however, when about 1,200 returns were filed electronically in 2004, and that number has been surpassed every year1,800 in 2005 and 3,000 in 2006to reach 3,200 returns for 2007. These figures do not include paper returns (such as past years and amended returns). At least half of the returns came from returning clients. By any measure, the Friendly Temple Church VITA center is one of the program's stars.
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Reaching Clients
According to Desmond Leong, Friendly Temple Church VITA Coordinator, a major reason for the center's success is that it prepares returns that the typical VITA center does not. For instance, because many of the volunteers are Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees, the center can prepare returns that feature pension income, capital gains, abandonment, debt cancellation, education credits, and itemized deductions. The center also prepares returns in which the adjusted gross income is higher than the VITA limits.
The center has also succeeded through community partnerships, such as the one it has with the local IRS Tax Assistance Center (TAC). During the filing season, TAC does not prepare prior year or amended returns, so the local TAC office distributed fliers to taxpayers stating that the service was no longer available. The fliers listed contact information and locations of sites that could accommodate such requests, and as a result, the Friendly Temple Church VITA center prepared about 150 returns for clients referred by the TAC office. The center also prepared more than 300 prior-year tax returns and additional amended returns for former H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt clients, who have found that returning to these commercial preparers to amend returns can be prohibitively expensive. Although this work is time consuming, Leong saw it as a way to attract new clients and said that each of these returns represents "a future customer that we will have for years to come."
This high level of service is standard at the center. For instance, center volunteers electronically file returns within 48 hours of preparing them. If a return is rejected, a volunteer promptly reworks it and follows up with the client. This might sound basic, but some sites do not offer this service, said Leong. "If you deliver a quality product, your clients will return," he said.
Leong also stresses the importance of community outreach to increase a center's client base. Each season he approaches the producers of community-based radio talk shows about having their show feature a guest spot on the VITA center. Last March, he also had 2 minutes on a cable newsmagazine that is sponsored by the nonprofit People's Health Center. The show airs several times a week via the largest cable provider in St. Louis. Leong tied his segment to the show's health focus by encouraging people to reduce their stress by having their taxes prepared at the center free of charge. Exposure in newspapers is also important. The St. Louis American, a free newspaper with a circulation of 70,000, did an article about the center in 2005 and plans another for early 2008.
Finally, Leong emphasized the importance of reaching out to day-to-day contacts. "The people you are in daily contact withthose you meet at grocery and department store checkouts, fast food restaurants, banks, cleaners, and churchesare in the income category of your target market," stated Leong. "Engage them in conversation."
Recruiting Volunteers
Although community outreach and partnerships are key to a VITA center's success, its volunteers are at the heart of its success. The commitment of the Friendly Temple Church VITA center volunteersand the resulting low attrition ratesprings from the program's faith-based roots. In the early years, the volunteers were Friendly Temple congregation members or IRS employees who had a passion for serving the community and preparing tax returns. As the program grew, more and more of the individuals who volunteered were not church members, but the sense of mission has remained unchanged.
According to Leong, all of the volunteers have Christian backgrounds and want to give back to the community. "The success of the program is a testament to God's work in this community through His people," said Leong. "I often comment that for some 30 volunteers to show up every Saturday for 12 consecutive weeks, there is a higher power at work in our program."
The program recruits its volunteers from a variety of sources. Church announcements are still valuable because a bulk of the volunteers come from the Friendly Temple congregation. Leong also attends quarterly luncheons for new church members and recruits individuals who are looking for a ministry to join.
In addition, Leong said, "Customers this year become volunteers next year." One such customer was an engineer at Boeing. "During the tax return preparation, she observed the operations and asked questions," he said. The center collected her information and added her to the e-mail list. "Between her and another volunteer who works at Boeing, we added two more volunteers," he said.
Word of mouth is another effective means of recruitment. Leong has found that volunteers impressed with the operations bring in their friends.
Retaining Volunteers
A primary reason for the center's high retention rate is the extensive training that it provides. "Most [people] are afraid of taxes [before going through training]," he said. The center provides 9 hours of tax law and 6 hours of tax software training and conducts periodic workshops to supplement the training. Past workshop topics have included dual-state allocations (work in one state; live in another) and Form 1099 issues, such as the different kinds of 1099s, the distribution codes, and what they mean.
Leong also credits the IRS's decision to use Taxwise software 10 years ago for its high retention of volunteers, who need only data entry skills to master it, he said. But the center also prides itself on creating an atmosphere of encouragement and learning. All questions are answered without criticism or belittlement.
Leong has one final reason that his volunteers return each year. He feeds them . . . well! Each year, one volunteer does nothing but prepare meals. Coffee, fruit, and pastries are available in the mornings, and hot meals in the afternoon after the clients leave. "Think fried fish, fried chicken, roast pork, barbeque, seafood pasta, peach cobbler, pound cake," said Leong. "No pizzas, no lunch boxes."
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For more information, contact:
Desmond Leong
Friendly Temple Church VITA Coordinator
314-239-6915 or 314-367-5508
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