The Somerville branch of the organization formerly known as National Student Partnerships is sporting a new brand after a national restructuring conferred additional attention and resources on the local office.
LIFT, as the organization is now called, shut down its offices last spring in Richmond, Baltimore, New Haven and Pittsburgh with the goal of redistributing its resources to other locations. Staff at the national headquarters decided to concentrate the organization's efforts on five core cities: New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston.
LIFT locations in Cambridge and Somerville — the only two offices in the Boston area — are set to gain from this reallocation, according to Liz Copeland, a development associate at LIFT's national office headquarters in Washington, D.C.
"We could really make an impact on the communities and be a known trust service in these areas," Copeland said. "We wanted to make sure we could devote the staff, resources and support to these existing geographies."
LIFT, founded as National Student Partnerships by two Yale students in 1998, engages well-trained college students in its mission to decrease poverty in local communities. Involved students work personally with low-income residents to help them address immediate needs and ultimately establish a lasting system of support.
Students help clients locate jobs and update their resumes, along with a variety of other services such as assisting in public housing applications and eviction issues, obtaining food stamps and analyzing benefit options.
Increased focus on the Boston-area LIFT offices may translate into more personnel in addition to more resources. The organization hopes to hire a Boston regional executive director, a national representative who will help to establish new community partnerships and allocate efforts towards fundraising and re-branding, according to Colleen Flynn, LIFT's national director of communications and media.
"We are looking to dive deeper within our organizations," Flynn said. "In our regions, we will now be able to serve more clients, work more stations and recruit more volunteers from different universities. The sky is the limit."
The organization retired the National Student Partnerships name in July in favor of LIFT, a title that more strongly denotes activism and mutual community relationships.
"The old title was a little confusing with the whole ‘national' aspect, since we're just working in local communities," Flynn said. "The name LIFT is quick, concise and more representative of our work. It's a more powerful name."
Junior Emily Spooner, a LIFT Somerville volunteer, said the new name better describes the group's purpose.
"We wanted to make the name much more active," Spooner said. "The organization is about ‘lifting' communities."
Spooner said that college students are uniquely adapted to effectively assist LIFT clients in need.
"[As] college students, we have a lot of resources and a lot of skills to help clients," she said. "We know to use Craigslist.com, we know how to use different resources and we know how to make the system work for us," she said.
The name change is just one way LIFT hopes to improve its image. The organization is also investing significant resources in other promotional efforts, especially online.
"We've become stronger with social media," Flynn said. "We're revamping our Web site and taking advantage of different collateral materials to connect with more community and university organizations."
Spooner believes the new online resources will greatly facilitate volunteer efforts in the future. "Right now, all of the resources are in the office, so it's hard to research for clients ahead of time," she said. "This way, when we help clients, it doesn't have to be in the office. It's a very nice change the office is looking to make."
Volunteering at LIFT enables college students to dive into "real world" issues and dilemmas, Spooner said.
"The best thing about it is it gets you outside of the Tufts bubble and into the Somerville community," Spooner said. "Many Tufts students associate Somerville with just Davis [Square]. It doesn't really tell you about the community we're a part of. I live here and am part of this community while I go [to Tufts]."
