Request Overview 

Independent Contractors with Access’ Poverty Education program are responsible for helping Access of West Michigan accomplish its mission to strengthen and develop wholistic solutions to poverty by cultivating equitable systems through education and collaboration. Poverty Education workshops exists to overcome misconceptions about poverty and motivate participants to become involved in activities that reduce poverty in our communities, as well as provide economic opportunity for our workshop Contractors. Our workshops are designed to provide insight into what living within a typical low-income family is like through role-playing the lives of various family types living in poverty. The workshops create economic development opportunities for those living within poverty by employing staffers who have firsthand experience of life in poverty, as well as providing education and advocacy opportunities for over two thousand community members each year.  

Independent Contractors (IC’s) will perform a variety of roles in our well-known and highly-requested Poverty Education Workshops. This will require traveling to various locations throughout Michigan while learning and performing multiple positions in our hands-on role playing Poverty Education Workshop. IC’s will engage with community members for 2.5 hours and assist them in their attempt to navigate through the systematic barriers of poverty. Other tasks assigned may include set up, training and onboarding of IC’s, assisting the workshop host, assisting the workshop facilitator, and a variety of tasks that could be requested on location. This position helps to not only educate the communities we serve but also gives IC’s an opportunity to share their personal story related to experience with poverty or inequity and personal insights on how poverty or earning low-income wages have affected them. IC’s contract with Access at a rate of $45 per workshop completed. 

NOTE: As a contracted worker, this position is not eligible for benefits (healthcare or paid time off), coverage under FLSA, or other benefits or protections of being a permanent employee under Access of West Michigan.