SALT LAKE CITY (February 19, 2025) – Sutherland Institute announced today that it has joined the Alliance for Opportunity, a coalition of state think tanks dedicated to advancing upward mobility and reducing poverty. Sutherland’s Work & Opportunity Initiative will be a key area of alignment and collaboration with the Alliance in pursuit of policy reforms at the state and federal levels.

“Joining the Alliance for Opportunity is another high-impact way that Sutherland is working to strengthen Utah’s best-in-the-nation upward mobility, while sharing best practices with other states and federal partners,” said Sutherland Institute President and CEO Rick Larsen. “The Alliance is an essential coalition that is helping to lead a renewed national movement to reform the social safety net to help more of our fellow Americans achieve the American Dream – a goal well aligned with Sutherland’s mission.”

Sutherland joins the coalition along with a select group of other state-based policy organizations from around the country working together to improve upward mobility. This partnership will enhance Sutherland’s collaboration with like-minded state-based policy organizations that share a commitment to improving opportunity for all.

The Alliance for Opportunity wrote in a recent statement announcing the growing partnership: “Every American deserves the chance to pursue happiness and escape poverty. We are united in the belief that the best way to move from lives of poverty to opportunity is to foster pathways to work and empower local communities to support the needs of those struggling.”

For more information and to read the full statement from the Alliance, click here.

For more information on Sutherland’s Work & Opportunity Initiative, click here.

About the Alliance for Opportunity: The Alliance is a multistate project to advance an anti-poverty agenda. The Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO), the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) and the Pelican Institute for Public Policy in Louisiana founded the Alliance in 2021.

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