Agency Details:

Progress Through Business - Madison Center

The mission of our non-profit organization is to help low income residents increase their annual income. One way we do this is through free tax preparation. On average, an employee who did not have taxes prepared professionally the year before will gain more than $800; this is equivalent to a 2% raise for a person making $12 per hour.

Description:
We have two branches of business in our organization. Besides the 1) tax preparation/financial literacy/public assistance branch described above, we offer 2) services for assisting minorities and women to create small businesses. Members of our organization helped to create the successful Milwaukee Urban Entrepreneur Partnership Center that is also currently managed by our organization.
We are seeking volunteers for our Madison free tax preparation sites to serve either as greeters or income tax preparers. We will assist the volunteer tax preparers to become certified by the Internal Revenue Service. There is an on-line IRS sponsored tax training and testing site that we will direct these volunteers to, and tax prep volunteers are also invited to attend free training taught by a Madison Area Technical College accounting instructor either on November 7 or November 14 to review the tax knowledge needed to become certified. The second part of the training will cover use of tax software and is scheduled for January 19 and January 26. (Volunteers will attend one each of the November and January trainings.)
Volunteering for our non-profit will not only give you the satisfaction of significantly helping low-income families and being a member of a dynamic team, but it will also provide you with real skills (income tax preparation).

History:
Progress Through Business has been in existence for over three years, and we currently either consult on, or provide the direct services of free or greatly reduced cost tax preparation to over 17,000 residents nation-wide. We also conduct research within our non-profit that shows significant benefits to the employees and to the employers we work with. Having these dual benefits, our program is an extremely effective economic development tool for low-income communities. With the current economic crisis, our work is even more important.

Contact people:

Paul Hammeke, Program Specialist, (608) 239-2796, (email) John Hoffmire, Chairman and Founder, (608) 345-5111, (email) Mary Lou Black, Director, Community Outreach, (608) 225-1594, (email)

Office fax number: (608) 265-3119

Address:

510 Charmany Dr., Mail Stop 178 Madison, WI 53719 (See a map)

Web Site: http://progressthroughbusiness.org

Directions:

We rarely use this office. Mary Lou Black and Paul Hammeke work from their homes to keep overhead costs down. Those interested in volunteering will be interviewed by phone by Paul.   Nearest Metro/Subway Stop: N/A,   Walk distance (in minutes): N/A   Nearest Bus Stop: N/A, N/A minute walk

Miscellaneous Information

Will you be using VolunteerYourTime.org for Donation Match ONLY?
	No

Last updated on October 27, 2009