Nationally, there are approximately 37 millions Americans who are poor. According to the 2004 US Census Report, this segment of our population includes 7.9 million families and13 million children. Despite our nation's current prosperous economy, one out of five children in America is raised in poverty. An additional 12.7 million individuals, of whom 3.8 million were children, had family incomes which exceeded the Census Bureau poverty threshold for their family size, but did not exceed 125% of the federal poverty guideline. Together these two populations equal 49.7 million individuals who were eligible to receive Community Services Block Grant funded services in 2004.

Recipients of the Community Service Block Grant (CSBG) funds are part of a national network of 1,090 local community funded programs addressing poverty issues across the country. These agencies use $594 Million in CSBG funding for their core operations and for developing and coordinating programs to fight poverty in 99% of the counties in the United States. These CSBG funds leverage other funding of almost $9.7 billion. Volunteers provided more than 44 million hours of additional support, the equivalent of about 21,182 full-time employees' annual work hours. If valued at only the minimum wage, the volunteers' time is worth $227 million.

The Colorado Community Action Association (CCAA) is a statewide network of CSBG grant funded programs which served over 800,000 low-income Coloradans in 2005; and associate agencies working with low-income families and issues. It was organized to advocate for CSBG programs, and low-income programs, services and issues at the state and local levels. CCAA provides education, training and networking opportunities for its members and associates.