Season 2 Episode 2: Financial Social Work in Action: CASH Campaign of Maryland

Virtual Host: 00:00
Welcome to the Social Work is Everywhere podcast, where we uncover the powerful, diverse, and far-reaching impact of social work across the globe. Each episode, we spotlight the practice, research, and experience of students and social workers from a wide range of industries and professions. From clinical care to policy change, from leadership to grassroots advocacy and community engagement. Social work is truly everywhere. Through the voices of the University of Maryland School of Social Work community, including faculty, staff, students, alumni, and global partners, we'll explore unique perspectives and innovative initiatives shaping the future of the field. In this episode, we hear from Robin McKinney and Sarah Johnson, University of Maryland School of Social Work alums and founders of the Cash Campaign of Maryland. They discuss their career paths, the importance of financial social work, challenges and obstacles faced in the profession, and advice for new social workers. What is the Cash Campaign of Maryland?

Robin McKinney: 01:06
We do a little bit of everything here at the Cash Campaign. We do direct services, helping people get their taxes done for free, financial coaching, screening people for public benefits. We work with an amazing network across the state with providers who are providing the same services as us, but in 19 out of the 24 counties, and then we do policy work. And our goal here at the end of the day is to make sure that low-income folks have what they need to meet their financial goals. So if it's help, if it's, you know, content, skill buildings, access to different family supporting credits and benefits, we want to make sure that they have it and that they're living their lives in a world that has the resources that they need. They have access to affordable banking. They are protected when they are taking out loans. So that's what we do each and every day.

Virtual Host: 01:49
What inspired you to become a social worker? And how did you get into financial social work?

Robin McKinney: 01:54
I have my both my uh bachelor's and my master's in social work. So I'm social work through and through. I I actually started out as an environmental science major in undergrad. And um the idea for me, you know, it all started from a career fair after, you know, I really thought about it after biology classes were super hard. And um, especially when you had to get into dissecting things, and I was like, oh, these are not my people. This is not where I'm supposed to be. I realized what was at the core of environmental science was actually making the world a better place and helping people. Um, and so I read this amazing book called Do What You Are that my mom got for me that was based on Myers Briggs, and I came out the most ENTJ one has ever seen. Um, and what really matched with that was social work. So I went and talked to both the social work department and the psychology department, realized that research and or clinical work was really not my jam, whereas I could be more in the macro and the systems work or even meso community work. Um, and so I was the only one in my undergraduate social work program that didn't go to work for Department of Social Services after I graduated. Um, so I absolutely loved I had the best internships and then came down to the University of Maryland to go to uh the School of Social Work literally months after I just graduated from undergrad. So I was advanced standing, flew right in and was very happy to be on with all kinds of different social workers, not just folks that wanted to uh work at Department of Social Services. Not that there's anything wrong with it, of course. Wonderful people, we need them, but you know, it really gave me so much more exposure to all the different kinds of careers you could have as a social worker.

Sara Johnson: 03:31
I love the shock value when I tell people that I'm a social worker. It's always funny when people are like, You're what? I'm like, I know, right? You'd think I'd have a finance background, but I'm not. I'm a social worker, and who better, right, to do so to do this than a social worker. I was doing workforce development at the time as sort of my first big kid job after um undergrad. And I really loved helping people, and I really that was something that I always always came naturally to me, and something that was always encouraged in our family was really to volunteer and to be a part of the community. And so um I didn't really know much about what social workers did. Um, I was actually very inspired by the person who ran the nonprofit that I was doing workforce development for, and I met with her and did some informational interviews with a few other people, trying to figure out whether grad school was right for me and where to go. And um, she had a degree in business and social work, and I thought, well, she's so inspiring. Like she runs this wonderful organization and such good camaraderie here, and we're doing really great work, and I felt really supported as an employee, and I thought, I want to do what she does, I want to do that type of thing. So I applied to the University of Maryland School of Social Work and because it was close to home and had a really good reputation. And then I got here and they put me in South Baltimore at Tench Tilghman Elementary School for my internship. And I didn't know what I was doing, right? I I really thought about sort of nonprofit management, and at the time that was just sort of a blip on the radar screen. There wasn't really even a degree in that much at that time. You know, a lot of people I think in social services get promoted through the ranks just because they're good employees and they sort of learn  the ropes, but um, really to be like steeped in how you run a nonprofit was not what I thought I was gonna learn at the time. And I was so grateful. I look back on that experience and I feel so grateful that I had that opportunity to be in the trenches in the community with other social workers, working in a school and learning what it meant to be working with families and and and children. And my schoolwork obviously supported that learning along the way, and I didn't know why that those clinical skills would serve me so well moving forward. And so I've I'm always so grateful when I have interns that I work with now at the University of Maryland, where they come to me and I say, You're gonna use all these clinical skills, whether you go macro or not, like they will serve you well for the rest of your life. So I feel like having that foundation was so important for me to understand what a social worker's role is in the community, whether you're running an organization, whether you're doing community building, whether you're doing one-on-one therapy, like there is such a breadth of roles for social workers in this field. When I came to year two in graduate school, I was very clear that I wanted to do something that was more systems-focused and more macro-focused. So I worked with my advisors around a different type of internship, and that's where I landed at the Casey Foundation, and which was really like the complete, total difference, right, doing in grant making, doing leadership work, doing resident engagement work, totally different than the direct service work that I was doing. Um, but it opened my eyes to how social work and how the field of research and direct service practice and community building can all meld together, and that's where I learned about some of the asset building work and the community work that was happening around financial and economic justice. And that really spoke to me. And I thought, all right, this is a cool field, it's building, I can see my place in it. Robin yanked me in to go and do tax preparation. She was running the tax site at the time. Um, and it was it was just fascinating to me how when you give people the resources that they need in a timely, respectful way, people have agency and will do what is best for themselves. And that to me was like the perfect summary of what a social worker does. So yeah, I tell that story to students all the time about like just keep plugging away and looking for those aha moments. Follow your gut, follow your instincts on really where your skills are, and keep asking for new opportunities. You know, we I think try many field placements have opportunities, but if you don't ask for them, or if you're not saying, look, I really want something that's more like this, or I really want something that's gonna help me understand about this thing that I'm passionate about, hopefully that field placement will help offer that for you, or your, you know, your your job if you're working part-time or full-time too, will offer you that because I think it does help you cultivate what your next steps are.

Robin McKinney: 07:57
So I really had no clear content area that I wanted to focus on as a social worker. I had worked in a lot of different settings through internships and jobs. So I worked at a Planned Parenthood, uh, working on their policy team. I worked at uh a rape crisis center in their community education, I worked on their hotline. Um, and then in grad school, I worked in the empowerment zone because I'm that old, which was in um the late 90s, early 2000s uh here in Baltimore and did a lot of like community assessment work and saw how they were implementing this, you know, national model of the empowerment zone. Um, when I first got out of grad school, I really didn't know at first like how to apply all of these skills that I had. Like what were the job titles I look for? Because I think that is a challenge as a macro social worker, is that's not a job title. And when you're looking for things that say social work, they're they're often on the clinical side. And this is where, you know, I really uh credit uh Dick Cook, who was the former director of um of SWCOS, which is now the Center for Restorative Change, um, with staying in touch with me. And he and my field instructor forwarded me a job posting from the Casey Foundation to be a program assistant. And because I didn't have such a set content of I exactly want to work like this in this area, it was the perfect place for me to go and truly get another master's degree of working inside a large foundation and I worked in a portfolio that became their family economic success work. And so to be there for thought development, to fly around the country and meet with different organizations to understand how they were um building communities in so many different ways. Like I would have never been exposed to that. Also, as someone who came up  from a family that was both low income, but also just had a lot of volatility. I it put me in rooms at the foundation with people that were highly educated, with people that were very wealthy and understanding the power dynamics, both as a social worker but as someone who had that lived experience of not having access to those rooms. I started to really think about how do I use the privilege that I have of being in this room right now, being able to pass. You know, people didn't look at me and be like, why is she here? You know, I had this business card and I was able to be in these conversations. Um, that helped me to really um, I think get curious about how all of how all of the work that we uh do has different dynamics and nuances. And again, as a social worker, you need to understand those dynamics, but you have to work with the foundation person and the community person. You have to be able to talk to the press, to the legislator, to you have to be able to understand all of these different contexts. And I don't think that I could have found a better position than starting at the Casey Foundation. And I will say at every at every one of those places, when I was at Casey, when I was at uh East Harbor CDC doing their direct work, starting to pull together the things that became Maryland Cash, my touch point back was always to the school. Because whether it was I'm trying to figure out something with a funder, I knew I could call Dick Cook, who had taught my resource development class and say, hey, how do you think I should, you know, approach this? What are your thoughts? Or I had a great community economic development professor, and hey, could you introduce me to that person who came and presented in the class? Um, and then having interns from my very first job, you know, at East Harbor, as soon as I hit that uh that mark, um, I think it was two years after I was able to get like a field instructor who came in for that year, and then at the three-year mark, I was able to oversee students myself, and I've had interns at every single job from the School of Social Works since then because I just saw the value that the school has been for me and I wanted to carry that forward.

Sara Johnson: 11:52
You know, there's the finance side of what we do, right? There's the there's the dollars and cents to tax preparation, there's working on people's budgets, that is the, that it's the receipts, it's the it's looking at the bank accounts. But caught up in all of that, when someone comes in to work with you, there's a lot going on in that person's life, right? That's not those dollars and cents. And so who better to connect with someone that someone has those skills to really relate to them around the stress, the shame, the frustration, the confusion. You know, there's there's always so much behind the numbers. And so I've got an amazing staff who is incredible at the numbers, and many of them are social workers or health professionals as well. And we do a lot of mental health aid, first aid training to make sure that our team has those skills. I think it's meeting people in that moment to let them know we got you, you know, we're gonna help you through this. And it's not just like the paper transaction. It really is about how do we help you help this moment move your life forward in a way that makes sense for you, right? And so whether it's doing a clinical, you know, intervention or whether it's sitting across from someone and helping them with their tax preparation, I think those skills are very transferable. You know, being able to really read the body language, understand what they're open listening, making sure you're reflecting back and understanding where someone's at, like all those clinical skills we use every day in this job.

Virtual Host: 13:17
What are some of the challenges you've had to face and how did you overcome them?

Robin McKinney: 13:21
There is a lot of judgment, I feel like, that uh comes when I'm in a room with uh financial institutions, accountants, other sort of finance professionals when I say, Well, I'm a social worker, because everyone assumes that I'm an accountant or a lawyer or something like that. And I say, Well, I'm a social worker, and before they can even be like, What in the you know, whatever that next sentence is, I say, right? And who better than a social worker to help people to understand their thoughts and feelings behind making financial decisions? Because it's not just about math, right? And then they sit there for a second and go, oh yeah. Yeah, because when you look at, you know, behavioral finance, uh, you know, psychology, all of these different fields now are starting to have started to realize like there is a psychosocial part of financial decision making. It's not just math. So I think that um we were early by talking about this um back in, you know, the mid-2000s, launching the financial social work initiative. I think that we were um really on the front side of a lot of those conversations. And it for us, it just not only did it make sense because of the work that we were doing, to me, it also gave us a place to struggle and think through, well, what is the role of social work with finances? What is the part? What is the special sauce that we can bring? Um, because I also like, I don't want to do the math. Math is not that exciting to me. I do it on a regular basis because I got to balance our budget and those things like that. But to me, math isn't the part that like sparks me up and gets me fired up. Um, but we work with people who that they love that awesome. So again, using those social work skills of saying, how can we leverage your you loving the math part with us being able to maybe soften some of those edges with some of the judgment, the bias that people may have about the types of decisions that people are making with their money, or just not understanding that there's a whole context to why people don't have enough money that isn't just about personal choices. And again, I think that's where social workers being able to take that macro view to say, well, what are all of the forces that are causing poverty? What are all of the forces that are, you know, giving people access or not to quality financial services and being able to talk and live in those spaces? Um, I also think that um in in the times that we are now, people have gotten a lot more comfortable talking about their feelings. Um, just in a way of even just naming it, you know, this sort of like this culture now of, you know, people are like, oh, I'm crashing out or, you know, whatever, whatever the term of the day is, right? Is like, but like when I was coming up, people didn't just like name their feelings. They didn't talk about them. And so now we're in this place where people are talking about anxiety, they're talking about um some of the mental health challenges that they might be having. And we can say, okay, well, how does this click together with your finances? Because if you're already dealing with anxiety, okay, well, then how does that manifest for you when managing your finances? And how can we build up some of your skills there as you're getting support around dealing with the overall anxiety in your life? And honestly, what I just love about working in this subject area of economic justice, financial wellness, financial capability, all the terms that you could call it is it touches everything. We can talk about how this connects to healthcare, to workforce, to housing, to anything. And every single person in this world has to figure out how to manage their money at some point in their life. You cannot go through your life, whether you have a lot or a little, without having to manage your money. And so I do think that there is a connection for people to say, like, okay, I see why this is why this is a needed resource.

Sara Johnson: 17:12
We hear from clients all the time, and there's nothing better than getting those emails and those calls from people who want to let me know and let us know what um what a great job they've done. I think it gives us a sense of pride knowing that we're really meeting the needs in the community by giving people those resources. And it makes personally makes me feel like we're giving people the tools that they need so they can have agency and be the decision makers in their life for their financial future. Um, I think that's really what people need. And by making sure we're offering that, I feel like we're really doing an amazing service. And personally, it is very fulfilling and really rewarding for me to be a part of this work and this mission. It's something I deeply believe in. And I feel like as a social worker, as someone who's worked in community, giving people and giving our partners the resources they need to create change and to create stronger communities is uh really a labor of love and something that is a personal mission for myself.

Robin McKinney: 18:10
The almost number one challenge year after year that I have faced in this job is the package that I come in. Whether it's my age, being a woman, uh, being a white woman, being not from the state or not from the city, that is the thing that I would say like over and over has um been something that I have to overcome. Again, I was 28. Uh, I think when I started uh Maryland Cash. And so people are like, what are you doing? Like, you can't just do that. Like, why can't I just do that? Um, and I think that, you know, there isn't uh a culture here. I think there is more now, but then there wasn't really a culture of like people starting things on their own, you know, like things might have popped up from the community, but you know, I was coming from the community, I was talking from two lots of people. I didn't live in a, you know, it wasn't a neighborhood specific. Um, but we didn't just start these things out of nowhere. These were all came out of conversations with different groups. Is there a need? Is this helpful? And just sort of as I was a person navigating through it, and as a wild type A Capricorn human, sort of like rose to lead different things, I got a lot of pushback. People tried to sabotage me, people tried to be my boss at different times. That was interesting because they were not. Um, people try have tried to claim credit for what I've done or what Sarah's done or different things that have happened here. Um, there are people who want to cut us out of things. And um, you know, we have built a brand, but we didn't start with a brand. And there are people who have bigger brands than we do for sure, that still try to undercut us. And um, because it for them it's about their empire or their own sustainability, and for us, it's about the work. We are never trying to be a 75-person organization or whatever. We have 23 people, um, but we have partners across the city and across the state. And that's what's important for me, that that knitting together that actually happens. I want the legacy of the work. I don't really care if no one knows the name of Robin McKinney or remembers who I am, though I believe, of course, I'm very memorable. Uh, I don't, you know, that's not our goal. We want the work to be the thing that carries forward. Um, and so that can get really hard. I mean, there are people who, you know, whether it was in Annapolis doing policy work, who have, I would say, reiterated over and over that we don't have a right to be at different tables, you know, with business. Um, and so that's been um an interesting uh an interesting thing to have to navigate. I had to build some pretty tough skin. And um again, I'm pretty dogged, pretty determined. And because I had my own stories, the stories of being in the community in my heart and the idea that, you know, there's this pathway that I know people want and that we can be helpful. Again, even if we're the convener, we're not saying that like we have the only thing that's gonna help people's financial stability, of course not. But if we can be that convener, that table, the one that keeps raising these issues to say, hey, there's a problem over here, eventually people are like, oh, okay, like they're here and they're legit.

Sara Johnson: 21:25
Our decision to co-lead when we founded the organization, to co-lead the organization was very intentional. Uh, Robin and I already had been sharing an office for many years and bouncing ideas off of each other as we both ran our own programs and having that support meant a lot because we both understood the nuances of our work in a way that is hard sometimes when it's a unique field. Um and so I I just feel very grateful that I have both a friend and a colleague that can we can, you know, huddle up, make a decision, move on, and I feel like I've got that sounding board, and vice versa, I think is a really important way to deal with the stress. And We are kind of a goofy bunch. Like we don't take ourselves too seriously. So I think making sure that we are having a good time, that we're sharing with one another, supporting one another. We talk very openly in staff meetings around self-care and around making sure people take their time off and really unplugging and respecting boundaries. And I do the same. So it's like when I was off for our holiday break, I was off. I wasn't checking my email. So people, it's like you gotta set that example, but then you also have to follow it to take care of yourself. And that's really important. And um I would say also just don't watch a lot of social media. Be careful with your social media and what you're putting in your brain. You know, it can be really, it can be overwhelming.

Robin McKinney: 22:43
For me, it's how do you foster more leadership that isn't just about me? Um that, you know, when Sarah and I, you know, went through the process uh to merge and decided to do the shared leadership model, we are showing from the top of this organization, it's not just about me, it's not just about her. And and then I think what ripples out to everyone else is like it's cash doesn't feel like it's just about us. So whenever people want to go down that path and say, like, oh, well, you know, cash is trying to build whatever the thing, um, it's like, no, we're trying to lift people up. It's why we have students come in, it's why we run a fellows program, it's why we give subgrants to partners, and why we do so much training and technical assistance, is that at some point I need to not be in this job. Uh yeah, at some point that would be lovely that I'm not having to work. And I would be a terrible leader if all I left behind was, oh man, remember when Robin did it like this. That's not helpful for the organization. That's not helpful for the field. Um, we've seen so many, just here in the city and across the state, we've seen so many efforts that had one face. And when that one face is gone, the whole effort goes away because they were the hook for fundraising, for media, for legislators, for all of the things. And so my goal is in my time here is to as much as possible bring lots of people along the way so that this sustains and we're in every single place. There's no one, there's no one place we should be. This financial wellness is part of everything. So it's guerrilla warfare, basically. We're getting on the inside and saying where are all the places that we can embed this so that other people are doing it and caring about it, not just us.

Sara Johnson: 24:30
We need more social workers in this field, and so I'm glad to stay connected to the University of Maryland and to continue to teach classes there and to continue to work on the Financial Social Work Initiative and uh cheerlead and participate in any of the research they're doing because it, as I said earlier, it's so incredibly valuable to for our field. Um, and I just feel like it's a really special connection with the university and the work that we do.

Robin McKinney: 24:52
The connection to University of Maryland School of Social Work is so important to me because of the humans, the knowledge, and the connections. So, you know, the humans, I am so emotionally attached to so many people in the in the building that were professors for me or have been mentors for me, or I'm just so impressed about what they've been able to build. You know, the knowledge, I can't keep up on every single webinar email. How are we talking about things? What are the latest issues? What are the challenges? What are new opportunities? I can't keep up in all of those things. So being attached to uh the research and the knowledge that is coming out of an academic institution is just so critical. I've, you know, the school has done research for us, we have done uh research together. Um, I think that that um community and academic partnership is just really important that helps to validate our work and I think makes the research more rich. And I think access to the people, I mean, there are so many people in Baltimore, they call it Smalltimore for a reason, right? That um, you know, if I don't know someone, but I'm like, oh, I really got to get to someone in the health department or wherever, I can go on LinkedIn and say, like, oh, who who went to University of Maryland School Social Work that might be there that can help get me that connection? And so that access that I feel really like one degree of separation from people in power to from, you know, a community member that is a person in power in their community to a literal person in power at the mayor's office or in the governor's office.

Virtual Host: 26:29
What advice do you have for future social workers?

Robin McKinney: 26:32
The best advice I can offer for current students is to use your role as a student to the absolute max. Get every informational interview, get every article and book that you can get out of the library, even software that you can access, right, as you're a student. Use all of it because people are so much more open uh to talking to you when you're using the term student. Um, and so really maximize that and leverage your network. Um, there are so many people in this town, in this state, in this country, right, that are social work alums, like get connected to them. Um, you just never know. I'm I I'm sure Sarah talked about this, but you know, we have interns that are now on staff here. We have former interns that are in well higher positions than Sarah and I are. And like I absolutely love that. And so, you know, leverage your time as a student to the maximum and then keep in touch with people. Um, it doesn't take a long time. I know LinkedIn can seem super boring. Um, but but keep in touch with people about what they're doing and keep those connections because you just never know where your paths may cross or an opportunity that may come up. And I really do anytime someone reaches out and they say, I'm an intern at the School of Social Work or I'm a current student, I'm gonna take that call, I'm gonna answer that email.

Virtual Host: 27:58
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