Outsmarting poverty starts with working smarter
All across America, service providers are doing great work to take on poverty in all its complexity. But we still know too little about what’s working and why.
Notre Dame’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) helps service providers apply scientific evaluation methods to better understand and share effective poverty interventions.
At LEO, we believe rigorous research is a powerful means to an end. An end to injustice. An end to poverty. And a new beginning for millions of families who are ready to thrive.
Creating Evidence
by partnering with poverty's fiercest adversaries to learn what works.
Holly Kuzmich is LEO's new Michael L. Smith Managing Director
Holly advances LEO’s vision of learning what works to reduce poverty and putting it into practice. She brings decades of experience in public policy, non-profit leadership, program design, and social entrepreneurship.
Notre Dame’s LEO joins national initiative to stop homelessness before it starts, serving as the lead evidence partner
LEO serves as the national evidence partner for Right at Home, a new cross-sector initiative led by Destination: Home to stop homelessness before it starts.
Latest Edition of Illuminate: The Journey to Impact
Witness the journey to impact. “Replication is no longer a distant goal; it is an immediate opportunity. If evidence itself is a milestone, replication is where the rubber meets the road.” - Lessons in scale, page 3
What Would You Fight For
Fighting to Improve Education Policies
Goodwill wants high school education accessible for all ages—LEO economists are providing the data to get there.
Fighting to Prevent Homelessness
Catholic Charities Chicago runs the city's Homelessness Prevention Call Center and has helped thousands of families stay off the streets. But Catholic Charities knows funding for public programs is never guaranteed, so it wanted to prove its method was cost-effective and impactful.