What did you think of yesterday's experience? It was hard work. It was great working with everyone. Most of the groups were very diverse -- we had very good conversations. It is hard for us to stop thinking about what we know and focus on what could be or might be. I didn't hear very many new ideas yesterday.

We have two new participants today. It can be difficult to walk into the middle of a process like this one. Can someone describe for them what went on yesterday? We talked a lot about what might be, but we did not discuss the mechanics of getting things done. We did a lot of work in small teams. I expected the process to be linear, but we ended up talking about the same things in each group, but each time from a slightly different perspective. It felt like we focused on answering questions in our teams, but it did not feel like strategic thinking. The group has not yet answered the question of what value this group might provide to the industry as a whole.

What should be our work for today? Our staffs are already burned out -- how are we going to implement any of these new ideas without additional resources? We have very different assumptions about what "scale" means and what success would look like in 2012. A lot of common themes emerged yesterday, and it would be interesting to pursue them. It was very interesting to think that perhaps we're at scale already, or that the check-cashing model is a good approach. I don't expect anyone to walk out of here with "the plan" in hand. There are a lot of great ideas in this room, and there are a lot of conflicting ideas as well -- this is very confusing. If we're going to build a new organization, we're going to need some outside consulting expertise -- we are smart people, but we don't have experience with building new national organizations.

All of these new ideas are great, but it is very challenging to non-profits because it makes us uncertain of what we're already doing. Many of these organizations have very different objectives from one another, and we have very little capacity as it is. We don't want to do everything the same as everyone else. We do not have any agreement on what the underlying problem is. Without knowing what problem we're trying to solve, we cannot possibly develop strategies for growth or moving forward. If we're just a coalition, then the best we can probably hope for is to develop a common product strategy that we can push to any organization that wants to use it -- this is very different than creating a national brand with local franchises.

We all have very different perceptions of what "scale" means. If our core product is "tax preparation services", then this industry is "at scale" if we include Block and others. If our niche represents 10% of the market, and the industry as a whole is at scale, then we are at scale as well -- we can only hope for incremental growth. If we feel that the other 90% of the industry is "fleecing" its customers, then perhaps we are not at scale. This raises questions about whether the industry at large is pricing itself too high - is this a "fair" price? The total cost per unit in our niche is probably higher than in the private sector. There is also a question of prioritization - is tax preparation where we want to spend our funds for low-income people?

There were two groups of ideas yesterday -- things that we could improve marginally through a national organization, and there were things that we could do totally different. How realistic are the "totally new" ideas? Will the incremental ideas get us far enough towards our goals?

Most of the conversation this morning has been focused on tax preparation, and there has not been much discussion about asset-building. We talked yesterday about making a stronger distinction between these two. Incremental improvements will probably get us where we want to go in terms of tax preparation. The other half of the equation -- asset building -- is what many of us are passionate about. To get to scale on the asset-building side, we would need to do something more radical.

The people in this room are largely invested in the current system -- they are passionate about the work they are doing today. If we want to talk about making a huge leap to a new system, then we might need a different group of people to explore it. This group may never reach consensus because we're coming from such different places.

Most of us got into tax preparation to achieve a different objective, but once we're in this work, we get overwhelmed. We become consumed with delivering quality tax services, but that sometimes clouds our original objectives. If we have people lined up out the door for tax prep services, then it is actually a disservice to those customers to present them with other asset-building services -- it means we won't be able to serve other customers.

Are we in this business to change the practices of this industry, or do we want to do the tax preparation for all low-income people? These are very different objectives. The underlying goal for many of us is to address poverty. Tax prep is a means to an end. If we want to change the practice of the tax prep industry, then we must continue to be present and put the pressure on the private sector. We are nowhere near helping these people become economically independent. This goes far beyond having a bank account and a few dollars in savings -- the larger problem is in their basic education and their skill base. We haven't even talked about any of these issues.

Many interest groups focus on a particular issue to achieve a different goal. Some got into EITC because it was an underutilized benefit, and we've gotten into policy in order to protect this benefit for a group that is largely disenfranchised. There are a number of conflicting goals in our movement.

If our target market is all of those people who qualify for EITC, then we have not even remotely achieved scale. Most of our customers who file for EITC are repeat filers -- we need to do a much better job finding those people who qualify but do not file.

A tremendous benefit that we have not talked about is in the role of the volunteer. Helping people file their taxes is a life-changing experience for some of these volunteers, and it makes a great impression on the customers that someone would go out of their way to help them as well.

Scale gets us more than just doing people's taxes. If we're serving a million people, this gives us a stronger voice in advocating policy as well. It allows us to negotiate for better pricing on products. It allows us to change industry practices as well.

There are limitations to the 501c3 structure. Many of the people in this movement cannot engage in advocacy and policy.

Are we a movement or an industry? An industry will tend to focus on a narrow niche.

There are three conversations going on at once. The first conversation is simply about tax. The second issue is EITC. The third conversation is using EITC as an entree into asset building. We are bouncing between these conversations, and this is causing a lot of confusion and frustration. They are intertwined and interrelated.

EITC and tax prep is giving us influence in our community that none of us has ever had before. What do we want to say?

We all have very different motivations. If we want to be a movement, then we need to develop at least a lowest common denominator of goals and motivations. We should define what our goal is. Once we have defined a goal, then we can discuss strategies and what scale is appropriate.

There are a lot of very different organizations here with very different missions. It is tempting to put a tent over all of the different missions of all of the different organizations. It is more valuable to define a product, service or specialty that touches the missions if 70% of your members and build a national organization around that product or service. A national organization could create tremendous value for certain aspects of tax preparation and EITC. The conversation around asset building is in a much earlier stage of development. We can have some preliminary conversations around asset building, but we do not know enough about asset building to form a national organization yet.

A cooperative is an interesting model for us to explore. A cooperative could help us drive down the costs for some commodity-level products and services that most of us use. This would not necessarily change the work that we do day-to-day, but it would drive down real costs for us.

What themes do we want to work on for the rest of the morning? Let's develop a mission statement for this group. Let's define our goals as a group - what would success look like? Let's define advocacy actions and goals -- not what we would advocate, but how a national organization can help a local organization do advocacy. Let's identify the projects that a national organization could undertake in tax prep and advocacy.