Our Events | KACAP

Kansas Conference on Poverty

The annual Kansas Conference on Poverty is one of the activities that KACAP is best known for. The conference brings together 200-250 people from across the state to spend three days discussing and learning about poverty, creating new partnerships, and exploring new approaches to reducing poverty in the state. The Kansas Conference on Poverty brings together direct service workers, agency/department management, agency Boards of Directors, volunteers and anti-poverty advocates from Kansas’s non-profit organizations, faith-based agencies, and government offices.

Over the years, this conference has been responsible for building new and lasting connections between people and organizations that work to address the causes and conditions of poverty. Since 2003, the conference has:

Brought together a distinguished line up of speakers;
Offered timely and informative workshops on state-of-art anti-poverty programs, agency capacity building, and policy issues; and
Promoted connections among anti-poverty practitioners and advocates from across Kansas.

We believe in the importance of this conference to our mission of reducing poverty, and are excited to be hosting it again this year in person. The Kansas Conference on Poverty is being held July 18-19, 2023 at the Hotel Topeka at City Center. To get on the list please message Jessica Wederski, Executive Director at jessica@kacap.org. Click here for more information about our conference!!

Poverty Simulations

The Community Action Poverty Simulation (CAPS) is a unique tool that can be used to educate everyone, from policy makers to local community leaders, about the typical day to day strategies of a low-income family trying to survive, day to day, with a shortage of money and an abundance of stress.

It is a simulation, not a game. The object is to sensitize participants to the hardships faced by real people. In post-experience surveys, over 85% of participants reported an above average or high level of increased knowledge about the financial pressures faced by low-income families in meeting basic needs.