Oshkosh - Fighting poverty isn't easy. Where do you start? Which people and agencies are best equipped and funded to throw the punches? How do you get at the root causes, empower individuals and actually break the powerful cycle?

Oshkosh is blessed with agencies galore that have long been in the ring, assisting people in or near poverty with housing, health care and educational needs.

But now, there's a philanthropic duo establishing new roots at the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation. It's aiming for new action to truly get at those root causes. Its creators are spreading the word … and new, more powerful incentive for agencies to team up and collaborate in the fight against poverty.

The U.S. Oil Open Fund for Basic Needs and the J.J. Keller Foundation Inc. want results. They have combined philanthropic forces to supercharge the battle in the Fox Valley, Green Bay and soon, in Oshkosh. But the idea behind the partnership, labeled the "Basic Needs Giving Partnership" already benefiting Green Bay and Fox Valley communities, is not just to amass a larger pool of money to throw at poverty. It's to encourage and provide incentive for collaboration and real solutions – to get our Boys & Girls Clubs, homeless shelter and temporary housing agencies, dental and health-care providers, mental health advocates and the myriad of other non-profits to shed bureaucratic shells, creatively put their heads together and devise new, effective strategies to attack poverty and break cycles.

"We want to solve and address the root causes of poverty while addressing immediate needs," said Sarah Schmidt, whose father Bill, patriarch of the family's U.S. Oil business, began its fund in 1986 to first aid people with diabetes.

Here's how it has worked in Green Bay and Appleton: U.S. Oil's funds are housed at community foundations in the greater Green Bay and Fox Valley region and soon will be tucked into the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation. Enter Keller, which operates its own foundation fund. Together, with matching grant power from Keller, the core funds spin off interest. They and the powerful Keller matches are then annually awarded to the new collaborations' special boards at each of the foundations deemed most worthy and promising to address needs. In Green Bay, for example, the added philanthropic firepower fueled $225,000 in grants toward the creation of a new mobile dental clinic that travels from school to school providing free sealants for students whose families cannot afford dental insurance or regular dental care. Cavities and mouth pain are a fact of life for thousands of Brown County children. So, a very real solution attacking a very real problem.

That's just one of dozens of examples. This spring, the Basic Needs partnership provided more than $1.5 million in grants in the Fox Valley and Green Bay.

That foreshadows great things ahead for Oshkosh, the partnership's next beneficiary.

Later this year, the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation will open up a grant-application process to local non-profits, encouraging them to develop new collaborative initiatives and tap into the Basic Needs' power. In spring 2009, the first Oshkosh collaborations will be awarded and sent to the front lines to do good, do battle.

It's possible that within three years, the Community Foundation's basic needs arsenal could "be close to a million-dollar-fund," said executive director Eileen Connolly-Keesler.

But more importantly, the resources will greatly loosen the chokehold poverty has had on so many families and children in the Oshkosh area.