Founded in 1980, Carolina Alliance for Fair Employment (CAFE, Norman grantee 1992–2004) organized low-wage workers across South Carolina, a state with dismal national rankings in the early aughts — ranked 43rd in per capita income, 49th in high school graduation rates, and second in the nation for incarceration. 

At the time, South Carolina had one of the highest rates of temporary workers in the nation, at 3.3% of the workforce. CAFE pushed for higher standards in the temporary work industry and helped develop the first code of standards for temp agencies in the country. In 2001, they won a precedent-setting victory: new requirements for temp agencies doing business with the state, including a mandate to offer health insurance at reasonable rates. Because the state government was South Carolina’s largest employer of temporary workers, the win had broad implications.