From the moment she wakes up at 5:30 a.m. to check e-mail to a midday conference with employees at a hotel chain to playing with her 5-year-old son before bedtime, Karla Gottlieb's day is about others. And so is her job.

Gottlieb is the director of community partnerships for the Miami-based Human Services Coalition. If her title sounds far-reaching, it's because it is. However, most of her time is spent with the Prosperity Campaign.

''The Prosperity Campaign works with businesses in South Florida to bring low-wage employees benefits that will make them more prosperous and make their lives easier,'' explained Gottlieb.

She does this by meeting with the human resources staff from local businesses and teaching them about ways their employees can save money through free financial services, such as tax preparation, and through tax refunds. She then passes the information on to the employees, who are often suspicious of a stranger so willing to help.

'The first thing people say is, 'Why are you doing this? How can this be free? What are you getting out of this?' But once we explain the grant, they start to understand more and that initial level of surprise or mistrust melts away.''

The grant Gottlieb is referring to is from the Families and Work Institute, part of the Ford Foundation.

''The institute put out a request for proposals. They got 67 responses, picked 10, and we were lucky enough to be one of them,'' Gottlieb said.

Gottlieb came to hold her position in a roundabout way. A native Miamian, she left for Yale to get her undergraduate degree in film. She graduated in 1988 and moved to San Francisco to earn her master's from San Francisco State in women's and ethnic studies.

''It was in San Francisco that I got into my activist thing,'' Gottlieb said

Her ''activist thing'' eventually led Gottlieb to focus on volunteerism as a profession, including time spent at Miami Dade College with the volunteerism and service learning program, which she went on to work on nationally.

In 2004 she joined HSC.

'They said, `We have a job for you. We need you to come work for us.' I didn't know what I was going to be doing,'' said Gottlieb. ``The next thing I knew I was director of the Prosperity Campaign.''

Gottlieb likens her job to that of an HR person, but one who helps a much larger number of people.

``One of the most rewarding parts of my job is that by helping one HR person, I might have helped 750 employees. If I help 50 HR people, you can actually see the impact.''

Although her job requires ample amounts of time, energy and tax-law knowledge, Gottlieb says it really only comes down to one thing: respect.

'When these people see that we respect them, they trust us more. They think, `This is a person who is going to come through with good things for us.' ''

And indeed, she does.

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