Family Foundations is justifiably proud of our history, having served over 120,000 families in over 50 years.  We have remained constant and diligent in serving our purpose - to strengthen Jacksonville's families.

But, like every nonprofit today, we are faced with ever increasing challenges.   We know that we must be vigilant in our effort to ensure that Family Foundations can continue to meet the needs of our community in the midst of a challenging economy and ever-increasing demands for service.

Our staff and Board of Directors jointly embarked on a systematic, deliberate body of work that included:

• Review of current strategic plan and direction,
• Evaluation of every program area,
• Scan of environmental trends,
• Survey of our stakeholders, including clients and funders,
• Assessment of our accomplishments, and
• Analysis of our community and client impact.

Our conclusions led us to a re-focus of our strategic direction.  Our previous strategic emphasis had been on an asset-based community development model of family empowerment and engagement.  Unfortunately, our community is currently faced with daunting crime problems, record foreclosures, and unprecedented levels of consumer debt.  Families, today, are primarily seeking help to save their homes and stabilize their finances.

With important collaborations with new partners, we will help families build stronger relationships to be successful.  Our emphasis must be on helping families gain strength through financial security.

Our new mission is building strong and financially secure families.

Family Foundations has identified the following Strategic Goals:

Grow revenue to $2.5 million by 2010 through targeted development. Family Foundations revenues have remained relatively constant at $1.5 to $1.7 million over the past 10 years.   We embarked on an aggressive development effort in mid-2006 and revenue for our last fiscal year was a record $1.968M.  We clearly recognize that economically stable nonprofits are mostly likely to endure and survive in our current marketplace.

Increase the number of clients served by 25% with client-driven delivery methods. Family Foundations has moved many of our services directly into the community, serving families where they live, work and learn.  We understand that, in today's environment, we must continue to expand our flexibility in our service models in order to serve even more families in need.   We are now actively using Interns, giving us the capacity to provide more services while building new practitioners in our field.

Build organizational capacity to drive and manage growth. We have long held a belief that we must work in partnership rather than alone in order to be an effective organization.  To take our organization further, we know we must expand our ability and success in recruiting and developing our staff, identifying and cultivating relationships with partners able to contribute to our growth strategy and building our infrastructure to support our growth.  We are committed to maintaining our national credentials and affiliations.

This is an exciting time for Family Foundations.  Our work is far from done as we move towards a financial healthier future for Jacksonville families.  More families succeeding mean a healthier workforce, a wider task base and safer neighborhoods.