For Our Donors

New people find us mostly by word of mouth. Every day we serve a mix of people who are regular, people who have tapered off, and brand new people! New clients are often attracted by our donated resources and a safe place to be.

The most important thing we can invest in is time for our trained staff to spend with clients. We are open an average of 6 hours a day with at least two staff members on duty at all times. Clients usually spend half the day with us, getting 3 hours of guidance per visit.  We deliver 60 hours of counseling a day, as we have about 20 clients on average. We use a cost-effective combination of group counseling and one-on-one guidance in both private and social settings.

Clients must first regain stability and sobriety. Then they can work on social/emotional well-being. We've broken this down into about 40 observable life changes, from "simple" things--getting transportation (a bike, for example), getting ID, getting a job, getting medical attention-- to more complex things like sobriety, housing, getting professional counseling, and joining churches. Each is a life change and a step to stability, sobriety, reconnection with God, and finding a faith home. Clients report goals organically as part of our relationship. Someone brand new may have just achieved a goal, but those who engage with us completely are much more likely to be achieving life change. This real-time statistic keeps up with it:

Most of our funds come from individual donors or families who recognize this work is effective and challenging but must be accomplished. We have churches and foundations who support us as well as businesses. We don't receive large government grants.

Our clients deserve stability, so we operate with a cushion to make sure we can say "Yes!" to expansion opportunities or weather minor storms. You can see the cushion as the difference between the 12-month green income line and the 12-month red expense line. Our cash flow per month is shown in the bars. You can see the impact of our fundraisers and end-of-year, but many months our cash flow goes negative (below the zero line). The cushion allows us to operate smoothly in those months. The accumulated cushion from year to year is what we used to respond to the opportunity to open the Drop-in Center in 2016 and to expand to San Marcos in 2019.