Our Future

Building our infrastructure and resilience

To continue to think big, we must grow smart. This means scaling our business to align with the significant growth we experienced throughout the pandemic. This will ensure an operating infrastructure that can support continued growth, as we meet the needs of the increasing number of individuals and families we assist. The FORWARD campaign will support strategic program development and maintain the highest levels of quality in current services by making critical investments in people, financial resilience, and technology.

People

Goal: $1.25 million

Our staff has doubled in size since 2020 and is now more than 120 people. Maintaining a team of skilled professionals at all levels requires a financial investment to meet rising staff costs and to provide:

  • Competitive compensation
  • High-quality health insurance with family coverage
  • A retirement savings plan with generous employer contribution
  • Wellness benefits
  • Continuous learning and professional education
  • Flexibility to enhance future employee benefits

Resilience

Goal: $2.5 million

Housing Forward is widely regarded for our range of highly effective programs that respond to housing crises at all levels. Looking forward, we seek to increase our program financial foundation to:

  • Sustain significant program growth while investing the highest levels of program quality
  • Expand our operating reserve to better withstand payment delays under a significant number of government partners, as well as by private foundation funding cycles
  • Increase our ability to respond to opportunities for new program development and build partnerships with leading service providers

Technology

Goal: $1.25 million

Operational excellence relies on technology resources that align with current programs and strategic growth. We will build an integrated technology ecosystem that addresses current challenges while setting the stage for greater future effectiveness by addressing 22 areas, such as:

  • Creating a 360-degree view of the client journey across programs from agency entry to graduation from services
  • Becoming a 100% electronic records-focused organization
  • Improving digital systems that effectively manage our engagement of donors and volunteers