Plans and Goals for 2024

Our Executive Director, Karla, chooses a word that helps set an intention in both the personal and professional sides of life. Her word this year is OPPORTUNITY. From reading Managing Your Nonprofit for Resilience by Ted Bilich, she was pulled towards the idea of risk. "Risk is neither good nor bad. Risk is simply the acknowledgement that none of us can see into the future," (pg. 18). Opportunity is a way to express positive risk- taking intentional, smart risks.

As an organization, we want to take the idea of chosing a word of the year to guide our goals with intention.

​FHBB has chosen BUILD as the word for 2024 to help connect some of this years goals.

​2024 Goals:

1. Mobile Market
2. S.H.O.P. (Senior Homebound Outreach Program)
3. Facility Planning
4. Service Enterprise
5. Parking Lot

Part of our mission is to "Build connections with community partners". This part of the mission is for our organization and other organizations to work together to better support our community. This is is reflected through the first 2 goals: Mobile Market and S.H.O.P.

Mobile Market - We're planning to launch the Mobile Market during the first half of this year. This bus was aquired through a relationship built with ATA. They donated a retiring bus to us so we can make the dream of connecting with parts of our community that can't make it to FHBB. We want to bring our market to them.

STEPS TOWARDS GOAL:

1. Outfit the inside of the bus to be the Mobile Market
2. Recruit and train volunteers for Mobile Market program

S.H.O.P. (Senior Homebound Outreach Program) - This is a new path for this vital program done for years by 2 dedicated volunteers. To expand this program and reach some of our communities underserved population, we will continue working with staff at senior living communities such as the National Church Residences at Garden way and Colorado Plaza with more intention. We want to build on to this program to make it as successful as we know it can be.

STEPS TOWARDS GOAL:

1. Register existing participants
2. Recruit and train volunteers to prepare S.H.O.P. food boxes

The other way we're looking at our word of 2024 is by taking the definition of build that is to construct something by putting the parts together. This connects our next 3 goals: Facility Planning, Service Enterprise and Parking Lot.

Facility Planning - We've grown and changed a lot in the last few years. The number of households have more than doubled since 2022 but our walls have not. Our space capacity and building planning is a goal that will span through the coming years.​

STEPS TOWARDS GOAL:

1. Create the Facility Planning Commitee comprised of FHBB Board Members and community partners.
2. Determine our current and future space needs - evaluate if our current site is the best fit for our future.
3. Explore other possible sites, funding options, and set a plan in action.

Service Enterprise - FHBB has embarked on an 18 month adventure to develop our knowledge, skills, and systems to capture, support, and retain an engaged, dynamic volunteer base who support our mission. This program is from AL!VE and is facilitated through the Kansas Volunteer Commission.

STEPS TOWARDS GOAL:

1. Utilize training gained in Fall 2023 to build a more robust volunteer infrastructure.
2. Collect evidence to be used for certification in the following characteristics:

• Leadership Involvement
• Planning
• Supervision and Support
• Training
• Tracking and Evaluation
• Growth and Change
• Technology
• Onboarding
• Collaboration

3. Certify as a Service Enterprise organization in 2025.

Parking Lot - We're excited to see the city lot shared with the Douglass Activity Center taking steps towards a new and shiny parking area. It has taken a while longer than expected with some unexpected construction barriers that pushed the project into the winter months. This is not a goal we can control, but it helps our personal goal of practicing patience and our ability to adapt to new situations.

There are many other goals we have as we start on the journey of 2024 and other projects we're excited to share with our community. As we take more steps into the new year, we'll keep our word, BUILD, as the guiding theme and continue towards our vision that there is No One in Need Among Us.

Thanks Friends,
Jennie & the FHBB Team