New Beginnings has always been an evolutionary program that has been willing to change.  We have been a self-critical organization that has identified weaknesses and worked to improve upon those areas, to ensure that we are working towards our mission.  In that spirit, New Beginnings is undergoing a restructuring process to help diversify our funding to ensure long-term security and improve our core services to our participants.

Although New Beginnings has offered quality services and touched numerous people’s lives we realize that there are some key areas that we need to improve upon:

1.      Diversified funding: Until 2003 New Beginnings received over 95% of its funding from the investors from a limited group of people that had funded the program for its entire existence. This allowed us to be very mission focused, rather than having to spend large amounts of time chasing money, but it left us ill prepared for inevitable cutbacks with the down turn in the economy. With still solid and stable funding, in 2002 we explored a business venture to help generate revenue for the New Beginnings program, but after 9 months of operation it became clear that it would not be a viable model without considerable more investment, and considerably more time. In late 2002 we began exploring a much more diversified funding approach that included the use of: Grants, fundraising, partnerships, contracts and fees.  We are currently in the midst of implementing this plan.

2.      Narrowing Focus: Over the past 2 years New Beginnings membership exploded, and although New Beginnings saw a noted improvement in the computer training and some of the employment related services offered, we also noted a decline in the quantity and quality of the some of our other services such as budgeting, going back to school and crisis management.  The huge demand for computer training, stretched the organization’s resources thin, and made it difficult to work on developing infrastructure that is necessary to offer quality holistic services.  To address this, New Beginnings is focusing on a few key areas of empowerment: employment, financial, information and civic & social engagement.  We are also working to develop a solid referral and follow-up system to make sure that we can offer informative referrals to outside resources for areas that we cannot directly assist. 

3.      Measuring Outcomes: New Beginnings has helped a vast amount of people and has had a substantial influence in many of those people's lives. Unfortunately, other than anecdotal evidence, we have been unable to quantify this.  Our priority over the next year is to put systems in place that effectively and efficiently measure value added and overall outcomes.  This will allow us to more effectively serve our participants and mission, as well as will ensure that we are held accountable.

4.      Board Expansion: New Beginnings has operated with a small founders board.  The advantage of this set-up was that it allowed for a nimble organization that could quickly make adjustments as is often needed with an experimental organization. But now that we are a more established organization it is time to expand the board to bring in a wide range of expertise and voices to help solidify the organization long-term growth.  We are looking to develop an active board that helps us secure different sources of funding, advises the organization on legal and fiscal matters, and gives the staff a different perspective on our services and how they are implemented.  We are looking for board members who will act as ambassadors of the organization and who will be constantly on the lookout for ways to make connections that will help us better serve our mission.