 How we got started
Central America has long been an area with extreme levels of poverty. However, in October 1999, Hurricane Mitch caused catastrophic levels of suffering and hardship. At its peak strength with winds over 180 miles per hour, Hurricane Mitch was the fourth strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Basin history and the strongest October Atlantic hurricane on record. In Northern Honduras, where the hurricane made landfall, unofficial reports indicate that over 30 inches of rain fell during the week along the coast and 50 inches in the interior of the country. Obviously this resulted in severe damage to communities and farms.
In addition to short-term aid provided by many humanitarian groups and the LDS Church, a task force, headed by Dan Gifford, was assembled by the LDS Church Humanitarian Department to help the Church find long-term solutions to alleviate the suffering and poverty among the expanding membership in Latin America. In its report back to the Humanitarian Department, the task force concluded that education, micro-credit and economic development programs could all potentially have significant impacts on relieving poverty.
However, since many of these programs fall outside the three-fold mission of the Church, the opportunity to engage in them needed to be pursued by non-Church organizations. CFH was established as an independent foundation to engage in these programs and to help LDS members and non-members in Latin America become more self-reliant and therefore facilitate their ability to receive the full blessings of the Gospel. While not related to the Church in any way, CFH has received encouragement and guidance from leaders in the Humanitarian Department, including guidance on where to locate CFH's first locations. CFH started in September 2001 with a trip to Central America to determine CFH's first location. Since then CFH has expanded to over 20 locations throughout Latin America. It is today supported by an active Board of Directors, Executive Committee and volunteers.
Strategic Plans
As shown in the diagram below, there are four major areas that are included in the strategic plan for Cause for Hope. These areas represent four focus areas to continually improve the contribution that CFH makes to needy families in Central America.
Foundation Work
Foundation work refers to those plans, programs, and activities that carry out the work of the foundation, e.g. helping families become self-reliant. Strategic plans in this area are concerned with strengthening and advancing the programs for helping people.
Organizational Performance
Organization performance focuses on the organizational structure, the people, and the business processes of the foundation. The strategic plan identifies ways to attract and involve more people, evaluate and improve the organizational structure, and improve the efficiency of the processes.
People Served
People served is important to identify the individuals and families that most need help to become self-reliant and how CFH can identify and help those people. The strategic plan is to continually identifying which locations and communities can best be served, and what are the most critical needs of those communities.
Resource Optimization
Cause For Hope has very limited resources and therefore must continually seek for ways to use those resources as effectively and efficiently as possible. This area of the strategic plan focuses on ways to increase the pool of resources, how to leverage those resources by partnering with other groups, and how to efficiently replicate the programs that have been developed.
|
