Salvation Army National Corp.
Doing The Most Good
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
14.8% of Americans - and 21% of the nation's children - currently live in poverty. The longer a child is in poverty, the greater the chance he or she will remain in poverty as an adult. Children who are in poverty for more than half of their childhood are 32x more likely to be in poverty as an adult.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Basic Needs Case Management and Long-Term Poverty Alleviation
The Salvation Army’s BASIC NEEDS programs are tailored to meet the immediate needs of the area and people they serve, whether it’s utility or rental assistance, providing clothing and other household items, seasonal services, or employment help.
Through CASE MANAGEMENT and our basic needs services, we strive to help anyone in need overcome any crises they may be facing. The help our basic needs services provide lay the groundwork for LONG-TERM POVERTY ALLEVIATION efforts, like The Salvation Army’s PATHWAY OF HOPE program, which works to create a path out of poverty and break the cycle of INTERGENERATIONAL POVERTY.
These long-term solutions help end a host of related struggles: hunger, addiction, housing insecurity, mental illness, unemployment, educational voids, and various forms of abuse. Through this holistic approach, we’re able to interrupt the root causes of poverty to make a lasting impact on an individual or family’s long-term self-sustainability.
Hunger Relief
Each night, 17.4 million families go to bed hungry in the United States, and nearly one in six households with children cannot buy enough food for their families.
To help mitigate the widespread issue of food insecurity, The Salvation Army serves more than 170 million meals annually via a wide variety of programs. Through our food pantries, corps kitchens, mobile meal units, sit-down and summer feeding programs, and community gardens we work to help anyone in need. We design our services based on local need, which varies greatly from community to community, because mitigating hunger plays a role in overall poverty reduction.
Whether it’s a food pantry offering free fresh produce and groceries to communities that lack access to these goods due to being in a “food desert,” meal programs that provide nutritious, hot meals and valuable human interaction, or our nutrition education programs, our hunger relief efforts are far reaching.
Housing and Homeless Services
Providing 8 million nights of shelter in a year, The Salvation Army offers a broad range of housing and homelessness services for individuals, families, and youth. For homeless populations, The Salvation Army provides varying levels of housing, from emergency shelter to permanent supportive housing. Caseworkers assist both people experiencing homelessness and those in eminent danger of homelessness with emergency service funds and counseling. The Salvation Army operates programs to maintain stably housed individuals, family, and youth through Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA), Grant Per Diem (GPD), and Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF). Homelessness supportive services such as education, job training, counseling, meals, and clothing are available to people experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness. Lastly, The Salvation Army’s disaster response and recovery often operates temporary shelters in, or near, the areas affected by disaster.
Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation
For more than 100 years The Salvation Army’s drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs have provided spiritual, clinical, social, and emotional assistance for men and women recovering from substance abuse. Adult Rehabilitation Centers (ARC), Harbor Lights, and other Salvation Army rehabilitation programs offer residential housing, work training, group and individual therapy, medical treatment, and more, all in a clean, wholesome environment.
The physical and spiritual care that program participants receive prepares them to re-enter society and return to gainful employment. Many of those who have been rehabilitated are reunited with their families and resume a normal life.
While exact programs vary, program participants are provided with a clean and healthy living environment, good food, work training, leisure time activities, group and individual counseling, spiritual direction, and resources to develop life skills and a personal relationship with God as provided by Jesus Christ.
Emergency Disaster Services
The Salvation Army has served first responders and survivors of every major natural disaster in the United States since the Galveston hurricane in 1900. With a physical presence in nearly every zip code across the country, The Salvation Army is there before, during, and after a disaster strikes, providing for the immediate and long term needs of the community in any situation. Our army of nearly 3,600 officers, 60,000 staff, and 1,300,000 volunteers stand ready to help with hot meals, shelter, emotional and spiritual care, and more.
Christmas and Holiday Assistance
The Salvation Army’s traditional Red Kettle is an integral part of the Christmas scene, with millions of dollars donated each year to aid 2.5 million individuals and families in need.
Donations and financial assistance provide Christmas dinners, clothing, and toys for families in need, including families of prisoners. The Angel Tree program allows the public to purchase specific gifts requested by parents for their kids.
Volunteers distribute gifts to individuals in hospitals and nursing homes, and shelters are open for sit-down dinners. The Salvation Army brings spiritual light and love to those it serves at Christmas so that the real meaning of the season is not forgotten.
Many families receive aid over a period of months after the Christmas season, as well as people struggling with difficult family, emotional, or employment problems.
Because we want to respond to the varying needs of the communities in which we serve, all our holiday assistance programs are administered locally.
Anti-Human Trafficking Services
The Salvation Army is deeply committed to the modern-day fight against human trafficking (for sexual and labor purposes) and commercial sexual exploitation innately linked to sexual trafficking. This commitment emerges from The Salvation Army's mission, to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and meet human needs in His name without discrimination, and is rooted in the organization's early history.
In the late 1800’s, upon learning of the desperate needs of women and children at risk of or already caught up in organized commercial sexual exploitation, The Salvation Army responded by opening homes for women and girls and developing intensive "Rescue Work." Within thirty years, Salvation Army rescue homes grew from one to 117.
Today, The Salvation Army maintains safe haven homes and apartments for victims of human trafficking where supportive services and trauma-informed care are provided, and works with other local governments and partner organizations to provide safe spaces and resources.
Kroc Corps Community Centers
In 1998, Mrs. Joan Kroc, widow of McDonald's Ray Kroc, donated $90 million to The Salvation Army to build a comprehensive community center in San Diego, California. Her goal was to create a center where children and families would be exposed to different people, activities and arts that would otherwise be beyond their reach. Completed in 2001, the center sits on 12 acres and offers an ice arena, gymnasium, three pools, rock climbing walls, a performing arts theatre, an internet-based library, computer lab, and a school of visual and performing arts.
When Mrs. Kroc passed away in October 2003, she left $1.8 billion - much of her estate - to The Salvation Army. The money was designated to build a series of state-of-the-art Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Centers nationwide, patterned after the San Diego center. There are now 26 Kroc Corps Community Centers around the country, fulfilling the wishes of Joan Kroc and changing lives one at a time.
Youth Education and Recreational Services
The Salvation Army operates hundreds of after school programs in low and moderate-income neighborhoods across the country, including several Boys and Girls Clubs. These programs provide children with a safe place to play and learn in a supervised and constructive environment. In many cases The Salvation Army will provide sports, arts, and music programs, which may not be available in the local school systems.
In addition, more than 100,000 children from low-income families enjoy fresh air, exercise and new friendships each year at Salvation Army summer camp programs. The camping experience is more than just a pleasant vacation. Children learn new skills and self-reliance; trained counselors who understand their emotional needs and problems help them to mature. Camp activities include learning to swim, adventure and scouting, arts and crafts, music development, and sports.
Vulnerable Populations
VETERANS: Every year The Salvation Army serves thousands of veterans in need through housing assistance, job training, drug and alcohol treatment, and more. The Salvation Army provides extensive transitional and permanent housing for veterans through Supportive Services for Veteran Families and the Grant and Per Diem Programs.
CORRECTIONAL SERVICES: Through cooperative arrangements with prison, probation, and parole officials, The Salvation Army plays an important role in prison rehabilitation and crime prevention. Services include Bible courses, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, pre-release job-training, transitional housing, work release, and more.
ELDERLY SERVICES: Each year, almost 1 million older adults are served by The Salvation Army though educational classes, day care, hot-lunch programs, pre-retirement seminars, and more. In corps community centers throughout the nation, older adults gather to share interests, develop new skills, and enjoy the company of their peers.
Where we work
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Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
The Salvation Army will expand its Pathway of Hope initiative, providing targeted services to families with a desire to take action to break the cycle of crisis and enable a path out of intergenerational poverty.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
• Intensive Strengths-based case management services
• Move families from crises and vulnerability to stability and eventually self-sufficiency, tracking family progress along the way
• Bringing all The Salvation Army’s internal resources to bear, aligned to the goals of clients
• Catalyzing community collaboration in service of shared clients
• Focus on hope as a measured outcome, which represents the distinctly relational, spiritual outcome that The Salvation Army seeks in the work it does
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
We are currently implementing Pathway of Hope in over half of our social services facilities across the country. We have received two large grants that will enable us to fully expand these services across the country over the next five years.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
We are currently engaging almost 2,000 families per year with the Pathway of Hope initiative. In the next five years we plan to engage over 7,000 families per year. We also plan to double the number of Salvation Army personnel trained in the Pathway of Hope approach in the same period. We also are challenging ourselves to increase our successful completion rates from 30% of families to 35% of families.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Salvation Army National Corp.
Board of directorsas of 02/14/2023
Commissioner Kenneth Hodder
The Salvation Army
Term: 2020 -
Colonel Ralph Bukiewicz
The Salvation Army
Term: 2023 -
Colonel Stephen Ellis
The Salvation Army
Commissioner Bradford Bailey
The Salvation Army
Commissioner William Bamford
The Salvation Army
Commissioner Kelly Igleheart
The Salvation Army
Commissioner Douglas Riley
The Salvation Army
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
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