Family Promise Montco PA
formerly Inter-Faith Housing Alliance
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Family Promise Montco PA (formerly Inter-Faith Housing Alliance) is working to address homelessness, poverty, and food insecurity.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Interfaith Hospitality Network/Emergency Shelter Program
The Inter-Faith Hospitality Network of Family Promise Montco provides families experiencing homelessness with up to 90 days of safe, temporary shelter and other support to help them move toward self-sufficiency.
In this nondenominational program, twelve host congregations, supported by 13 "buddies," serve families for a month each year at their places of worship. Congregational volunteers, who collectively contribute hundreds of hours of their time each year, provide meals, overnight supervision, and transportation as needed. During the day, families can access a Day Center at Family Promise, where staff provide counseling, case management, and support to help families resolve their homelessness.
Families in shelter meet the Federal guidelines for very low or extremely low incomes; most are single-parent, female-headed households with young children.
Hope Gardens/Transitional Housing Program
Hope Gardens, an eight-unit apartment building in Ambler, PA, is home to our stabilizing transitional housing program. Families live at Hope Gardens for up to 2 years, during which time they work toward identified goals for a successful transition to safe, affordable, decent housing.
Families living at Hope Gardens receive comprehensive support. Intensive case management helps families develop practical, attainable goals, create a workable budget, obtain childcare, find employment, apply for subsidized and permanent housing, and create a savings plan. Life skills training--a series of educational workshops, which focus on topics such as financial literacy, budgeting, and credit repair, positive parenting, stress management, and healthy relationships--gives them the tools they need to become and stay self-sufficient.
Hope Forest and Hope on Fifth/Supportive Housing Program
Our Supportive Housing Program at Hope Forest in Ambler opened in January 2017, with a second location, Hope on Fifth in Lansdale, added in 2022. The Supportive Housing Program--the first privately operated supportive housing program in Montgomery County--offers four families an affordable housing option. Families pay fair market rent and receive general oversight from a case manager on a diminishing schedule until they have secured necessary skills to gain and maintain a living wage job and have resolved the issues that have been a barrier to stability in their past.
Aftercare Program
Our Aftercare Program increases the long-term stability of families who have graduated from our emergency, transitional, and supportive housing programs. A volunteer Aftercare Specialist stays in regular contact with graduate families to provide limited case management, financial assistance, and other resources needed to keep the families on track. The Aftercare Specialist also learns about specific challenges families are facing so we can make adjustments to our education program and support services that will better prepare our current residents for a successful transition to permanent housing.
Basic Needs Program
When families enter our housing program, many have had to leave valuable possessions behind. They arrive with few personal goods and often lack even the most basic essential items. Once families are safely housed in our program, the need for basic supplies continues. Families often lack essential household goods, and maintaining adequate food can be a continuing challenge. Even upon graduating from our programs, families remain vulnerable for some time to disruptions in their stability while they work at building their assets and maintenance of consistent, adequate income. Our Basic Needs Program provides comprehensive support in the form of household and personal care supplies and temporary financial assistance to cover expenses that threaten to disrupt a family’s progress towards stability.
Family Promise Food Pantry
Our Food Pantry provides a variety of foods to low-income residents of Montgomery County to reduce food insecurity and improve nutrition. Although it is currently operating as a drive through pantry, when the pandemic passes it will revert to being a "choice” pantry, where participants are able to select the foods that they are most likely to prepare and eat.
Where we work
Awards
Humanitarian Organization of the Year 2014
Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce
Citizen of the Week (March 8) for ED Marsha Eichelberger 2014
Ambler Gazette
Inter-Faith Award for former ED Laura Wall 2014
Bethlehem Baptist Church & Wissahickon Faith Community
Yaffe–Robert Johnson Smith Civil Rights Awards for former ED Laura Wall 2012
Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission
Zone of Peace 2014
The Religious Leaders Council of Greater Philadelphia
Upper Dublin Medal-Outstanding Community Non-Profit Organization 2020
Upper Dublin Township
Affiliations & memberships
Family Promise 2022
External reviews

Photos
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Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of volunteers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Families, Homeless people, Economically disadvantaged people
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This metric measures the number of volunteers who dedicate their time to helping our organization. The 2020-21 decrease in volunteers reflects social distance requirements due to COVID.
Number of clients served
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Families, Homeless people, Economically disadvantaged people
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This metric measures how many total people have been served by our various programs, focusing on our transitional housing, emergency shelter, and food pantry programs.
Number of program graduates
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Families, Homeless people, Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Hope Gardens/Transitional Housing Program
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This metric measures the number of families that successfully leave our Hope Gardens transitional housing program.
Volunteer hours
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Families, Homeless people, Economically disadvantaged people
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This metric measures how many volunteer hours were completed for I-FHA. The decrease in 2020 reflects social distancing requirements due to COVID.
Dollars donated to support organization and programs
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Families, Economically disadvantaged people, Homeless people
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This metric measures the contributions and grants given to our organization. 2016 total includes a one-time gift to purchase a property for our supportive housing program.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
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?
Our main goals are to prevent homelessness and hunger in Montgomery County, PA.
We collaborate with Your Way Home, Montgomery County's award-winning collective impact initiative, as well as other non-profit organizations and foundations in the area, to work towards providing shelter and supportive services to those who are experiencing homelessness, with the ultimate goal of making homelessness rare, brief, and nonrecurring.
Family Promise aims to promote self-sufficiency among families experiencing the crisis of homelessness. We offer extensive aftercare services to all of our clients in order to help them retain the stable housing they obtain after they graduate from our program.
We also address food insecurity in eastern Montgomery County with our Family Promise Food Pantry, located in Abington, PA, which served nearly 1,900 individuals in FY2022.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
To fulfill our goal of making homelessness rare, brief, and nonrecurring, we connect families to multiple services and resources. Through partnerships with 20+ congregations, more than 800 volunteers, and 35+ foundations and corporations, we offer:
• Emergency shelter (90 days) through the Interfaith Hospitality Network (20 families/year).
• Transitional shelter (2 years) at Hope Gardens (8 families/year).
• An affordable housing option in the form of a two-family home with fair market rent through our Supportive Housing Program at Hope Forest and Hope on Fifth (4 families/year).
• Healthy food options through the Family Promise Food Pantry (2,000 individuals/year).
• Essential household items through the Basic Needs Program.
• Educational classes that fill residents' skill gaps through our Educational Program.
• Limited case management, financial assistance, and holiday programs through the Aftercare Program (25 families/year).
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Family Promise Montco PA (formerly Inter-Faith Housing Alliance) has mobilized volunteers and cultivated resources to prevent and resolve homelessness for 40 years. During this time, we have proven very capable of meeting the needs presented by families experiencing homelessness in the Montgomery County region. Our experienced staff offer emergency shelter, transitional housing, supportive housing, a food pantry, case management, educational enhancements, aftercare services, and a basic needs program, all of which provide families with services and supplies essential to improving their current state of homelessness.
We also partner with Montgomery County's Your Way Home, 20+ congregations in the faith community, and receive numerous grants from various corporations and foundations in order to ensure the continuance of these programs and services that offer help to families in crisis.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
During the 2022 fiscal year, the following outcomes were achieved by families residing in housing programs at Family Promise Montco PA:
• 63 individuals, including 36 children, were served in our housing programs
• 12,238 bed-nights of shelter were provided in our three housing programs
• 1,892 individuals received food from the Food Cupboard
• 23 graduate families received aftercare
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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Who are the people you serve with your mission?
Low and very low income individuals experiencing food insecurity in Montgomery County, PA; families experiencing homelessness in Montgomery County, PA.
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How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?
Electronic surveys (by email, tablet, etc.), Case management notes, Community meetings/Town halls,
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals,
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What significant change resulted from feedback?
In 2020, due to the pandemic, for the first time we provided gift cards instead of wrapped gifts to the families participating in our holiday adopt a family program. We had hesitated to do this in the past. Donors typically prefer fulfilling wish lists, rather than just providing a cash equivalent. Feedback showed that families overwhelmingly preferred receiving gift cards rather than actual items. They appreciated the opportunity to choose their own gifts for their children. We will continue to provide gift cards in the future, based on this feedback.
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With whom is the organization sharing feedback?
Our staff, Our board, Our funders,
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How has asking for feedback from the people you serve changed your relationship?
Feedback from our clients is extremely important to us. From smaller issues, like which platform our housing clients use to pay rent (Venmo, check, CashApp), to larger ones, like operating our programs with trauma-informed care, ultimately we are looking to improve the services we provide by understanding our clients' needs. Shifting to trauma-informed care has improved communication with and outcomes for clients. The goal is to address clients' homelessness or food insecurity in a way that is effective, efficient, and preserves clients' dignity and autonomy. Moreover, we want to reduce barriers and ensure racial equity as we provide these services. Feedback is invaluable in helping us achieve these goals.
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We act on the feedback we receive,
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, Staff find it hard to prioritize feedback collection and review due to lack of time,
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Family Promise Montco PA
Board of directorsas of 02/27/2023
Mr. Wayne Carpenter
Charles Quann
Bethlehem Baptist Church
John Armstrong
Armstrong Supply Co.
Priya Bell
Network Building and Consulting
Wanda Lewis-Campbell
Temple University Ambler
Sherry Shoemaker
Voice of Assurance Life Coaching
Mark Whaley
Community Volunteer
David Zimmerman
Community Volunteer
Kewin Gales
Prometrics LLC
Shelia Carter
Merck
LaDon Marsh
Community Volunteer
Deidre Patterson
R.O.S.E. Foundation
Tom Wynn
Community Volunteer
Lisa Miller
LAM Consulting Services, LLC
Bill Martin
Gateway Search Associates
Madison Gindea
Community Volunteer
Karen Sanchez
Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data