Best Day Foundation, Inc.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Young people with special needs rarely have access to participating in adventure activities. Participating in these types of activities, with surfing being our main focus at this time has been shown to: * Improve personal well being by building: * Confidence * Self-esteem * Personal empowerment * Resilience and coping skills * Physical skills, mobility, and overall health Participating as part of a group also develops social skills and provides an environment of acceptance and teamwork.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Best Day at the Beach
Best Day empowers communities to offer safe, life-changing beach days to children with special needs. Back-end services, support, training, and business resources are provided to ensure that safe, self-sufficient, scalable programs are created over a 4 year period.
Where we work
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Total number of volunteer hours contributed to the organization
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Best Day at the Beach
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This shows the net effect of our growth in areas served, number of events hosted, and volunteers engaged as each event typically generates 6 volunteer service hours per volunteer.
Number of therapy hours provided to clients
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Parents
Related Program
Best Day at the Beach
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This reflects the number of respite hours our programs provide parents of children with special needs.
Number of camps offered
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
People with disabilities
Related Program
Best Day at the Beach
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Number of events held across all chapters.
Number of participants engaged in programs
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Young adults, People with disabilities
Related Program
Best Day at the Beach
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This is the the total number of the youth with special needs ages 4 - 24+ that we serve at our events
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?
Best Day Foundation aims to create a scalable organization that empowers communities to host events supported by a volunteer base that shares their skills and passion for adventure activities and the outdoors with young people with special needs. Our programs are geared for youth ages 4 years old to 24+ with any type of developmental, physical, injury or illness related special need. While some organizations support a specific special needs group such as Autism, we welcome all types of special needs and enjoy a fun day as a group of people each sharing, learning and accepting each other as individuals.
Through our events we aim to help our participants build confidence and self-esteem and feel accepted.
We hope to help their parents expand their vision of what their child is capable of doing. We frequently hear that after seeing their child surfing that it opens their eyes as to broader capabilities than they had considered since often times they are simply focused on getting through the day.
We aim to grow interest in volunteering, break down barriers often related to engaging with people that have special needs, build understanding, acceptance, and comfort in engaging others with special needs.
Bottom line - Best Day believes we are all people first and can do amazing things when working together especially while engaging in fun and exciting activities. We learn and connect while having a blast!
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
We've developed a chapter model where all of the back office type needs are covered from the main office to allow each community or chapter to focus on local engagement and hosting events. The main office or headquarters manages all finance, systems, and compliance-related tasks as well as coordinates the training of each chapter team so they can host events in their area. Typically over a 4 year period a chapter can go from hosting its first events being supported by an experienced team of people from our other chapters to being able to host events 100% on their own by year 4.
We have developed best practices for every process so that each chapter operates in a similar fashion as each other allowing volunteers to be completely comfortable and effective at any event in any area.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Best Day was founded by a seasoned entrepreneur who had built and scaled a number of different companies after years of involvement in helping grow a similar organization Ride a Wave based in Santa Cruz California. Ride a Wave did not want to grow, so Best Day was created to share the best practices developed over more than 15 years of hosting surf based events for people with special needs.
By creating a solid framework to support the compliance requirements for a non-profit organization, we eliminate many of the hurdles of getting a program started, while providing a complete how-to guide with hands-on training and support. Each chapter team can then leverage their time, talents, and connections to build up the community volunteer base, create participant interest and work with the community authorities to get event permits and support.
We have created a custom-developed registration system that simplifies volunteer and participant engagement, improves messaging, tracking and reporting and is easy to use even for non-technical team members.
We have vehicles that store and transport all the gear we need to host an event at any appropriate location. We arrive, and are set up and operational within about 30 minutes. After our event, we will have the area cleaner and in better order, than we arrived and be gone within an hour of completing the event. By having these best practices in place we make the most of our volunteers valuable time and allow them to be fully engaged, feel functional and valued.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
From inception in 2008 to the end of our 2018 season we have chapters serving New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and 5 chapters serving Southern California from Santa Barbara to the Mexico border.
We have hosted 240 events, serving 7908 youth with special needs with the support of over 158,383 volunteer service hours.
We are awarded Top-Rated Non-profit status year after year by Greatnonprofits.org
We are told that our programs have made long term and material differences in the lives of hundreds of people that have been part of our programs from volunteers changing their career paths to support the special needs community, to families making outdoor activities a regular activity, to non-verbal youth speaking for the first time.
Best Day is more than a fun day at the beach, it's a Best Day that lasts forever.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
-
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
-
Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
-
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
Unlock nonprofit financial insights that will help you make more informed decisions. Try our 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.
Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
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.
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.
Best Day Foundation, Inc.
Board of directorsas of 02/22/2022
Brooks Lambert
Brooks Lambert
President, Under Development, Inc.
Eric Leaman
Trustee, Organization for Entrepreneurial Development
Danny Cortazzo
Captain, Santa Clara Firefighters / Founder and President, Ride a Wave
Dave Lester
Vice President Wetsuits, Quiksilver
John McMahon
VP Investments, Merrill Lynch / Former Board Chair 1% for the Planet
Larry Jones
COO, Fox Sports
Susan Walton
Founder, Peninsula Parents of Special Needs Kids
Greg Steelman
Controller BPR Properties
Wallace Whittier
Real Estate Attorney
Nancy Petersen
President, Perdersen Enterprises
Matt Garcia
Firefighter
Lauren Dunning
Sr. Policy & Planning Officer - LA County Dept. of Public Health