Programs and results
What we aim to solve
The Vero Beach Rowing (VBR) mission is "To promote and teach the sport of rowing to the community in order to develop physical fitness, personal character, and an ethic of cooperation through competitive and recreational opportunities." We have an active youth program that is aligned with FL State Education Physical Fitness and Environmental Standards and that targets development in the following areas: personalized rowing education and training as a sport/physical fitness, emotional support, socialization/team building, mental health well-being, and preparation for lifetime success. We collaborate with other community organizations to find youth that are disadvantaged and we provide our programs for free to ALICE youth. Many of these youths have no experience in the beautiful Florida water environment.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Youth Rowing
Vero Beach Rowing’s mission is to “To promote and teach the sport of rowing to the community in order to develop physical fitness, personal character, and an ethic of cooperation through competitive and recreational opportunities.” We believe that this mission begins with our commitment to growing our youth programs. Our club provides the opportunity for youth from any school to participate in our programs.
Where we work
External reviews

Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of organizational partners
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Adolescents, At-risk youth
Related Program
Youth Rowing
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
VBR works with partner organizations in our County to identify disadvantaged youth and to transport them to and from our program site.
Number of program graduates
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adolescents, At-risk youth, Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Youth Rowing
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Includes all youth who are seniors and have completed our Youth Rowing Program.
Number of youth who demonstrate leadership skills (e.g., organizing others, taking initiative, team-building)
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adolescents, At-risk youth, Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Youth Rowing
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Coaches' evaluation of Youth who have become team leaders and who have demonstrated the ability to motivate and inspire their teammates.
Number of children served
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Adolescents, Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Youth Rowing
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We track the number of children served in several categories. This is the total that pass through our Fall and Spring Rowing seasons. Also numbers for summer camps and disadvantaged youth.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn 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?
We want to expand our outreach programs in the disadvantaged community to give these youths the opportunities for personal enrichment and eventually college scholarship opportunities that rowing provides.
Our programs to date have been successful and growing, despite the COVID 19 disruptions. The table below shows the number of youths on scholarship support since we initiated this program around 3 years ago.
Season Number of kids
Spring 2018 1
Fall 2018 4
Spring 2019 4
Summer 2019 18
Fall 2019 19
Spring 2020 8
Summer 2020 27
Fall 2020 12
Spring 2021 12
Summer 2021 21
Fall 2021 TBD
We intend to continue to increase these numbers. One of the great things about rowing is that everyone winds up in the same boat. Older and more experienced youth mentor the younger and less skillful.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
We have already made great strides as outlined above.
Strategies for success include:
- Increasing the number of strategic partners than can identify these youths and bring them to us.
- Expand and continue to develop our existing partnerships.
-Expand our funding support of these programs. So far the funding has come from internal resources, but the expanded programs are going to require better outreach to funders and different funders.
-Add staff to specifically address the recruiting, retention and training of the disadvantaged youth.
-Develop a working partnership with the local school district.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
We have demonstrated our capabilities in all of these areas:
-We have or have had partnerships with local agencies in our county that work with disadvantaged youth. These include:
• Gifford Youth Achievement Center
• Boys & Girls Clubs
• Hibiscus House
• Homeless Children's Foundation of Indian River County
• Crossover Mission
-We have devoted staff time to nourish these relationships and to make sure that their youth have a good and safe experience with us. We have plans to hire specialists in this function as the program expands.
- We have successfully raised funds for this program for 3 years, covering all of the needs. As the programs expand, funding requirements will exceed our internal capacity, limiting our capabilities and program success.
- It is clear that recruiting and retaining these youths is more complicated than normal. Our existing staff has managed to keep up with it, but we also know that we will require dedicated staff for this purpose.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Our progress to date, as measured by our primary indicator, the number of registrants, is great. See the results in the table above. Even with the disruptions caused by the COVID situation, we have managed to grow the program every year since it started 3 years ago.
We have successfully operated and funded the program with our internal resources.
What is next is to execute our strategy. We have implemented a donor database and management software package to replace what has been a very informal system. Getting past COVID will increase our capacity which is currently restricted to the use of small boats. The larger boats accomodate more youths, but the distance between heads is around 4-5 ft, insufficient for social distancing. Our County still has a relatively high infection rate, which is one measure that USRowing uses to decide when to allow use of the larger boats.
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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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.
Vero Beach Rowing Inc
Board of directorsas of 09/21/2021
Charlotte Lajoie
Chris Ryan
Charlotte Lajoie
Chuck Cook
Jimmy Michael
Chris Pensch
Charles Sullivan
Jill Diniz
Mellisa Merson
Todd Young
Bill Kloppenburg
Patricia Gleason
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? GuideStar partnered on this section with CHANGE Philanthropy and Equity in the Center.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
No data
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Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data