COVENANT COMMUNITY SERVICES, INC.

hope lives here

aka Covenant Coffee and Covenant Transitional Housing Plus   |   Bakersfield, CA   |  http://www.covenantcs.net

Mission

Covenant Vision Statement -
Covenant envisions a future where every foster child lives in emotional, physical, relational and spiritual wholeness thereby ending the cycle of abuse and neglect in our community.

Covenant Mission Statement -
Providing hope and love to restore lives and transform generations.

Values
Give Hope Always
Provide opportunity for growth
Support with love and accountability

Notes from the nonprofit

Covenant Community Services, Inc. strives to transform community by helping foster children, former foster youth and their families to succeed in life. We provide a variety of diverse and unique services and supports to help accomplish the mission. It is working. Thanks for your support and go to www.covenantcs.net to view stories of hope.

Ruling year info

2003

CEO

Mr. Randy Martin

Main address

1700 N Chester Ave

Bakersfield, CA 93308 USA

Show more contact info

Formerly known as

Family Care Network of Kern County

Covenant Foster Care

EIN

42-1584502

NTEE code info

Children"s and Youth Services (P30)

Other Youth Development N.E.C. (O99)

Business, Youth Development (O53)

IRS filing requirement

This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.

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Communication

Blog

Programs and results

What we aim to solve

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

We serve foster youth ages 18-21 and former foster youth ages 18-24. Our services include safe and affordable housing, case management, life skills training, employment, mentoring, and advocacy. We have both scattered site residential options and a single site apartment complex. Our measurement tools include the John Burton Tracking system and narrative reports and graduation data. We are helping youth restore broken lives and shattered dreams. We expose giftedness and ability and crush the notion that all foster youth must end up homeless, addicted, dead or in jail. As such, we combat low educational performance, homelessness, domestic violence, addiction, lack of social and life skills, involvement in gangs and with the legal system, and mental health issues.

Our programs

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?

Transitional Housing Programs

CHOICES Transitional Housing Program - Kern County Population - Former foster youth ages 18-24 CHOICES Transitional Housing Placement Plus (THP-Plus) program provides affordable housing and comprehensive supportive services for up to 24 months to help former foster care and probation youth ages 18 to 24 make a successful transition from out-of-home placements to independent living. The program is administered by Covenant Community Services, Inc. in contract with the Kern County Department of Human Services (DHS). Statewide, THP-Plus is administered by the California Department of Social Services, which distributes THP-Plus funds to providers like Covenant. Covenant staff provide 1 to 1 case management and support to former foster youth in educational, vocational, indeperndent living skills, social and spiritual domains. Lastly, Covenant provides a stipend for housing and living costs for the 24 month program. Building Blocks Transitional Housing - Kern County Population - Former foster youth ages 18-21 Building Blocks is a transitional living community for former foster youth. Former foster youth are children in the foster care system who have reached age 18 and are no longer supported with housing by the child welfare system. In 2009, 158 Kern County foster children reached age 18 and many of them had no place to live and no family to aid them. Building Blocks is a huge part of assisting emancipated foster youth in our community. While the complex is just a few simple apartments, it is the programming that will impact the future of these youth. The youth in residence at Building Blocks complete an 18-month program; and upon completion, they will possess the life-skills necessary to live independently. The youth learn to conduct job searches, create a resume, interview, retain a job, budget, maintain and care for a home, and personal health and safety.

Population(s) Served

Covenant Coffee - Kern CountyMission - Coffee roasted on purpose and for a purpose ... training and mentoring former foster youth. Population - 18-24 former foster youth Covenant Coffee was launched with three goals 1) to provide our community with freshly roasted coffee beans roasted with excellence, 2) to train former foster youth in the art of coffee roasting and business, and 3) to provide a career for former youth in an exciting and uplifting environment.Covenant Coffee is a wholesale and retail green bean coffee roaster with the consumer in mind. Every time you enjoy a freshly roasted cup of Covenant Coffee, we want you to know it was roasted "on purpose" and "for a purpose". We roast coffee beans "on purpose" as a means to help former foster youth find success from shattered and broken backgrounds. We roast coffee beans "for a purpose" as a way to help you enjoy life. Plainly stated, we roast coffee beans so you don"t have to drink an inferior cup of coffee! Covenant Coffee ... freshly roasted, handcrafted coffee from the coffee farm, to the coffee roaster, to your coffee cup!Covenant Media - Kern CountyMission - Providing a voice to voiceless foster youth and mentoring through journalism and business Population - 18-24 former foster youth Covenant Media was developed to provide employment and vocational mentoring for former foster youth in journalism and media. Covenant Media provides a ""voice to the voiceless"" foster youth through creative media expression, unbiased journalism and allowing them to tell their story. Covenant Media is also a media production company that trains and mentors foster youth in the skills of journalism, marketing and business.Covenant Media … we are not your ordinary media production company. We provide hope and love to abused and neglected children while delivering to your company an excellent marketing strategy and product that will deliver results.

Population(s) Served

Jeremiah Mentoring Project - Kern County Mission - Providing mentoring services to foster youth to equip for successful futures. Population - Foster children ages 0-17, families in reunification and former foster youth aged 18-24 The Jeremiah Mentoring Program (JMP) serves foster children ages 11-17 and former foster youth ages 18-24. JMP provides compassionate mentors to foster youth for positive relationships that lead to growth and independence. Covenant recruits, trains, and supports mentors to equip for successful transitions to adulthood and independence Covenant Horse Program - Kern County Mission - Using Horsemanship to teach life skills to youth Population - Former foster youth ages 18-24 The Covenant Horse Program (CHP) serves former foster youth by teaching the principles of relationships using horses. Youth exiting foster care often have trouble with their personal relationships. Not knowing how to communicate, lack of boundaries and fear to trust are all issues that youth encounter. The goals of the CHP are to assist and support former foster youth as they navigate life while enlisting mentors from the community to share time, talent and treasure with former foster youth. CARENET - Kern CountyMission - Providing services and resources to foster children returning to their families and youth leaving the foster care system, thereby equipping them for successful transitions. Population - Foster children ages 0-17, families in reunification and former foster youth aged 18-24 Families going through reunification from foster care often experience difficulty making successful transitions due to simple, solvable solutions that cannot be met with existing family resources. CARENET is a collaborative community effort developed to meet the needs of these families by providing the necessary items and volunteer or paid help to deliver and install resources needed for successful transition.

Population(s) Served

Employment, mentoring, and vocational services to assist former foster youth to improve employability, determine strengths and weaknesses, and find a career path.

Population(s) Served

Where we work

Awards

California Nonprofit of the Year 2018

California Association of Nonprofits

Affiliations & memberships

Other 2009

Videos

Our results

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.

Number of foster youth who obtained employment

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

Social Enterprise - Vocational Training for Foster Youth

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Covenant serves and supports former foster youth and completes training modules to help them work in the community.

Number of youth receiving services (e.g., groups, skills and job training, etc.) with youths living in their community

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

Transitional Housing Programs

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Number of youth who volunteer/participate in community service

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

Transitional Housing Programs

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Youth serving at Covenant and in one of our transitional programs work, volunteer or go to school totaling 40 hours per week.

Our Sustainable Development Goals

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.

Goals & Strategy

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.

Charting impact

Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.

Goals for 2019:

Expansion of Covenant Coffee through emphasis on retail sales, special events and a new operation in mobile business

Increase vocational services and training for former foster youth.

Increase sales of bagged Covenant Coffee thereby allowing Covenant to hire and train more former foster youth.

Hire 10-15 former foster youth to staff Covenant's social enterprises.

Host annual fundraising event.

Develop route services for mobile coffee.

create housing models for sustainability.

Strategies for implementation of goals include Board member participation and networking, staff initiative and outside help from businesses, organizations and individuals.

The capabilities of Covenant continue to grow as more individuals, organizations, businesses and churches enlist in the fight against child abuse and neglect. Additionally, the bench depth and quality of our staff and team has direct impact on the cap[abilities of the organization.

In 2018, we installed solar on the building.

We have developed a mobile unit for catering and a route.

We have hired 7 new and additional former foster youth staff.

We have held a vocational training and paid work experience for 35 former foster youth.

How we listen

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.

done We demonstrated a willingness to learn more by reviewing resources about feedback practice.
done We shared information about our current feedback practices.

  • How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?

    Paper surveys, Case management notes, Community meetings/Town halls, Constituent (client or resident, etc.) advisory committees, Yelp, Facebook, social media,

  • 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,

  • What significant change resulted from feedback?

    After learning that youth had a difficult time attending life skills workshops, due to lack of transportation conflict with work, we moved to an online portal. Youth can now attend classes live or view them online.

  • With whom is the organization sharing feedback?

    The people we serve, Our staff, Our board, Our community partners,

  • 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, We don’t have the right technology to collect and aggregate feedback efficiently, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection,

Financials

COVENANT COMMUNITY SERVICES, INC.
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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
  • 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.

COVENANT COMMUNITY SERVICES, INC.

Board of directors
as of 04/10/2020
SOURCE: Self-reported by organization
Board chair

Errol Shaw

Law Offices of Errol Shaw

Term: 2017 - 2020

Errol Shaw

Errol Shaw Attorney

Russell Unruh

Owner and Broker, The Russell Group

Randy Martin

CEO and Founder, Covenant Community Services, Inc.

David Nicholas

Transamerica

Petrini Jeff

AC Electric

Board leadership practices

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.

  • 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

SOURCE: Self-reported; last updated 4/10/2020

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
White/Caucasian/European
Gender identity
Male
Sexual orientation
Heterosexual or Straight

Race & ethnicity

Gender identity

 

Sexual orientation

No data

Disability

No data

Equity strategies

Last updated: 04/10/2020

GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more

Data
  • We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
  • We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
  • We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
Policies and processes
  • We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
  • We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
  • We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
  • We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.