Britepaths, Inc.
Stronger Today, Brighter Tomorrow
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Mission
Britepaths provides short-term safety-net services to our neighbors in need while empowering them to work toward long-term self-sufficiency. We deliver our services with respect, compassion, and equity, always preserving the dignity and self-esteem of our clients. Since 1984, Britepaths has been a dedicated leader in developing sustainable solutions meeting the challenges faced by families in financial crisis in Northern Virginia through emergency food and financial assistance, financial empowerment, workforce development, and supports for children. Our services rely on the amazing work of approximately 500 volunteers working over 5,500 hours.
Ruling year
1989
Executive Director
Mrs. Lisa Whetzel
Main address
3959 Pender Drive Suite 200
Fairfax, VA 22030 USA
Formerly known as
Our Daily Bread, Inc.
EIN
52-1596259
NTEE code
Financial Counseling, Money Management (P51)
Employment Procurement Assistance and Job Training (J20)
IRS filing requirement
This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.
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Communication
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Britepaths helps families in financial crisis to stabilize their situation and work toward financial stability. The high cost of living in our area, makes it impossible for persons working a minimum wage job to afford to live here. Rent claims a large portion of these families resources, leaving little left over to meet other needs or provide a financial cushion for emergencies. Many live from paycheck-to-paycheck, where unexpected expenses can send them spiraling from self-sufficiency to the brink of homelessness. To address this, we deliver Stability services: emergency and short-term food assistance and financial assistance. We provide Resilience programs: financial education classes, financial coaching, workshops, tax assistance, small business and workforce development services. Lastly, we also offer Supports for Children: weekend supplemental food to students, school supplies, school holiday food assistance, and youth financial literacy classes.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Food Assistance
Britepaths Food Program provides emergency support for families in immediate crisis. Clients can come and pick up food and toiletries, as well as a grocery gift card from our office pantry. We provided 6-9 months of sustained support (Food Bridge) for clients concurrently working with a financial mentor or workforce development case manager to help support them and reduce their grocery bills while they are working to maintain a budget, improve their credit, or find a job. In the summer months, the Our Daily Veggies program, dispenses $10 vouchers to clients for the purchase of fresh produce at local farmers’ markets, providing access to healthy food. Clients receive at least five vouchers, totaling $50.
Financial Assistance
Clients (referred by Fairfax County Social Workers) receive up to $1000 one time a year to assist with rent, utility, or pharmaceutical bills, to help them remain in their homes and financially stable while they work through a crisis. Landlords, utilities or vendors are paid directly. We also offer car repair assistance to help clients who require their car for work.
Financial Empowerment
Britepaths offers financial education classes, workshops, one-one financial coaching and financial mentoring that we bring to many locations throughout the community and also offer at the Financial Empowerment Center at South County (FEC). The FEC is run by Britepaths in partnership with Fairfax County and the United Way of the National Capital Area offers financial coaching, workshops, tax assistance, small business and workforce development services. Mentored clients who work one-on-one with volunteer financial professionals for 6 moths or more are also eligible for Britepaths $500 matched savings program and small zero interest loans to qualified clients.
Holiday Assitance
Britepaths provides food assistance to students and their families who depend upon school meals. Grocery gift cards are distributed to help with meals during long school holidays.
Back to School Assistance
Britepaths provides over 2,500 students with school supplies and backpacks at the beginning of school. This helps students whose families have lower-incomes start the school year on equal footing with their peers and helps parents offset the high cost of school supplies.
Workforce Coaching
Workforce Coaching helps job seekers develop job readiness and employability skills. Staff work with clients individually to help them navigate the job search process, develop a career plan, improve their resume and interviewing skills, provide application assistance, and prepare clients to find meaningful employment. Britepaths also offers many workshops on workforce development topics, including several for recent immigrants to help them understand the US workforce culture.
Network Up
Short-term mentoring program that matches people who are job-ready with a volunteer mentor in their chosen field. They meet up to 5 times for a one-hour conversation in a local coffee shop or cafe. Together, they create a customized plan that identifies career goals and job possibilities while building network connections.
Food4Thought
Food4Thought is supplemental weekend food for students in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). Britepaths works with 21 partner schools to provide healthy meals, drinks, and snacks over the weekend to children who have been identified by the school as needing food assistance. For many of these children, school meals might be the only ones they receive. Britepaths works with school social workers and PTAs to set up the programs and then provide supplemental food and grocery gift cards for start up, and later if the student need outstrips the supply of food packs available. Britepaths provides shelving, pest protected storage, and other equipment to schools where required. We provide a donation page and wish list on our website for each school, facilitate corporate volunteers projects to provide packs and other supports.
ACT (Avenues to Career Training) Program
The ACT (Avenues to Career Training) trains and provides certification classes in information technology (IT), to help clients be ready for a career in IT. We offer Google IT Support Professional Certification, and AWS re/Start classes with support from our instructor. We also offer six additional certifications. In addition, time is devoted to soft skills, financial literacy, and career exploration. Throughout the experience Britepaths supports them, provides resources, refers them to other benefits and works with them to find and stay in a job. We also have Pathfinder Kitchen which provide culinary skills training and certification.
Where we work
Awards
Runner up for Heritage Award 2008
Economic Development Authority of Fairfax City, VA
Human Rights Award 2010
Human Rights Commission of Fairfax County
Nonprofit of the Year 2019
Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce
Governor’s Volunteerism and Community Service Award for one of our volunteers 2020
Governor of Virginia
Excel Award- finalist 2021
Center for Non-Profit Advancement
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of financial literacy courses conducted
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Financial Empowerment
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
Classes are offered on line and at locations and at non-profits partner locations. In 2023, 1547 unduplicated clients attended a class or workshop and with duplications, 2238 attended.
Number of people within the organization's service area accessing food aid
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Food Assistance
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We offer emergency food, short-term food assistance for up to 9 months, farmers' market vouchers and weekend supplemental food for students.
Total number of volunteer hours contributed to the organization
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Britepaths depends upon its amazing and skilled volunteers. Improved technology has lowered the number of hours needed for data work.
Number of clients who have received financial empowerment services.
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Financial Empowerment
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Unduplicated, but many clients use several services, in all 3,693 services in 2023. Services include financial coaching and mentoring, classes, workshops, tax assistance, and small business consulting
Number of clients who complete job skills training
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Unemployed people
Related Program
ACT (Avenues to Career Training) Program
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Clients who successfully completed Google IT Professional Support class, AWS re/Start, other IT certifications, and construction leadership upskilling class.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
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?
In our 40 years of providing help and hope to struggling residents of the Fairfax County area, Britepaths has been committed to tailoring our services to meet the ever-changing needs of the working poor or those in crisis. We are a dedicated leader in developing sustainable solutions that meet the challenges of low-income working families through emergency assistance, financial literacy and one-on-one mentoring.
Our 2024-2026 Strategic Goals are:
1. Meet the holistic needs of our clients
2. Prioritize Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
3. Enhance our services
4 Diversify and strengthen funding
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Britepaths has a strong history of operational excellence that leverages the incredible talent of our staff, technology enablement, and efficiency in our process. Realizing Britepaths strategic plan requires that we continue to operate a high performance organization, invest in our infrastructure, and build capacity equal and necessary to meeting our goals.
Britepaths has identified a number of organizational investments that, when successfully implemented, will position us to achieve our 2024-2026 strategic goals.
Investment 1: Attracting and retaining top talent: Advancing the culture, compensation strategy, and development opportunities to maintain a high-performing team.
Investment 2: Resource generation: Maintaining a strong funding model and capabilities to support the strategic plan, and securing and sustaining diverse funding sources over time.
Investment 3: High-performing organization: Continuing to focus on opportunities to simplify, standardize, and automate our processes to have the greatest impact for our clients and stakeholders.
Investment 4: Leadership capabilities and transition: Maintaining Board and staff leadership that have the skills needed to realize our strategy, and effectively planning for role transition.
Investment 5: Strategic partnerships: Building and maintaining the external relationships necessary to realize our strategy, including partners for program delivery, funding, public policy, and improving our internal capabilities to manage these relationships.
Investment 6: Measuring progress: Developing tools, processes, and infrastructure to effectively measure our progress against our strategic goals and adjust as needed.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Since 1984, Britepaths has been a dedicated leader in developing sustainable solutions to meet the challenges of low-income working families through emergency assistance, financial empowerment and workforce development. We have a talented and dedicated staff who work with approximately 500 volunteers to bring our services to clients. Britepaths operates in person and virtually and has two office sites - on tin Fairfax, VA and the Financial Empowerment Center in Alexandria, VA. We also expanded our development and outreach team to meet the strategic plan goals. Britepaths' benefits from a Board of Directors with expertise in finance, law, cyber, development and Human Resources.
We continue to respond to community needs and grow our programs where clients indicate a need. We are looking forward to new programs in workforce development in 2024 and expansion to our food support for clients who are participating in financial empowerment programs. Each year brings new challenges and opportunities and Britepaths is nimble enough to respond.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Britepaths has expanded its footprint beyond Fairfax County to include clients from the City of Alexandria, Arlington County, and some parts of Prince William, and Loudoun County. On-line services has made it possible for clients to participate from anywhere.
Each year we have increased our clients served and expanded our programs. We particularly met needs for food, and rent and utility assistance during these pandemic years. In total we distributed over $7.8 million in pandemic aid, mostly for rent assistance, but also utilities, and food.
In 2017, Britepaths was selected by the United Way of the National Capital Area and Fairfax County to manage the Financial Empowerment Center at South County (FEC), to deliver financial education and workforce development services. The FEC has grown to serve over 2000 unique clients each year and also offers tax assistance, small business consulting, and some legal services. The FEC services for workforce development services have grown exponentially over the past four years and have added ACT (Avenues to Career Training) program that offers training and certification for IT, culinary skills, and leadership.
In 2023, Britepaths became partners with Fairfax County, the United Way of the National Capital Area, and George Mason University to manage the Fairfax County Economic Mobility Pilot, a general income program. Britepaths is responsible for customer service and troubleshooting for all participants as well as delivering financial coaching and other financial empowerment and workforce development services.
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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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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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, 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 demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We share the feedback we received with the people we serve, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded
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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, The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome
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.
Britepaths, Inc.
Board of directorsas of 03/04/2024
Emily Barnes
George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School
Term: 2022 - 2026
Ed Moore
Edelman Financial Services
May Shallal
Fairfax County Office of the County Attorney
John McWilliams
ReedSmith
Angie Delboy
Realtor BGH
Emily Barnes
George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School
Karen Wheeler
Kathy Bold
SAIC
Gabriel Derosier
Main Street Bank
Eric Goldwater
Introhive
Zakiya Thomas
Thomas Consulting Group, LLC
Kyle Grieser
BlackRock
Christina Saxon
SAIC
Chris Gibson
Rochelle Sanchirico
Spotify
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? Not applicable
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
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 04/07/2023GuideStar 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
- 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 analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We disaggregate data by demographics, including race, in every policy and program measured.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- 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.
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