Neighborlink Fort Wayne Foundation Inc
Practical, Neighbor-to-Neighbor Expressions of God's Love
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
We are dedicated to fulfilling unmet needs for home repair and maintenance for vulnerable homeowners in our community. Vulnerable homeowners post their project need on our website on their own or with the help of our staff. Volunteers use our website to find projects that fit well with their interests and abilities. Our staff helps connect volunteers to homeowners and provides training for volunteer groups so that they can manage their own project. Our role is to connect the vulnerable homeowner with volunteers willing and able to help. We also provide tools, supplies, and materials to complete projects. Those we help include the single mom living in a mobile home with her two children and needing help installing insulation around the furnace and water lines under the home, the elderly couple needing help with a leaky faucet in their kitchen but unable to pay for a plumber on their fixed income, and the elderly women who just needs a tree trimmed.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Neighbor-To-Neighbor Connections
The primary program is designed to create an online bulletin board where neighbors/volunteers can respond to the tangible home repair needs of their vulnerable neighbors falling through the cracks of social services.
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 returning volunteers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We track how many volunteer leaders or communities come back to volunteer from the previous year.
Number of volunteers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We track only volunteer leaders who select the projects for themselves, their families, or the groups of volunteers they represent.
Number of corporate volunteers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Each number represents a different business or organization.
Number of Home Repair Projects Completed
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Number of completed projects by volunteers.
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?
Goals for 2019: 1,400 home repair and maintenance projects completed for low-income and disabled homeowners, retaining 100 volunteer communities, and recruiting and training 30 new volunteer communities.
NeighborLink Fort Wayne is an organization dedicated to fulfilling unmet needs for home repair and maintenance for vulnerable homeowners in our community. The 2018 ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) report released by the United Way of Allen County revealed that 36% of working families are struggling to afford basic needs. For these families, any type of home repair presents a financial crisis. For elderly homeowners and those with disabilities, the challenges of maintaining their home can be overwhelming. These are the people NeighborLink steps into help – our communities most vulnerable homeowners who may be faced with financial or physical constraints or disability. We help them fill needs that no other social service agency or government program is able to meet. We help ensure the home is safe and well-maintained and does not violate any neighborhood code enforcement requirements so that the homeowner can continue to live independently.
Requests range from yard work, snow removal, and household cleaning to exterior painting, broken furnaces, and leaking roofs. Local social service agencies and government programs help with personal needs (food, clothing, medical assistance, transportation, or financial support for utilities). Those programs don't have resources to help vulnerable homeowners maintain their homes in safe, livable conditions. NeighborLink steps in to fill this gap. We have the unique ability to connect people who are willing to help with those who have a need. We match people to project needs.
Helping homeowners maintain their home and property has a positive impact on the entire neighborhood. Keeping individual homes in good repair elevates and encourages the entire neighborhood. Home values are better preserved and a sense of pride and community is restored.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Volunteer Support and Recruitment: Our website is vital in helping volunteers find a project that fits their team’s skills and abilities. NeighborLink has full-time staff who recruits and connects volunteers with projects. Increasingly, we are also connecting with local businesses to help them plan and execute volunteer projects as a team building activity for their staff.
Website Development and Video Storytelling: Our website is the workhorse that keeps NeighborLink functioning. Projects are posted on the website for volunteers to select. The website also allows us to share stories of our homeowners and volunteers through video storytelling. Our videos communicate our mission in a unique and powerful way. We are working to develop funding to make our videographer position permanent. This will enhance our ability to recruit volunteers and corporate partners. It could also generate additional revenue for our projects by hiring out our video team to other not-for-profit agencies in the area.
We want to further enhance our website with a centralized database to collect more data on our homeowners, volunteers, and donors. These enhancements will allow us to more proactively follow up with volunteers, actively promote and track volunteerism, and increase communication with donors. It will also allow us to deepen our relationships with corporate partners by providing them a tool to track employee volunteering at any community organization, not just on NeighborLink projects.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
We continue to add staff in key positions related to volunteer recruitment, mobilization, and retention. In the past year, we've leveraged the AmeriCorp program to add key staff positions that are helping us with research, events, and communication.
We continue to invest in building our website to help make it easier for volunteers to self-select and organize their own projects as we build our decentralized volunteer methods.
We have been working on building our research and community engagement team as well. We're learning what makes neighborhoods healthy, how to support existing groups of neighbors through associations, and how to measure impact and growth through their goal development.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
In 2018, NeighborLink volunteers completed 1,307 projects for vulnerable homeowners. We worked with 169 different volunteer groups in 2018, up from 120 in 2017. Our primary growth area came from businesses and corporations looking for opportunities to mobilize their employees to gain service experience. We also grew in number of churches and families looking for opportunities.
In total, NeighborLink has seen volunteers complete almost 10,000 tangible home repair projects in Fort Wayne since it started in 2003.
We've also been fortunate to help 12 other US Cities start their own NeighborLink through our NeighborLink Network.
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
- 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.
Neighborlink Fort Wayne Foundation Inc
Board of directorsas of 10/15/2019
John Barch
Barrett McNagny, LLP
Term: 2003 - 2021
Joe Johns
Fellowship Missionary Church
Heather Schoegler
Agustus Advisors
Gwyn Eastom
BKD
PJ Thuringer
AWS Foundation
Josh Spencer
Brotherhood Mutual
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? Not applicable -
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? No