Equine-Assisted Therapies of South Florida
Creating Unbridled Moments. Witness the Magic.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Equine-Assisted Therapies of South Florida is working to widen the understanding of the organization’s mission and availability program services to individuals with special needs and nonprofit partners in our community. The organization’s ultimate goal is to inform and increase awareness among all individuals on the benefits of a holistic intervention strategy within a healthcare/rehabilitation plan, through the use of therapeutic horseback riding and other essential equine-focused activities.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Therapeutic Riding
We service approximately 106 weekly students during our regular riding sessions and 34 during summer. We have three regular sessions of 11 weeks duration during the year for a total of 33 weeks. Students come one hour per week for group classes. Four per class or 30 min.class with one instructor & one student. (One on one)
Hippotherapy
A treatment strategy that utilizes equine movement facilitated by a physical, occupational, or speech therapist. The therapist will change variables that include the horse’s speed, direction, position of the patient, and the therapeutic activities performed, to achieve the best outcome.
Hippotherapy is typically for students with physical challenges. Often, those students can transition into the therapeutic riding program after their strength and balance have improved.
Unmounted Horsemanship
A non-mounted, curriculum based program focused on teaching participants of all ages about horse care. The equine curriculum meets the most current Florida Education Standards.
The program offers opportunities to do hands-on learning in the math, reading and science areas and gives participants a chance to improve their communication and social skills. We look at students IEP goals in order to incorporate those specific goals into the student’s lesson plans.
Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy
A non-mounted therapy program, open to individuals or group of all ages, in which a licensed mental health professional works with the client and horse to explore feelings and behaviors. Children and adults suffering from mental or physical abuse, PTSD, bullying, depression, anxiety, substance abuse or eating disorders benefit from this program.
EATSF also offers a special program for veterans..
Where we work
Affiliations & memberships
Premier Accredited Center 2017
External reviews
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Hours of volunteer service
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Therapeutic Riding
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
We are continuing to reconcile the close of 2023, with more service hours to be added by the end of January. A significant decrease in service hours can be seen in 2020 as a result of COVID-19.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
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?
Equine-Assisted Therapies of South Florida has developed a series of goals and strategies to help the organization become an industry leader in the equine assisted activities and therapies industry. These goals include but are not limited to:
Organizational Goals:
• Improve donor follow-through: Develop and execute targeted communication plan for grantors and donors at a specific giving level, with financial goal to follow the development plan goal of a 2% increase in monetary donations.
• Encourage alternate involvement: Actively engage the standing committee structure within organizational bylaws.
• Diversify marketing and messaging: Promote local monetary donations through a visible development and concurrent social media plan.
• Increase community exposure with like-groups: Schedule at least 1 income producing workshop or opportunities for continuing education in the Therapeutic Learning Center, every session – 3/year.
• Improve organizational agility through integration of technology: Improve automation of data collection in order to improve overall accessibility of forms and organizational reporting.
Programmatic Goals:
• Execute a system for measuring student/rider successes and improvements for reporting and matriculation purposes.
• Increase availability and opportunity of program services by 10% over the next fiscal year (+20 participants).
• Program Evaluation: Evaluate and reevaluate all program operations to include – enrollment, program communication.
• Program Partnership Expansion: Work with existing organizational partners, such as Stable Place to determine viability of program expansion within the mental health community and the Equine-Facilitated Psychotherapy programs to increase services.
• Herd Stewardship and Succession Planning: Develop processes and programs for sustainable herd development and retirement in order to bring in 1 horse each year, over the course of 5 years.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Organizational Strategies:
• Engage appropriate grantors in special program events and connection with participants/families that are supported.
• Executive Director and Development Director to engage new or select grantors in future strategy of the organization – Schedule one grantor or high-level donor/month.
• Calendarize meetings and recruit viable members for subcommittee or board membership opportunities, with a membership goal of 4 people/committee, begin meetings within second quarter of 2020.
• Encourage board members to introduce connections that would benefit the strategic direction of the organization.
• Annualize all board forms and paperwork in order to set expectations of individual members and committees (i.e. board partnership agreement, conflict of interest, etc.)
• Develop annual development plan with financial goals on a monthly basis and an annual stretch goal, increasing development income by 2%, specifically focusing on smaller, more intimate events, including:
• Promote house parties as an opportunity for board, committee members or dedicated volunteers to invite friends to learn more about EATSF.
• 10-15 attendees with 2 house party events per year.
• Increase giving club membership by 2 members per quarter at $35 level.
• Promote organizational programs/events and community events through a thematic social media plan.
• Advertise room/space rentals and availability on social media and hyperlocal applications like NextDoor or hyperlocal printed publications.
• Redevelop current website platform in order to improve presentation of message and access to organizational forms that will have an auto-fill capability.
• Program Enrollment
• Program Intake
• Volunteer On-boarding
Program Strategies:
• Engage instructor team to create measurable levels for each class in order to properly place existing and new students in appropriate classes w/knowledgeable and capable instruction.
• Utilize measurable goals and objectives for grant applications to better track individual progression of riders (develop scaled objectives at multiple riding levels).
• Improve outreach to PATH (regional and international) community to utilize existing tools for measuring student’s success.
• Improve outreach and collaboration with fellow nonprofits for inclusive or single-day opportunities.
• Competitively price EFL single-day learning options.
• Improve engagement with the local school system and/or partnering nonprofit organizations to develop unmounted opportunities.
• Improve data collection during rolling enrollment so that the organization can capture how many enrollment calls are made against the final submission of program paperwork.
• Work with local medical doctors to improve understanding of program application and organizational needs.
• Grow Herd Stewardship endowment by 2022-2023 in order to pull the 5% invested income for general herd needs, including possible purchase of appropriate herd members.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Equine-Assisted Therapies of South Florida has expanded general outreach activities in order to create and develop partnerships amongst the local school district and nonprofit partners. The organization has also relied on the experience of contracted instructors to develop program-specific tools, such program measurement survey’s, skills rubrics and program manuals.
The Board of Directors has also assisted with providing leadership on community outreach and board subcommittee recruitment. Through the expansion of board subcommittees, to include community engagement, governance, infrastructure and finance - the organization is also able to expand its reach, as well as increase opportunities for involvement for interested parties.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Equine-Assisted Therapies of South Florida has been successful in onboarding new nonprofit partners into the Equine-Facilitated Learning program and has been working on redeveloping the organizational social media plan, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The organization has sought to utilize each social media platform in a different way, in order to stay in touch with volunteers, participants, family members and supporters. Social media exposure has been a fun way to keep everyone informed during a time of program closure and isolation. The organization will harness this success during the typical program year to provide an educational outlet for the audience of the organization.
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 strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
-
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 engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback
-
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.
Equine-Assisted Therapies of South Florida
Board of directorsas of 01/24/2024
Mr. Stephen Good
1847 Financial
Term: 2021 - 2023
Mr. Eduardo Safille
Thermal Concepts
Term: 2021 - 2023
Marc Grace
Keefe McCullough CPAs
Michelle Kenney
GAPS Legal
Christina Tsirkas
Freelance Writer
Kirsten Uebrig
BBX Capital
Richard Corbet
Morgan Stanley
Kristen Swinehart
Southwest Airlines/Self-Employed
Teyla Darce
Allied Steel Buildings
Alexis Galeote
Strax Intelligence Group
Barbara Witte
Community Leader
Briana Cabrera
Medtronic
Board leadership practices
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 ? No -
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
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
Disability
We do not display disability information for organizations with fewer than 15 staff.
Equity strategies
Last updated: 01/23/2023GuideStar 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 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 community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- 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.