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FAMILY PATHFINDERS OF TARRANT COUNTY

Pathways to Success

aka Pathfinders   |   Fort Worth, TX   |  www.pathfinderstc.org

Mission

To eliminate poverty from our community by empowering individuals and families to find their path to social and financial well-being.

Ruling year info

2003

Chief Executive Officer

Mrs. Kathryn Arnold

Main address

6550 Camp Bowie Blvd., Suite 111

Fort Worth, TX 76116 USA

Show more contact info

EIN

73-1643384

NTEE code info

Human Services - Multipurpose and Other N.E.C. (P99)

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

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Data USA reports that Fort Worth, Texas has a poverty rate of 16.9%, higher than the national average of 13.9%. For generations, our community’s poor and vulnerable residents have faced mounting barriers to economic stability such as limited access to safe and affordable housing, adequately funded schools, accessible healthcare, and jobs at a living wage. The Federal Reserve Board 2019 Report on Economic Well-Being finds that 63% of households cannot cover a $400 emergency expense. Locally, 37% of North Texas families live in asset poverty, defined as having less than three months of expenses in savings. To survive, families are working multiple jobs, forgoing medical treatment or relying on high-cost alternatives such as payday loans for daily living expenses. This financial instability limits a family’s ability to remain housed, maintain reliable transportation and save for the future. This negatively impacts the economic potential for both the family and our community.

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?

Adult Mentoring

Our Mentoring Program matches trained volunteer mentoring teams with families on public assistance who are striving to become independent.
Our Career Steps Program helps welfare recipients, through unsalaried positions in the non-profit, public and for-profit sectors.

Population(s) Served
Adults
Economically disadvantaged people

Family, Veteran and Reentry Mentoring
Today’s communities have many families and individuals that need and want a trained mentor to help them find a path to self-sufficiency. Our mentor training, coupled with mentor life experiences, empowers the mentor to help others improve their life skills and find better ways to support their families. Mentors join hands with an individual or family for six to 12 months, helping them make the very difficult transition to financial stability. Each mentor provides a broad range of support including budgeting, job preparation, decision making, emotional support, parenting advice and goal setting. This unique program makes a difference in people’s lives when they learn life skills from caring, committed volunteers. And the time commitment for the mentorship is just three to four hours a month at a time convenient to the mentors and mentees. Due to our success, the Mentoring program has been recognized for Best Practices by Urban Partnership Initiatives of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The strength of the program is the three-way relationship among the client, the mentor(s), and the staff, all focused on helping the family become self-sufficient.

Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people
Incarcerated people

Our Financial Literacy classes help students identify ways to better manage their money, reduce expenses, save for emergencies and improve their self-advocacy skills in a fun and interactive setting. Using the FDIC "Money Smart” curriculum and class role play activities, the students learn basic steps for creating a household budget, choosing and using banking resources, identifying borrowing risks and benefits, improving credit and saving for financial goals. Whether they come to a stand-alone class or a series of five classes, students gain awareness of tools to help them build savings as well as resources to help them with financial issues. All students receive a "budget box” which is a portable file with tools to help them create a budget and manage their financial records and bills. We provide classes to our mentoring clients and, as a partner in the Fathers and Children Together (FACT) program, we offer a financial education series to FACT participants.

Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people
Incarcerated people

Pathfinders provides financial coaching to help low and moderate income people attain financial stability. Financial Coaching addresses personal needs for improving financial behaviors. Each client-driven session is led by a Financial Coach with training in budgeting, banking and borrowing, and credit. These sessions allow participants to come with their own questions and work with a coach to take back control of their finances, make better decisions, and regain a foothold in financial stability and self-sufficiency. Participants in the program are referred to Pathfinders through our community partners.

Population(s) Served
Adults
Economically disadvantaged people

Where we work

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 clients served

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

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.

We seek to create a thriving community where individuals and families are self-sufficient. Pathfinders’ Mentoring and Financial Capability programs address issues of poverty through practices that yield long-term ROI by reducing the social costs associated with financial instability. These social costs include mounting debt, an inability to meet basic needs, poor job performance, poor health, decrease in children’s academic performance and even homelessness.

Mentoring and Financial Capability programming provides a pathway from poverty to self-sufficiency. As one family becomes economically stable, that success is passed on to the next generation breaking the cycle of generational poverty, thus creating a ripple effect of change that in turn builds stronger families and more connected communities.

Our mission of empowering individuals and families to find their path from poverty to self-sufficiency has created lasting change by helping vulnerable families achieve financial stability, build assets, decrease debt and save for the future. By implementing best and promising practices in Adult Mentoring and Financial Coaching our programs create behavior change that help low-income families actualize their potential and break barriers to economic mobility. Mentors and Financial Coaches walk alongside their clients as they learn how to better manage their money, attain career or education goals and become financially stable. These behavioral changes produce a great impact on lives in the short term, but an even greater impact in the long-term as individuals continue to grow toward permanent economic stability.

Pathfinders provides mentoring and financial coaching to help eliminate poverty and move families to economic stability. Recognized as a Best Practice by the Department of Health and Human Services, the Mentoring program matches trained volunteer mentors with those struggling to overcome the bonds of poverty, unemployment, homelessness or reentry after incarceration. Mentoring empowers clients to achieve self-sufficiency by creating actionable goals and addressing barriers to achieve financial stability. Through financial coaching and asset building, the Financial Capability program helps individuals attain economic stability using a client-driven approach that includes goal setting and action planning through coaching on budgeting, banking, borrowing and credit. By increasing savings, decreasing debt, increasing credit and committing to a budget, financial coaching is effective in preparing families to purchase their own home. As a recognized leader in financial coaching, we provide financial coaching to 20 Tarrant County nonprofit and community partners.

2019 Agency Outcomes:
90% of clients are better able to manage their finances
$1,762 is the average family savings increase
91% retained employment for three months or more
89% of mentoring clients increased their self-sufficiency by three points or more
9.6 is the average self-sufficiency score increase, significantly higher than the three-point projected outcome
58% reduction in recidivism for reentry clients

These outcomes highlight the impact of our programs and services on the lives of people who have become stable, contributing members of our community. These behavioral changes produce great impact on lives in the short term, but even greater impact in the long term as they grow towards permanent economic stability.

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 shared information about our current feedback practices.
  • Who are the people you serve with your mission?

    Pathfinders serves individuals and families across North Texas.

  • 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 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

  • What significant change resulted from feedback?

    Pathfinders fastest growing demographic is our Spanish speaking population. After coming to the realization that individuals signing up for financial coaching on our website have a language barrier we are making the commitment to translate our website in Spanish.

  • Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?

    We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible

  • What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

    It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback

Financials

FAMILY PATHFINDERS OF TARRANT COUNTY
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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

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lock

Connect with nonprofit leaders

Subscribe

Build 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.

FAMILY PATHFINDERS OF TARRANT COUNTY

Board of directors
as of 12/14/2022
SOURCE: Self-reported by organization
Board chair

Ms. Margaret Russell

Margaret Russell

Jay Meadows

Troy Chapman

Anne Carvalho

Greer Christian

David Sakamoto

Tucker King

Kudzi Mugara

Jeanette Martinez

Jon Snyder

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? Not applicable

Organizational demographics

SOURCE: Self-reported; last updated 3/9/2021

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
White/Caucasian/European
Gender identity
Female, Not transgender (cisgender)
Sexual orientation
Heterosexual or straight
Disability status
Person without a disability

Race & ethnicity

Gender identity

 

Sexual orientation

No data

Disability

No data

Equity strategies

Last updated: 03/09/2021

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 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.
Policies and processes
  • 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.