P.F. Bresee Foundation

Bresee’s mission is to battle poverty by empowering youth and families in Los Angeles with the skills, resources, and relationships necessary to thrive. Our vision is to create a diverse community of Angelenos working together to break down barriers and lead fulfilling lives. Our five core values include integrity, community, resilience, life-long learning and compassion.

To help these families address the everyday barriers they face and fulfill our mission, Bresee provides family services for approximately 4,925 adults and family members each year. Bresee provides youth services for 1,257 middle and high school students in the public-school system, including gang-prevention services for 100 at-risk youth aged 10-15 years old. All services are provided free of cost at Bresee’s main campus in Central Los Angeles. A number of youth programs are also provided on-site at partner schools.

The five top level goals, strategies and specific objectives to be achieved in order to reach our peak as an organization are:

1: Foster an exceptional employee culture

Bresee’s ability to serve its clients will require the organization to continue to build upon its team of passionate and capable employees. It is crucial to nurture a strong workplace dynamic built around a community of driven individuals who come together to collaborate as an effective team. To attract and retain the highest quality employees to our team, we must provide an exceptional employment experience to our staff.

2: Strengthen program impact through evaluation and learning

As a learning organization, Bresee is committed to a process of perpetually improving its programs so that we can continue to increase the positive impact we have upon our clients’ lives. For each of our major programs we must develop a thoughtful and measurable Theory of Change (TOC) against which we can measure our clients’ progress and collect credible data demonstrating that our services lead to improved outcomes for our clients. We expect our work in this area to require constant reflection and adaptation, and we will develop a process to regularly reassess, revise and refine our programming approaches.

3: Build capacity for high performing resource development

Bresee will assemble a best-in-class development team composed of a group of highly skilled individuals who will, formulate a thoughtful multi-year fund development plan and strategy, cultivate authentic relationships with donors and foundations, and implement best practices with respect to systems and processes for fund development.

4: Improve the infrastructure of the existing facility and explore expanding the Bresee campus

Bresee’s significant growth in recent years has put pressure on its facilities and other related infrastructure. To meet the growing needs of our employees and clients, Bresee must provision resources to ensure a safe and vibrant physical campus as well as a modern, secure and reliable technological platform. Furthermore, the organization will need to plan for Bresee’s growing space needs in order to accommodate our increasing numbers of staff, programs and clients.

5: Sustain and grow a strong, diverse volunteer leadership team

Bresee relies on its volunteer boards (Board of Directors, Advisory Council, and nascent Young Professionals Board) to ensure sound organizational governance, provide operational and strategic direction to the leadership and staff, and serve as engines of its development and outreach functions. Bresee cultivates these dedicated volunteer boards by engaging existing members while also attracting new members who can bring varying perspectives, skills, relationships and fundraising capabilities to the organization. Specifically, we will increase the membership of our various volunteer boards and diversify their composition in order to better represent and serve our community.

The following resources, capacities and connections support Bresee's long-term progress:

1: Facilities
In 2001, after concluding a $2,700,000 capital campaign, Bresee moved into a state-of-the-art 15,000 square foot remodeled community center. Bresee's facility houses four homework classrooms, art, dance and music studios, two industry standard 12-station computer labs, a multimedia studio, and a youth recreation room; sports and recreation are also facilitated at the two new on-site soccer mini-pitches, adjacent park and neighboring gym.

2: Staff, volunteers and board
Bresee's team consists of 53 dedicated staff members (28 full-time, 25 part-time), 5 expert workshop leaders, over 225 committed volunteers, 16 professional board members, and 50 inspiring high school interns. Thirty percent of staff are former clients, 50 percent of full-time staff have worked at Bresee for 10 years or more, 89 percent of full-time staff have worked at Bresee for 5 years or more, and 88 percent of program staff is bilingual. Of Bresee's Board, 47 percent are people of color and 92 percent of staff members are people of color. Fifty-three percent of Bresee staff members live directly in the community Bresee serves, giving them a vested interest in Bresee's programs. Bresee's staff members participate in ongoing professional development.

3: Parent involvement
The majority of parents check in with their Case managers at least once a week, connecting them with opportunities for further involvement including volunteering at the youth center or at a Bresee event.

4: Partnerships
Bresee's expertise is demonstrated in that it is the lead prevention provider for the City's GRYD program, the new lead provider for the City's Wilshire Family SourceCenter, a subcontractor for the Workforce Investment Act (for over a decade), and the only west coast partner for a national mentoring collaboration through the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Bresee works directly with many local schools and other non-profits, including with Virgil Middle School (through a grant from the California After-school Education and Safety Program administered by the Los Angeles Unified School District's Beyond the Bell).

5: Evidence-based practice
Bresee's programs are formed based on research, evidence-based practices, and best practices.

6: Budget and increasing fundraising capacity
Bresee operates on a $1.9 million budget annually, with more than 80% of operating expenses allocated directly to programs. It maintains a diversified portfolio of funders including foundations, corporations, and government agencies. Through an auction, sponsorships, and donations at the annual Dinner & Auction event, Bresee is able to raise unrestricted funds for its programs. In 2015, this event raised over $150,000. Bresee is also supported by a diverse board, which raised over $250,000 in 2015, over $90,000 more than 2014, demonstrating increasing fundraising capacities.

In the last year, Bresee awarded over $28,000 in college scholarships to 11 students, Bresee was selected as one of 15 partners statewide for the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation's PropelNext California Initiative because of its outstanding services, Bresee's Executive Director was a finalist for the Los Angeles Business Journal's Leadership Excellence Award, and Bresee was recognized as one of C-Suite Quarterly's (CSQ's) “100 Regional Philanthropies You Should Know."

In the last decade, Bresee's proven model has:
Through mentoring and case management, become a second home to over 12,000 youth and family members
Awarded over $550,000 in college scholarships to 123 alumni
Assisted over 3,500 students with college prep, tours, SAT and FAFSA classes
Provided career-readiness and employed over 600 youth in local businesses
Hosted ten annual Youth Film Festivals on Social Justice
Offered over $200,000 in emergency assistance since 2010

The long-term impact of Bresee's program towards its overall vision is exemplified by Chheav, who participated in a life changing college trip as a high schooler, was guided through her college education by a supportive Bresee mentor, and returned to Bresee to expose the next generation to college as Bresee's High School Director; by Travis and Tristan Bowen, brothers who play professional soccer in Germany and Finland and, crediting Bresee for growing their passion and athletic skills, give back to their community through coaching and mentoring with Bresee's soccer program; and by Ana, who after winning Bresee's First Annual Youth Film Festival on Social Justice, graduated from college and secured a job connecting local individuals with affordable housing, and returned to give a voice to today's youth by coordinating and guest speaking at Bresee's Tenth Annual Youth Film Festival in 2015. To learn more about Bresee's alumni, please visit: www.bresee.org/alumnivideo.

In the years to come, Bresee seeks to continue growing the capacity of its development team (increasing its individual donor base), expand its high schools programs to provide a critical bridge between Bresee's middle school programs and a college education, sustain and grow its new college persistence program to meet the needs of its college-level alumni, and establish a scholarship endowment and an operating reserve.