Impact and Programs
Accomplishments
In 2023, we continued to build our services back from the effects of the pandemic. Many of our metrics demonstrated growth and improvement compared to the last few years. Time spent interacting with our local communities increased, as did the number of hours we worked with volunteers. Staffing, while still extremely challenging, improved at each of our programs. Our Employment Services showed its effectiveness by placing more people in competitive jobs than in 2022 and helping them get hired more quickly with a higher rate of job retention. The demographics of the people in our programs have remained largely steady over the last 7+ years. A notable exception is that for the third year in a row, there was a slight increase in people 18-40 years old and a corresponding decline in people who are older. This trend tracks with our increased work with students in transition programs. There was also a slight increase in people who walk without assistance and a small decrease in the number of people who use a wheelchair. We offered fewer hours of supported employment due to two businesses not renewing their contracts with us in 2023. New partnerships with two social enterprise organizations should improve these numbers in the coming year. Satisfaction remains high, with many positive comments added to survey responses and little in the way of constructive feedback. However, a shift in the response trends was notable – the percentage of people who strongly agreed with the survey questions increased, but the responses of “neutral” increased significantly in responses from the people in our programs. Our suspicion is that this is a result of survey facilitators marking “neutral” when a person is not able to communicate their answer in a way that is understood. We will watch this trend over the next year. We created a new Strategic Plan that will begin in 2024 that considers the feedback used to develop this report. The 2020-2023 Strategic Plan remained highly relevant and useful over the past four years.
Current Goals
INNOVATION
» Expand day and employment
services to include a new
Minneapolis program.
• Workplan to include clearly
defined metrics for success.
» Reconsider key pieces of
language that we use: e.g.,
“outings” to maximize dignity
and reduce an “us/them”
dynamic. Ensure program
names align with the refined
language.
» Develop a plan for the adapted
RV.
• Communications and
outreach to donors
• How will we utilize this
vehicle to ensure greater
community access? Share
with other partners?
COMMUNITY
» Operationalize and increase
employment services.
• Train all existing staff to have
a strong understanding of
employment.
• Ensure staff are trained
to have meaningful
conversations about
employment for intakes, with
persons served and teams.
• Work to clarify and expand
Art as Employment services –
more defined structure.
• Partner with Social Enterprise
businesses
• Expand our Employment
services team to increase
access to traditional
employment, self-employment,
job coaching support. We
will increase our ES team by
at least 4 people to expand
access to Competitive
Integrated Employment.
• Defining goals for group
employment
PEOPLE
» Improve staff retention through
the implementation of the career
pathway for all direct care roles.
» Deepen and continue our DEIB
work.
• Ensure this work is being done
more consistently agency
wide.
• Co-create a DEIB statement to
communicate our commitment.
• Diversify and increase our #
of board members to expand
their capacity to engage in
DEIB work.
• Engage in external
workgroups focused on
increasing service access for
all.
» Increase succession planning at
all levels of the organization.
• Incorporate assessment of
interest in growth in the career
map.
• Incorporate succession
planning concepts into the
mentorship program.
• Include administrative roles in
succession planning.
RESOURCES
» Support MSS Apple Valley
on an accelerated path to
financial stability and develop
remediation plan.
» Seek grant funding to support
expansion of new Minneapolis
program.
» Develop $40k in annual
sponsorships to Fresh Eye
Gallery.
» Increase higher-level sponsors
for Celebrate!.
» Improving internal
communication to ensure
cross-agency participation in
programming.
» Leverage technology to
increase efficiency for staff and
increase access to timely and
accurate reporting that will be
used in leadership decisionmaking.
Community or Constituency Served
People with disabilities
Geographic Area Served
Twin Cities and the surrounding area
