Our impact
Transforming Lives, Empowering Communities
WHAT WE HAVE ACCOMPLISHED
Over the last 35 years, Christian Relief Services Charities affiliates delivered more than $600 million in assistance through programs across 31 states in the U.S. and 63 countries throughout Eastern Europe, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Africa. This work has benefited hundreds of communities and thousands of people helping them to a better and more self-sufficient life. We are also proud to have earned the Better Business Bureau´s Wise Giving Alliance Charity Seal for meeting their rigorous standards for charitable accountability.
HOW WE ACHIEVE OUR CHARITABLE PROGRAM GOALS
Christian Relief Services Charities’ affiliates provide help to those domestically and internationally by utilizing donations (that the affiliates raise, both cash and in-kind materials like medicines and food) in the most efficient and effective way possible. Without these generous donations, our affiliates would not be able to provide their programs with adequate resources, supplies and technical assistance. To acquire these resources, Christian Relief Services Charities works with its affiliates to provide the back-office administrative (everything from helping them keep up with the very necessary state registrations every year in order that they can fundraise, accounting, HR to IT help) support necessary to help them to procure donations and utilize the support of volunteers and partnerships with local non-governmental organizations in order to attain adequate funding to provide for their programs.
HOW WE MEASURE PROGRESS TOWARD OUR CHARITABLE PROGRAM GOALS
Christian Relief Services Charities measures its performance every two years with a report to the board of directors. This biennial report is entitled the Performance and Effectiveness Assessment of CRSC and is in accordance with the Board Policy to have such a report and meets standard 7 of the Standards for Charitable Accountability of the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance (www.give.org).
Moreover, CRSC, through our affiliates, is in constant communication with all of our partners to ensure that together we are reaching our goals of self-sustainable programs. Staff members and volunteer board members travel internationally, as well as here in the United States, to the program sites to see firsthand the improvement and development of these programs and to report on their progress or lack thereof, and to make recommendations for future funding and support. The Charity’s affiliates also publish annual reports and daily updates to their websites to provide the public with real-time (and an annual summation) information to show how we’re doing. These can be found at our affiliate websites.
OVERVIEW OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN 2023
HOUSING program
Christian Relief Services Charities owns two housing complexes that provide 10 and 15 units of affordable housing to low and very low-income families located in Phoenix, Arizona, assisting approximately 75 people. In addition, CRSC provided administrative and technical support to provide clients with two years of transitional housing in 35 homes through a Community Funding Pool Grant. We also provided administrative and technical support for coordinated support services through a 1991 Housing and Urban Development McKinney Grant for permanent housing for the homeless and chronically mentally ill adults in three group homes that the organization owns, located in Fairfax County, Virginia which assisted approximately 206 individuals.
Christian Relief Services Charities also provided 1,865 units of affordable, transitional and permanent supportive housing and resident related services in Arizona, Kansas, Texas, and Virginia to very low-, low- and moderate-income persons, chronically mentally ill adults, homeless families, and individuals.
NATIVE AMERICAN PROGRAMS
Christian Relief Services Charities’ affiliate Running Strong for American Indian Youth® (Running Strong) works with Native American youth and their families to bring hope and support for a better life. Running Strong provides food and other basic needs on the Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River Sioux Indian reservations in South Dakota, and Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin as well as dozens of other partner organizations across the country. Native American children face some of the highest poverty rates in the nation; Ziebach County, on the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation, has the highest child poverty rate in the United States. Oglala Lakota County (formerly Shannon County) on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation leads the nation in food stamps. However, Running Strong is committed to ending the cycle of injustice by listening to these communities and providing them with self-sustaining, meaningful programs and supplies in accordance with their greatest needs. In FY22, Running Strong donated $1,776,307.85 in in-kind materials such as blankets, school supplies, home gardening equipment, winter clothes, and hygiene supplies as well as direct donations of food.
DOMESTIC PROGRAMS
Our affiliate, Americans Helping Americans® provided food and other basic needs to families and individuals throughout Appalachia including Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia Mississippi, Ohio, Arizona, and Florida. Americans Helping Americans® provided grants to their partner organizations located in some of the economically hardest-hit communities in the country totaling more than $909,697 for various programs.
Through their home repair program, Americans Helping Americans® supported projects which repaired 103 homes in Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia. In many instances, the homeowners are elderly, living on meager fixed incomes with no resources to fix leaking roofs, rotted floors and porches or to build a handicap ramp, providing them the ability to enter and exit their home on their own and allowing them to continue to live there instead of being forced to move into a nursing home. The projects are completed through the joint effort of their grassroots partners which vet and organize the home repair projects, Americans Helping Americans® provides funding for materials such as shingles and lumber and groups from churches and schools who travel to the communities spending a week volunteering their time and labor to make the repairs.
INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS
Bread and Water for Africa® works in eleven countries. The following is the summary of the year 2023 main activities:
Orphan Care Program
Providing care for Africa’s most vulnerable – orphaned and abandoned children – has remained among their top priorities. In 2023, 33 orphaned and abandoned children lived at the Lewa Children’s Home in Kenya and received food, shelter, health care, and other basic needs and education at the affiliated Kipkeino Primary School and nearby high schools.
In Zambia, 94 orphaned and abandoned children live at the Kabwata Orphanage and Transit Centre, receiving food and shelter, meeting their educational needs, and providing them with hope for the future.
In Zimbabwe, 14 children are supported by Lerato Children’s Home in Mutare, Zimbabwe, operated by Shinga Development Trust.
In Tanzania, 86 children live in a loving home environment at the Watoto Wa Africa Orphanage, which provides for all their basic needs, including food, shelter, education, health care, and counseling.
Food Self-Sufficiency
In FY 2023, BWA supported various food security and self-sufficiency projects in Sierra Leone and Malawi. In Sierra Leone, BWA supported a training program for 150 rural women and youth were trained to grow vegetables and crops, provided with essential farming tools, and supported in establishing small enterprises such as food vending and other related enterprises based on local demand. This project’s estimated indirect beneficiaries are more than 9,000 in 8 communities.
In Malawi, 30 individuals were trained in using Farming God’s Way farming techniques and were provided with essential farming tools.
Education
At Bread and Water for Africa®, we believe the continent’s future relies on a well-educated population. In 2023, more than 348 students received primary and secondary school education in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Cameroon, Chad, Sierra Leone, and Zambia.
In Ethiopia, more than 58,000 primary and secondary school students will benefit yearly from 23,967 textbooks and reference books in 27 school libraries. In addition, Bread and Water for Africa® provided school desks to benefit 2,348 primary and secondary level students in Ethiopia and Sierra Leone.
Healthcare
In FY23 BWA increased and focused our healthcare program support in Africa. BWA provided cash grants and in-kind including medicines, medical supplies and equipment, wheelchairs, prenatal vitamins and, personal protection equipment (PPE) and uniforms for healthcare workers, to healthcare-focused program support in Africa.
In 2023, over 92,000 individuals were served in 45 healthcare hospitals and clinics in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya, and Sierra Leone, supported with cash grants, medicines, medical supplies and equipment, wheelchairs, and more.
Clean Water Development
In 2023, 45 clean water projects were completed, benefited more than 26, 000 individuals. The projects included 24 wells repaired in Ethiopia, 12 springs protected in Uganda, ten water wells in Malawi, four water wells in Zambia, three water wells in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and one well in Tanzania, combined benefiting thousands in rural villages.