We Care of Grundy County, Inc.

Organization Information:

Organization Name:
We Care of Grundy County, Inc.
City & State:
Morris, 
Illinois
Organization Website:
www.wecareofgrundy.com
Organization's Mission Statement

To promote, foster, and encourage the general health, welfare, and education of the population. To provide services, consultation, aid, and assistance to the needy on a regular or emergency basis in the areas of transportation, food assistance, utility assistance, housing assistance, medical/prescription assistance, and related activities. To do all acts or deeds to carry out and effectuate the above purposes.

Submission Information

Impact Essay

We Care of Grundy County, Inc., has been serving low-income families in Grundy County since 1979. We Care first began as an organization that provided rides to medical appointments and babysitting and meals during hospital stays. Currently, We Care operates Grundy County’s largest food pantry, and we provide emergency financial assistance with rent/mortgages, utilities, prescription medications and dental needs.

As an independent, grassroots agency, it has been difficult for We Care to stay abreast of technological advancements due to financial and time constraints. As recently as 2006, We Care’s client assistance was tracked manually with pen and paper.

Since 2006, with Tech Soup’s help, we have upgraded both our software and hardware and now use Access for our client database. We also use Publisher to create marketing materials such as a brochure and newsletter that have helped us reach more donors and increase our available funds to provide assistance.

Just last June, with the help of a newsletter produced on Publisher, we launched a capital campaign to purchase our current office space. That campaign was complete in November and we were able to purchase our space without a mortgage, thereby giving a permanent home to an organization that experienced six moves in its history.

With these improvements, and the declining economy, we have seen the number of clients served from our office since 2005 grow from 1183 to 4564, a 286% increase. Microsoft’s tools have helped us not only keep up with the huge increase in demand while our staffing levels have remained consistent, but also helped us to reach the necessary donors to be able to continue to offer the wide array of services that low-income Grundy County families can find at We Care.

Submission Category
Optimize Mission Delivery
Project Image
018.JPG
Supporting Work URL
http://www.wecareofgrundy.com