GIVE
PROCESS
After the Learn team narrows the focus of the current topic, the Give team continues with the next step of our yearly cycle. The goal of the Give process is to determine the organizations and programs that best address the current topic, while remaining true to the Giving Circle’s mission and priorities. In order to do this, the Give team analyzes grant applications, and presents findings to the board membership. Board members vote to select the gift recipients.
Giving Circle priorities include:
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Improving quality of life of the Seacoast
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Serving the socio-economically underprivileged
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Fostering independence and self-reliance
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Addressing emerging needs and issues
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Providing long-term solutions
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Investing in the expansion of existing organizations rather than the creation of new ones
GIFT RECIPIENTS:
HOUSING INSECURITY
Giving Cycle 2023-2024
Cross Roads House
The mission of Cross Roads House is to offer shelter, respect and collaborative solutions to unhoused individuals and families who aspire to return to permanent housing and thrive in their community. Since 1982, Cross Roads House has met the immediate needs of homeless individuals and families in the Seacoast area and created pathways to affordable housing. The grant will support Cross Roads House as they continue to provide emergency and transitional shelter, housing-focused case management, and wrap-around services at their location in Portsmouth.
Fair Tide
Fair Tide works to eliminate homelessness by providing safe, stable, and affordable housing and supportive services to individuals and families in the Seacoast, and through local and state-level advocacy. They own and operate a 5-unit house and are collaborating with the town of Kittery to build two new affordable units, with a third in the pipeline. They also match clients with landlords and property managers through their Landlord Engagement Initiative, and have created a social services collective, Mainspring, to provide coordinated care and resources for individuals and families navigating the social services system.
NH Campaign for Legal Services
NH Campaign for Legal Services (NHCLS) provides high quality legal aid for people with low income, regardless of their ability to pay. NHCLS handles issues that impact their clients' most basic needs, primarily in the areas of housing, domestic violence and family law, and public benefits.The grant will help NHCLS support clients living with low incomes and facing civil legal challenges such as eviction, foreclosure or the wrongful denial of income benefits, with the goal of keeping people in their homes.
Seacoast Family Promise
Seacoast Family Promise (SFP) aims to empower families with children experiencing homelessness to achieve sustainable independence by providing safe family shelter on a transitional basis with the goal of stabilization. Families with children are among the fastest growing segments of the homeless population and to address the long-term effect of homelessness on children, SFP also provides intensive trauma- informed case support and life skills training to each family they serve. This grant will help Seacoast Family Promise continue to invest in families' needs as they transition out of homelessness and on to fulfilling, healthy lives.