Celebrating Our 35th Year of Impact and Looking Ahead in 2019
“You have no idea of the talent and potential that we serve with New Moms. This isn’t about charity, this isn’t about this particular woman in this particular circumstance. It’s about the infrastructure of our communities, it’s about the hope for our futures, it’s about things you cannot even fathom you are allowing to blossom.” – Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx
Every day at New Moms, we witness personal transformations as young women like Andrea, Natasha, and Olivia work to create better futures for themselves and their children. In doing so, they are laying a stable foundation for their families and clearing the way for future generations to reach their full potential. But, as Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx noted during her keynote speech at our 35th anniversary gala in October, the impact of this work reaches far beyond any single family; when these transformations happen consistently, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts as our communities become more vibrant places.
In 2018, your support made it possible for us to increase our capacity to create positive change in numerous ways. In the past year, we have bolstered the quality of our services by reimagining our programming to incorporate the latest research on brain and behavioral science, while also expanding our service area to 8 communities in Chicago’s near-west suburbs. As a result, we are serving more families than ever before, providing services to an additional 50 moms and 100 children, and achieving greater success in program outcomes, such as a 43% growth from last year in permanent job placement for our young moms!
We commissioned a Social Return on Investment (SROI) study to learn more about the broader value of our work across multiple sectors of society. We learned that every $1 invested into New Moms has a return of $3.81 after 5 years, showing strong gains in long-term housing stability, maternal and infant health, child social and emotional development, and economic security. We’ll be sharing more from this study in the near future.
Our social enterprise, Bright Endeavors, continues to grow and has expanded distribution to national retail outlets like CB2 and The Little Market, among others. This growth is helping increase the sustainability of our job training program, providing our moms with valuable work experience and allowing us to fulfill our commitment to help those we serve become banked and employed while working toward their long-term goals. In addition, it is helping open the door for new partnerships with companies like Google & LinkedIn, both of which New Moms began working with in 2018.
As we transition to 2019, we look forward to building on these successes and celebrating new milestones. Most immediately, we are expecting to open New Moms Oak Park Center in March, which will create 18 permanent supportive homes for young families in Cook County while also greatly expanding our capacity to provide services to a greater number of families in the suburbs. This includes special workshops that cover topics like healthy eating & budgeting, as well as our twice-weekly Morning Parent Meetup (click here for additional details and to sign up).
We are also excited to continue refining our service offerings by integrating best practices on topics like family coaching, brain science and behavioral development, each of which will help us better serve whole families. We know that long-term success among the families we serve is the result of physical, emotional and spiritual health, and this work will greatly enhance our ability to provide wrap-around support that results in deep and lasting change.
We’re grateful for your partnership in this vital work, and look forward to continuing to work together in the year ahead. Because you believe in the grit of the mothers we serve and their determination to fight for their children, you are helping interrupt the cycle of poverty for generations to come and making Chicago and its suburbs a better place to live for all residents.