Thanks to the Invest in Others Charitable Foundation, Starkville Bridges out of Poverty is now able to take their efforts on eradicating poverty to new levels. In September of 2014, the Invest in Others Charitable Foundation named Lynn Phillips-Gaines (founder and Vice President of SBOP) as the 2014 Volunteer of the Year. Along with several other honors, a prize award of $20,000 was given to Bridges.
On January 29th, 2015, Starkville Bridges held its first-ever webinar to introduce the Charity Tracker program, which allows churches, nonprofits, and emergency aid organizations to ensure funds are distributed wisely and efficiently. The event brought together groups such as OSERVS, Starkville Church of Christ, the Salvation Army, and numerous other local organizations.
Starkville Bridges will spearhead the initiative to build a “Starkville Network” of community groups. The network will entail groups collaborating to streamline and track aid given, so Starkville can collectively serve as a community with a common goal rather than individual organizations.
The next immediate task is setting up a “network” for Starkville within the Charity Tracker database. Starkville Bridges will take on this responsibility and operate as the “system administrator”, and be trained to add other organizations into the network.
Phillips-Gaines said, “I am thrilled others share in our vision. I hope this event spearheads a new chapter within our community.”
The rollout of the network will be in the next 30 days, with the hopes of having all interested groups added and the program launched by the end of April 2015. Starkville Bridges hopes to continue growing this network of non-profit agencies in the future!
For more pictures of the Charity Tracker event, click here.