MARCH 2022 NEWSLETTER
Dear 431 Family,
We’re so excited to send out this update — it’s our favorite one every year! Our 2nd Annual Known Seen Loved Celebration was an incredible evening and it couldn’t have happened without our amazing partners and volunteers. We had 170 ladies, 71 children and over 100 volunteers in attendance.
The event’s expenses were covered by 28 local businesses and clubs who together gave over $14,000 to make this evening a reality! In addition to financial gifts, another $7,500 in physical gifts were given to give out over the course of the evening. What a night to remember!
With this being our second year doing this event, we were much more intentional about our follow up goals. We established a prayer team and had prayer cards at each setting, offering anonymous prayer or a follow up conversation. 24 prayer cards were filled out and 19 requested to be followed up with.
We also had Next Steps cards that could be filled out for more information. 53 ladies asked to be contacted when we hold future events and 11 ladies requested information about the Side-by-Side Program. Since the event, we had 8 more reach out directly through our intake form on the website, bringing our waiting list to 23.
With this number of women requesting services, we really need a Client Manager! In the meantime, a few key volunteers are filling the gap by reaching out and attending intake meetings with our staff. Please be praying for more volunteers for this unique role and for our Client Manager as we interview for this role!
Switching gears, back in October, our board met to pray about our strategic plans and programming. Since then, we clarified our messaging and created a Venn Diagram to make it easy to understand our programs and how they overlap. Our Side-by-Side Program, Known Seen Loved Events and Hope in Healing Retreats all still serve women coming out of crisis, but each area focuses on something unique. If you'd like more information about any of our service areas, visit 431house.org/get-help
Finally, we wanted to share some math that we’ve done this month. With some clarity around our programming, we have been able to streamline and understand what part of our budget goes to each program, so we can more specifically fundraise.
We determined that it costs $880 a month to serve a mom and two children through our Side-by-Side Program.
This includes:
Weekly counseling services for all three
2 weekly support groups of her choice
Weekly supportive services of any kind (could be connections, mentoring, showing up to court, advocating on her behalf, etc)
Our goal this year is to serve 20 ladies, doubling what we were able to do last year. Right now, we have monthly commitments to serve 3.3 ladies and their children in the Side-by-Side Program. While we have a lot of business partners for the Known Seen Loved Events, our prayer is that you consider committing to a monthly gift of $50 or $100 so we can continue to grow the Side-by-Side Program, which is the heart of our ministry.
We are so thankful for our committed volunteers, staff and donors who make this ministry what it is. The Lord has continued to bring new opportunities and partnerships that keep us going, and we are really excited to be more focused on our Side-by-Side Program this year. As always, we want you to continue to be involved in events, programming and one-off opportunities. Brooke Harris is our new Volunteer and Event Coordinator and has been doing a wonderful job at keeping our website updated with all upcoming volunteer opportunities. Visit 431house.org/volunteer to check out where you might be able to get involved. We also have implemented a monthly opportunities email, so make sure you're on the email newsletter list. Thank you again for your support and commitment to ladies coming out of crisis in Middle TN!
In Him, The 431 Ministries team