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ARCHS Awards $750,000 to Increase and Enhance Services for Crime Victims and Victimized Communities

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ARCHS has awarded $750,000 to a network of community partners to increase and enhance support services for crime victims and victimized communities.

Through the Neighborhood Healing Network (NHN), ARCHS leads a multi-faceted collaboration between trusted area organizations known for their support of under resourced families and neighborhoods dealing with violence and trauma/PTSD.

Each partner offers unique expertise and has close relationships with neighborhood residents, businesses, and faith-based organizations. The partners work closely together and use common objective/outcome, training, referral, reporting, communication, and evaluation processes. ARCHS’ funded NHN partners include:

-Alive & Well Communities (Trauma/PTSD training)
-Better Family Life (Crime victim resource hub)
-Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater St. Louis (Crime victim resource hub)
-Crime Victim Center (Crime victim support services)
-Fathers & Families Support Center (Crime victim resource hub)
-Mission: St. Louis (Crime victim resource hub)
-Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis (Crime victim resource hub)

ARCHS launched NHN in August of 2020 with $1 million in funding provided by the Missouri Department of Social Services (Victims of Crime Act/VOCA). Since October 2021, an additional $750,000 in VOCA funding has been provided through ARCHS.

NHN has dramatically grown the availability of support for crime victims (not specific to any one type of crime) from one city-based location to six, placing services directly in the neighborhoods experiencing violence and trauma/post- traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and providing multi-faceted trauma-informed care and services.

Since August 2020, NHN has achieved the following results:

-680 victims of crime served and provided more than 800 acted upon referrals to area crime victim support/social service agencies.
-96% of clients reported a positive experience accessing NHN services and 76% recommended NHN services to others.
-80% increase in referrals to St. Louis’ Crime Victim Center in FY21.
-36 trauma education and support workshops conducted for more than 400 initiative agency staff and community residents.
-5 professional sector trauma trainings held for more than 430 early childhood, faith-based, workforce, and youth development professionals with 99% reported feeling better prepared to effectively work with and support crime victims and 61% indicated they increased their knowledge of trauma.

ARCHS Awards $221,369 to Habitat for Humanity-St. Louis

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This winter ARCHS issued $221,369 to Habitat for Humanity-St. Louis (HFHSL) to support the construction of three new homes, classes for prospective homebuyers, and a pre-apprenticeship training program.

ARCHS secured the funding from the Missouri Department of Social Services. ARCHS’ grant will support the following activities:

-Construct of three single-family homes located in the City of St. Louis. Homes will be built in partnership with volunteers and the homebuyers themselves.

-Create a new “Habitat University,” to provide area families the tools to become homebuyer ready. Through a series of homebuyer readiness courses, HFHSL will reduce the barriers (perceived and real) to homeownership for low-income individuals and families, including those living with a disability.

-Engage young minority adults who have an interest in the construction industry through an inaugural pre-apprentice construction training program to provide access to obtaining and building union careers.

In addition to ARCHS’ $221,369 investment, HFHSL will leverage $600,00 in additional funding and resources to implement the projects with an overall impact exceeding $821,000.

ARCHS Awards $5.8 Million to Expand and Enhance Foster Care Services

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This winter ARCHS issued $5.8 million to Foster Care and Adoptive Care Coalition (FACC) that will support expanded and enhanced foster care services throughout the region. This is a $5 million increase from last year’s grant award.

ARCHS secured the expanded funding from the Missouri Department of Social Services. The State of Missouri made this historic investment on behalf of children in foster care when Governor Mike Parson signed the social services portion of the FY 2022 budget on July 1, 2021.

New and expanded services provided by FACC will include targeted recruitment of African American foster parents to address racial disparities in St. Louis City and County; recruitment and training of specialized homes for children with profound trauma; and geographic service area expansion in Franklin, Warren, and Lincoln counties.

In St. Louis City and County, 70% of children in local foster care are African American, yet only 13% of foster parents are African American. As a result, local African American children are routinely placed in Caucasian homes.

FACC will use the RESPOND model developed by St. Louis African American foster parents in the 1990s that provides a roadmap to ensuring African American children are placed in foster homes that reflect their ethnicity, race, and culture.

FACC is recognized nationally as a driver of innovative programming to address the needs of children in foster care. They are best known for creating Extreme Recruitment® and 30 Days to Family®, programs so effective that they are replicated by other non-profits across the country. Philanthropic support from individuals, corporations and foundations allows FACC to currently serve 1,248 children annually. At any given moment, there are 4,500 children in foster care in the metro region.

ARCHS' FY 2021 Audit

FY21 Audit Report

Independent auditors have given ARCHS an "unmodified" or "clean" audit for the 20th consecutive fiscal year. ARCHS' FY 2021 (July 1, 2020 - June 30, 2021) financial audit was reviewed and approved by ARCHS' Board of Directors at the December 8, 2021, meeting.

Issuance of “unmodified” means an auditor, upon review of an organization’s financial statements and accompanying notes, concluded that the financial statements and accompanying notes are presented fairly, conform to generally accepted accounting principles, and fairly represent the true financial picture of the organization.

For the 11th consecutive year, ARCHS has also successfully completed a federal 2 CFR 200 audit (formerly called an A-133 audit) for its work with federal funding. A 2 CFR 200 audit is required for any organization that expends more than $750,000 in one year from federal government funding.

“ARCHS’ 20 years of noted sound financial stewardship is a testament to our steadfast commitment to enhance initiatives that improve the lives of children and families facing disparities and disadvantages in St. Louis’ most resource deprived communities,” said ARCHS’ Chief Executive Officer Wendell Kimbrough. “ARCHS carefully and purposefully balances its strategic fiduciary and human service program responsibilities focusing on disrupting generational poverty.”

During FY 2021, ARCHS had a $33.4 million impact on the region. Within that number, $13.6 million were grants, and $19.8 million were funds/resources secured by ARCHS’ funded human service programs.

According to ARCHS’ Chief Financial Officer Sheryl Mitchell, “The FY 2021 audit also highlighted that ARCHS’ “administrative overhead” costs were only 12.3 percent, which is below the national average of 25 percent as calculated by the national United Way and other philanthropic groups."

This means that 87.7 cents out of every dollar ARCHS manages goes to the delivery of human service programs that annually serve nearly 68,000 St. Louisans facing disparities and disadvantages. The remaining 12.3 cents provides strategic business consulting and professional development services that assist in the management and evaluation of these vital local programs.

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  1. ARCHS Awards $5.5 Million to Enhance Workforce Development Initiatives
  2. Neighborhood Healing Network: Year One Impact
  3. ARCHS Awards $2.5 Million for After School Programming
  4. ARCHS FY 21 Impact Video Report