Jericho Road Project, Inc.

Description

The Jericho Road Project bridges communities by matching the professional talents of volunteers with the needs of community-based nonprofit organizations and businesses to promote community development, strengthen social services, and enrich the lives of volunteers.

We believe that a powerful community of nonprofit organizations--including homeless shelters, food kitchens, arts, youth and environmental organizations, afterschool programs, small business development and home ownership programs--is a gateway to enhancing the quality of life in any city, but especially in cities with low-income populations.

The problem? Those same nonprofits that are entrusted with protecting a city's quality of life and helping others are very often in need of great help themselves! Many nonprofit organizations have over-extended staff and little time or resources to identify, let alone take on, critical strategic and operational challenges that will allow them to sustain and improve their services.

The solution? Skills-based volunteers! Skills-based volunteers are a powerful, abundant and free resource that can help nonprofit organizations achieve their goals. Skills-based volunteers include board development specialists, strategic planners, business developers, lawyers, accountants, marketing and design professionals, IT specialists, fundraisers, project managers, editors and others.

The Jericho Road Project is unique in that it harnesses the expertise of skills based volunteers to build the strength ofa community of nonprofit organizations in order to enhance the quality of life in an underserved city. Jericho Road's model therefore includes:

Targeting nonprofit communities with similar challenges in small to mid-sized cities for greater impact;
Having a dedicated program director in each city we serve and thus get to know our clients very well;
Engaging volunteers from corporate, faith and other communities;
Utilizing our proven "7 Step Collaboration" model to ensure a great match, project management and a rewarding outcome for both the volunteer and client.
Building the capacity of our nonprofit clients over time through multiple engagements often driven by an organizational improvement plan.
Measuring impact through evaluations and by periodically assessing organizational capacity.

Replicating our model: The Jericho Road Project has been replicating its model in Massachusetts, seeking to create a network of nearby sites that share volunteers, knowledge, tools and resources for greater efficiency and impact. In 2003 Jericho Road Lowell was launched bridging the resources of greater Concord, MA, with the needs of Lowell; in 2005, Jericho Road Lawrence was launched, matching the resources of greater North Andover, MA, with the needs of Lawrence. In June 2009, Jericho Road Worcester was established, linking Worcester resources to Worcester nonprofits. We became a nationwide organization in May 2010, with the launch of Jericho Road Pasadena (California). In 2012, Jericho Road Roxbury launched as a program of the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry. And in January 2014, Jericho Road Dallas launched linking the needs of Dallas area nonprofits to Dallas resources.

Since our launch in early 2003, our volunteers have served countless nonprofit organizations through our core program of skills-based volunteering. In addition, several Jericho Road sites have piloted and established a program that trains and places corporate leaders on nonprofit boards in need of board members with nonprofit training and leadership skills.