We recently connected with Kristin Dubrowski and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Kristin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with talking about how you serve the underserved, because in our view this is one of the most important things the small business community does for society – by serving those who the giant corporations ignore, small business helps create a more inclusive and just world for all of us.
How has COVID changed our business model?
As a nonprofit that provides prevention programs in schools and assists victims/survivors of child abuse, domestic violence and s*xual assault, COVID has had a tremendous impact on Hopeful Horizons’ business model. The silver lining is that the pandemic forced us to become more nimble and adopt different modes of service provision more quickly than we would have otherwise, which has helped us better meet the needs of victims/survivors. Hopeful Horizons temporarily suspended most in-person services as of March 18, 2020, although the shelter remained open until April. We pivoted our service model quickly to ensure that victims/survivors of child abuse, domestic violence and s*xual assault had access to all of the resources and support they needed. Given that during past national disasters and crises, violence against women and children has escalated, we were extremely concerned when calls to our 24-hour hotline trickled down to almost nothing. While stay-at-home orders were in place, we wanted to make sure that the community knew that help was still available – and that folks knew they didn’t need to have an active “crisis” to call, so we rebranded our crisis hotline as a 24-hour support line. We worked with our nonprofit partners to help get this message out and ramped up our messaging and available resources on our social media channels. These efforts encouraged victims/survivors who had become increasingly isolated to reach out for support whenever they needed it and gave them access to information and a community that let them know they weren’t alone.
Hopeful Horizons also invested in a telehealth platform to be able to provide trauma treatment and counseling services remotely. Our clients and clinicians have responded favorably to telehealth services. Hopeful Horizons serves a five-county area of more than 3,200 miles, so telehealth services cut down on travel time and transportation barriers and create more flexibility in scheduling, which enables therapists to offer more early morning or evening appointments. Clients seeking orders of protection and civil legal services also benefit from the ability to connect with our staff attorney and legal program staff virtually. We have also built our capacity to provide professional trainings and prevention programs in a webinar format. We will continue to offer these services in a hybrid model – in person or virtually – because of the increased accessibility and reach this technology provides.
After an initial slow-down in the first few months of the pandemic, we saw a significant increase in demand for our emergency shelter and transitional housing services. So much so that in 2020 we sheltered and housed more people than in any prior year in our 30+ year history. Our shelter is now operating in a hybrid model to help maintain everyone’s health and safety. We have updated the bedrooms and ensuite bathrooms to make them more comfortable for women and families who may need to quarantine or who want to stay out of communal areas. Our case managers and housing program staff are providing mobile advocacy at a higher rate than prior to the pandemic – travelling to meet clients and providing more services on the go. To help address the growing critical need for affordable housing, Hopeful Horizons expanded our transitional housing program to help more survivors get back on their feet after having to start over on their own.
As reports of child abuse slowed when schools shut down in 2020, so did referrals to our children’s advocacy center; however, referrals spiked in 2021 and have continued to remain high. In 2021, Hopeful Horizons provided more forensic interviews for cases of alleged child abuse and neglect than in any prior year. This has meant upgrading forensic interview and network equipment, and staff travelling more to our different sites to accommodate schedules so that services are made as convenient as possible.
Kristin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
When I was in college, I became very involved on campus and had the opportunity to volunteer with a number of community-based organizations that primarily provided services and advocacy on behalf of women, including a rape crisis and domestic violence program. By the time I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in women’s studies, I knew that I wanted to be able to directly use my degree to make a difference. My time as a volunteer stuck with me, so after graduation I went to work for a nonprofit domestic violence shelter as an advocate and after about a year, I became the shelter director. During that time, I obtained my master’s degree in nonprofit management, which fed my passion for organizational development. After I moved to South Carolina, I went to work for Citizens Opposed to Domestic Abuse (CODA) and I became the executive director after a few years. It’s been 18 years – CODA is now Hopeful Horizons, I’m the CEO and I’m still learning new things every day. I am so proud of the work that Hopeful Horizons does and the services we provide. When you’re in an abusive relationship, if you’ve been sexually assaulted or if you’re a child who has been abused, you can feel so alone and like you’ll never heal and never be yourself again. Hopeful Horizons is here to make sure that you know you’re not alone, to walk alongside you on your healing journey and to help you find yourself again. Hopeful Horizons’ tagline is “ending abuse changing lives” and I am so grateful to get to see the positive transformation that our clients achieve through their courage and determination not to let what happened to them define who they are. Last year alone, we assisted 1,232 victims/survivors.
Hopeful Horizons’ mission is to protect, treat and prevent. Thanks to grants and community support, we are able to offer all of our services free of charge, including counseling and evidence-based trauma treatment, civil legal services, domestic violence shelter and housing services, hospital accompaniment, forensic interviews, case management and advocacy services. We also work within the community and with our youth in middle and high schools to change the culture of violence that allows abuse to propagate. In 2021, we reached more than 800 professionals and more than 1,100 students.
The staff and volunteers at Hopeful Horizons are passionate, dedicated and caring, but even more than that, they are highly trained professionals – licensed clinicians and social workers, attorneys, educators and certified victim service providers. Behind the scenes, we have an amazing volunteer board of directors and a top-notch fund development and administrative team that makes sure Hopeful Horizons is well managed and that we are a good steward of the resources entrusted to us. Approximately 88 cents of each dollar Hopeful Horizons receives goes toward direct services.
Let’s talk M&A – we’d love to hear your about your experience with buying businesses.
Since I work in the nonprofit space, I haven’t bought another organization, but I did help lead the merger of two long-standing nonprofits in 2017. After working in the victim service field for eight years, I knew that it would take a holistic, coordinated community response to really make a difference for survivors of domestic violence – especially in South Carolina, which has consistently ranked in the top 10 states for the rate of women murdered by men. My colleague at the local rape crisis and children’s advocacy center felt the same way, so we embarked on a two-year exploratory and due diligence process, along with representatives from both of our boards of directors. The process culminated in the January 1, 2017, merger of Citizens Opposed to Domestic Abuse (CODA) and Hope Haven of the Lowcountry. We became Hopeful Horizons – a children’s advocacy, domestic violence and rape crisis center that serves the 14th Judicial Circuit of South Carolina. We were clear from the start that the goal of the merger was expansion – the ability to provide more holistic services to families, build upon the expertise of both organizations and amplify the voices of victims/survivors throughout the Lowcountry. Now that we’re more than five years in, I can say without a doubt that the merger has been a success (although there’s still much more work to do). It’s a shame that many organizations only consider merging when one or both may be struggling because it makes so much sense to join nonprofits when they are both healthy and thriving. That’s when true transformation can really take place.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Fortunately, both CODA and Hope Haven had built strong reputations over the years and had many loyal, generous supporters, so that meant that Hopeful Horizons would start off on the right foot. However, each day we still have to work to maintain and build that reputation. Hopeful Horizons strives to provide inclusive, consistent, high-quality services for everyone in community who may need them. Our core values of compassion, collaboration and commitment to excellence inform and direct all of our work and demonstrate our accountability to victims/survivors, community partners and the Lowcountry as a whole. Compassion: We believe in the inherent value and strength of each child, individual, family and caregiver who walks through the doors of Hopeful Horizons. We are here to help victims/survivors of every race, ethnicity, s*x, immigration status, religious affiliation, ability, socio-economic status, age, gender identity and/or expression, country of origin, veteran status and s*xual orientation without judgement. Our team executes all programs and services through a trauma-informed, victim-centered and strength-based lens.
Collaboration: We believe that child abuse, domestic violence and s*xual assault are community problems and the needs of victims/survivors cannot be met by one organization. Therefore, collaborating with other organizations and government agencies in a multidisciplinary approach results in more holistic support and better case outcomes for victims/survivors.
Commitment to Excellence: The education, training and background of our staff is second to none. We are a diverse team committed to learning the best practices in the field and to implementing programs that are evidence-based. We do this because we believe that every victim/survivor, regardless of their identity and background, deserves the best professional care to help them heal from the trauma of child abuse, domestic violence and s*xual assault.
Contact Info:
- Website: hopefulhorizons.org
- Instagram: hopefulhorizons
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefulhorizons
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hopeful-horizons
- Twitter: lowcountryHH
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFijY3dNTjvZBNKburSMH-g