Covenant House Alaska

Since opening their doors in 1988, Covenant House Alaska has been dedicated to providing compassionate, sustainable services to homeless and at-risk youth in Alaska. But in order to meet the changing needs of the community they serve, they needed to first change internally. They were tasked with increasing their level of impact, modernizing their programming, improving operations and implementing more professional development to their board. With a growing number of youth facing homelessness in their community, staying the same was not an option.

At Pivot, our three-step solution process always begins from within. The first action-items were engaging the staff through small group working sessions, and to educate and align the board of directors. The next step was getting the community on board, which involved a multi-sector collaboration with various Anchorage organizations and government agencies to design the city’s response to youth homelessness. This collaboration rounded out our solution with a highly competitive plan for funding at the national level.

By going all-in on this thorough self-assessment, Covenant House Alaska was able to truly define their impact strategy, improve data tracking and refine their program model. This enabled them to secure funding for the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, amounting in $1.5 million dollars to test their model over a two year period.