The Neighborhood Centers

The Neighborhood Centers are social welfare organizations. The organizations started operating in 1907, and aim at connecting the low-income earners and individuals to their dream opportunities. With many centers across the United States, the entities ensure that people with poor backgrounds have chance to achieve their desires. The centers play a crucial role in bringing together families, neighbors, and the community to the same table and find ways of changing the society for the better. Therefore, the Neighborhood Centers act as bridges for transforming the society. The centers call for interested individuals to come out and offer opportunities to the weak in the society. In addition, the centers recognize the contributory efforts of the concerned individuals in ensuring of the prosperity of many in different communities. The community plays a significant role in ensuring the organization attains its mission by requesting for donor and grant assistance. Consequently, the organization attends to the needs of the society upon the invitation and accumulation of the materials and money support.

The missions of the Neighborhood Centers include strengthening the community engagement by encouraging the participation of all individuals. The centers allow for the community involvement by running meetings, seminars, and other forums (Akingbola, 2015). Moreover, the organizations work side by side with community leaders to identify the biggest problems in the community and endeavor to find the solutions. The centers underscore the importance of creating safe neighborhoods for all people. In addition, the centers aim at improving the financial wellbeing of the affected individuals by connecting them to available employment opportunities. Therefore, the centers recognize the need for the economic freedom of the needy people and utilize the services of leaders and experts to identify opportunities for the affected communities. Besides, the abovementioned organization oversees the enhancement of the educational attainment among the community members. It works jointly with schools to enhance the levels of education among the community members. The organization bank on the fact the education is the key to financial freedom and prosperous community.

The Neighborhood Centers provide a variety of services to the community. For instance, they furnish essential services to the needy community members. Some of the basic services entity of this sort provides include food pantry, child safety seats, bread and other foodstuffs distribution, and assistance on filling the employment and referral forms for the uneducated persons. Furthermore, the centers provide seasonal programs such as income tax assistance, Thanksgiving baskets, and the Christmas gifts. The income tax services are essential to citizens because they ensure all the individuals under the assistance programs are compliant with the existing rules and regulations. The centers offer social services such as crisis intervention, family counseling, case management and home visits to the elderly people. However, only the licensed social workers have the capacity to undertake responsibilities that involve higher educational qualification (Payne, 2014). Finally, the organizations provide health services to the sick or children who are not under any medical insurance programs. Such services include health screening and vaccination, eye checkups, among other healthcare services. Health care services are essential for the wellbeing. Conclusively, the provision of health care services is among   primary responsibilities of the Neighborhood Centers..

The design of services offered by the centers is in line with the organizational mission. For instance, the provision of child cars seats, food pantry and other foodstuffs and the provision of community social services is in line with the need to strengthen the community engagement and increase the presence and participation of the centers in the community. Therefore, engaging the community through exercises such as health drives and donations fit directly into the strategic mission of increasing the organization presence in the community. The organization’s assistance programs such as the help on income tax filing, assistance with filling employment and referrals forms and the family counseling programs are lines with the centers’ objective of improving the education status in the affected communities. The approach ensures that the community gains primary knowledge in order to work within the set government framework. Lastly, assistance programs on job and employment forms filling are critical in ensuring the centers achieve their objective of improving and ensuring the financial freedom of numerous community members. Thus, all the services and the programs of the organizations are well designed to attain the centers’ objectives.

The Neighborhood Centers face a variety of challenges in the day-to-day activities. The centers face the challenge of funding. Most of the organization activities involve assistance to the needy persons. The needs of the people range from basic needs such as food and healthcare to activities that require expertise such as the provision of health services. However, the centers lack all the necessary funding to accomplish each of the afflicted desires. In addition, some of the activities require skilled labor, which is available only on hiring. Furthermore, lack of volunteers limits the extent to which the agency can meet its objectives. Some of the activities require the active participation of many people. Activities such as community social work, family counseling, and home visits require labor from a good number of people. In addition, some of the activities require some degree of education. Although, most of the qualified people are in full-time employment and are unwilling to work as volunteers. Hence, the lack of volunteers and funding are the major setbacks towards the achievement of the Neighborhood Centers’ objectives.

The Neighborhood Centers rely on donations and grants from the well-wishers. They span across many states in the United States, necessitating enormous contributions from the donors. Due to the nature of their social activities, the centers accept donations in the form of foodstuffs, clothes, and other essential items. The items go into meeting the needs of the senior citizens who do not have the capacity to work in order to achieve a meaningful livelihood. Moreover, the organizations receive aid in the form of medical supplies to assist the health care officers provide medical services to the sick and the old. The health services are essential in ensuring that the sick do not succumb to treatable illnesses. Also, the institution accepts monetary donations and grants from individuals that is instrumental in improving the financial situation of the weak in the society. The funding allows the underlying entity honor the operational and legal obligations while the surplus goes into assisting the poor to start small businesses. The advance is critical in ensuring the institution supports the community in achieving financial freedom. Therefore, donations and grants are the backbones of the establishment.

According to Pekkanen, Smith, and Tsujinaka (2014), the organization has a complimentary relationship with the government agencies. The complementary relationship is a kind interrelations where two bodies or participants with different behavioral patterns execute functions in joint interest and agree to sustain the relationship. Although the government allocates enormous resources towards assisting the needy members of the society, the troubled people do not receive the donations in time due to the bureaucracies involved. Hence, Neighborhood Centers act as complimentary to the government thereby stepping in to assist the neediest. Delays in releasing the government assistance to the needy, in most cases cause the death of children and the elderly due to their weakened immunity. Consequently, the organization plays a crucial role in ensuring that poor people do not suffer while waiting for the government supplies. In addition, the limited government budget allocated to the poor people does not accommodate the needs of all individuals in all the States. Consequently, the agency is critical in assisting the government achieves the goal of catering to the needs of the poor people. Additionally, the government acts to support the organization activities when faced with financial and management crisis. Thus, the complementary relationship is significant for the two parties in ensuring an empowered society.

There has not been any hostility between the Neighborhood Centers and the government of United States. The advance is due to the existence of an elaborate legal framework that outlines and guides the functions of an agency. The nonprofit entity executes its mandate within the legal framework of the non-profits. Since the inception, the nonprofit has accomplished its mandate following the set rules and regulations. What is more, the agency closely follows its policies that guide its operations to avoid collision with government authorities and the private entities. Its existence for over a century is an indication of the nonprofit commitment in observing the rule of law while doing the charity work.

The agency should scrutinize the individuals under the various assistance programs to ensure they are actually in need. The development would ensure that little assistance goes into empowering the needy people instead of those who are out to fleece the institution. By the same token, the organization should scrap individuals who get into employment from the assistance list to ensure accountability and prosperity. Moreover, the body should intensify its campaigns on the need for the donor funding and volunteering in order to serve more people. The campaigns should call for the services of qualified personnel to assist the organization in meeting its objectives.

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