our combined organization
The Center for Families and Children (CFC), West Side Ecumenical Ministry (WSEM) and El Barrio have joined together to increase our impact on the community. We have entered into an affiliation agreement that became effective on April 1, 2011, and have begun combining our operations. CFC is the parent corporation and WSEM is a subsidiary corporation. Our combined organization has core strengths in early learning, food centers, behavioral health, youth development and workforce development.
The combination of CFC, WSEM and El Barrio allows us to achieve our shared vision of providing opportunities and hope for children, adults and families living in poverty in our community. We know that the number of people in need of our services continues to grow at a time when the funds available to provide critical services are rapidly diminishing. Together, we have a strong presence on both the east and west sides of Greater Cleveland, and the scale, depth and reach we need for sustained impact and growth in this highly competitive funding environment – a better position than any one of us would be in alone.
This is an exciting time for our organization. We have worked diligently over the past several months to bring together our administrative operations and to take full advantage of the strengths that all three organizations bring to the table. This should be completed by the end of the year. We are now turning our attention to strategically aligning our programs to better serve our clients in the community. We are also heading into a detailed strategic planning process that will map out our sustainability and growth plan for years to come. We hope to have our strategic plan finalized by the middle of 2012 and at that time, we will have a better understanding of what our organization will look like and how we can continue to better our services for our community.
Please check back to hear about our progress as we continue to evolve our organization in order to better meet the needs of our community!