Celebrating our past and building our future at Vail Place

27 Jan Celebrating our past and building our future at Vail Place

All we faced, overcame and learned in 2020 has made our Vail Place family stronger, more resilient, and prepared to grow in 2021.

• In February Vail Place launched a thorough review and strategic planning process to anticipate the projected impact of COVID.
• In March we were ready and quickly began transforming all our programs – learning and refining as we went – to effective virtual programming that ensured the continued safety and well-being of our staff and the people we serve.

• In April we addressed one of the challenges of access to our virtual programs by launching a fundraising campaign (see below) to connect people to our programs by providing smartphones with service.
• By early summer, we were responding to the much-needed and growing calls to address racial injustice. We engaged the entire agency in frank discussions and evaluations of where we were and where we needed to be in our efforts toward racial justice. We expanded and formalized our Diversity Council, and we committed to agency-wide training, currently ongoing, by engaging the services of Team Dynamics.
• During the Summer and Fall, we took on the challenges of fundraising during the pandemic by turning our events virtual.

• • Our 19th annual Tour de Vail from home in July was our most successful ever.
  • Gearing Up for Changing Times, our Dr. Vail Hour virtual musical in October, was a smash hit …

    “There aren’t words to express to you how wonderful the Dr. Vail Hour was and how absolutely thrilled I was to watch it – warmed my heart!”

• By year’s end – thanks to your remarkable support – we had expanded partnerships, developed new service lines (notably in our housing and Integrated Care programming), and had grown by 20% to meet the large increase of referrals to our programs (while so many other organizations were shuttering programs and furloughing staff).

Thank you for making it possible to turn challenges into opportunities in 2020 and enter 2021 in a position of strength, hope and growing possibilities!

What we’ve accomplished and learned is critical as we will face uncertainty and new challenges. Already we’ve seen an attempted coup on our nation and attack on multiracial democracy – highlighting the urgent need for all of us to do all we can to battle racial injustice.

Our Vail Place community is used to meeting challenges …. We’ve been doing it for 40 years! Here’s a look at some of what we have planned for the year ahead.

• We will build on all our virtual successes.

• • Virtual programming will continue even when in-person programming returns so the people most at risk of isolation and in need of our services stay connected.
  • We have a strategic plan to take greater advantage of integrated communications, including updated website – reaching a broader audience with the message of our proven approach to care, so we connect more people in need to essential services and build broader support.
  • We will take our virtual fundraising to the next level, refining and growing our 2020 successes to mine the potential of these important funding initiatives.

• We will continue our agency-wide commitment to pursuing social and racial justice forcefully and strategically, aligning with our foundational, inclusive culture.
• We will grow deeper and stronger partnerships and we will be launching new ones – Stay tuned!

Thanks to the support of our community, the arc of Vail Place’s development over our history has always been upward. Sometimes incremental, sometimes in leaps and bounds. Our recent past has seen exponential growth spurred by necessity, opportunity, and vision.

I look forward during this 40th Anniversary year to sharing “mission milestones” from our first four decades, and our strategic plans for broadening the reach of our mission to meet ever-growing needs in 2021!

In celebration of 40 years of making a difference thanks to your understanding, caring and support!