Planning for Programatic & Financial Longevity

The Salvation Army began its work in Indianapolis in March 1889, initially operating from East New York Street. Founded by William and Catherine Booth in 1865 in London, the organization aimed to minister to the homeless and destitute. Over the years, the Salvation Army in Indianapolis has expanded its services to include homelessness support, substance abuse treatment, food insecurity relief, job training, and health assistance. Key facilities include the Harbor Light Center, a drug and alcohol treatment center, and the Ruth Lilly Women and Children’s Center, an emergency shelter. The organization continues to play a vital role in addressing systemic poverty and supporting marginalized communities in Indianapolis. 

As with many nonprofit organizations, the Salvation Army needed assistance planning for a sustainable future. To aid in this process, Bridge Builder Strategies created a comprehensive strategic playbook to set the organization up for a long and sustainable future. Our efforts began with an environmental, organizational, and peer organizational analysis that was used to identify best practices, external influences, and create a risk/opportunity matrix. 

From here, we conducted stakeholder interviews and collected data on the state of the community. After analyzing all our collected data and doing a combined analysis, we identified 5 strategic objectives the Salvation Army needs to focus on moving forward. Once we identified these objectives, we built out timelines to achieve these objectives, tactics to help achieve them, and measures that could be used to track progress toward the objectives. Finally, we used all this information to construct a comprehensive strategic playbook and reviewed it with the Salvation Army leadership before making final edits.