History

Hope in Salvation

Ministry Overview
The ministry story begins with the personal tragedy of Velma Mitchell and Mike Fechner, after Velma's son and Mike's mentee was fatally shot in an act of random gang violence. This tragic death was the catalyst which led Mike and Velma to start the BridgeBuilder’s ministry with a hope to find new solutions to our city’s violence, poverty, and inequality. Today, HIS BridgeBuilders is one of the fastest growing non-profit organizations in Dallas. The ministry remains focused on combining biblical and innovative principles with evidence based programming while utilizing collaborative partnerships with Dallas churches, businesses, the public sector, and non-profit organizations to build bridges and break the cycle of hopelessness one person, one family at a time.

Building Bridges
H.I.S. BridgeBuilders is a movement. We are coming along side the people in our community, who we consider family. The men and women struggling to transform their lives—the children who want to do well in school—it is on behalf of the spiritually, culturally, socially, and economically isolated that we build bridges. Our bridges span churches such as Prestonwood Baptist Church, government organizations like Dallas Housing Authority, businesses like APC - Automated Parts Corp., and organizations like Habitat for Humanity. By bringing these organizations together we're able to effectively and efficiently achieve holistic community transformation.

Partnership & Strategy
Our partnership with the Dallas Housing Authority (DHA) began over a decade ago with the renovation of Turner Courts Gym in South Dallas, a facility that has now impacted thousands of people from our weekly outreach events, monthly Community Fellowship, and our annual Christmas Day Celebration. It’s through this facility that we first gain contact with many of our most successful clients, men and women with nowhere else to go.

HISBB has leveraged our partnership with DHA by opening our Optical Clinic and our first Dental Clinic*. By providing us with free facilities, they help us offer affordable health care to everyone in the community. In these clinics we have been able to offer the highest quality of care through partnerships with University of Houston School of Optometry and Serving HIM volunteer dentists. These organizations donate professional services, medical equipment, and supplies.

Building on the success of these clinics, we integrated employment training, mentoring, and job placement services: our optical lens lab doubles as a training space, allowing us to train and find employment for our students. We’ve formed close a partnership with Dallas County Community College to help fund, certify, and provide continuing education credits for our students. More than this, we take the time to invest in and develop each student through mentoring, life skills and communication training. Once our students graduate we work with them individually on interview skills and resume building before they interview, and we follow up with potential employers to gain feedback on our students’ interviews. Today, we’re rapidly expanding our training program in our newest facility, the Economic Development Center (EDC).

Strategic business partnerships have been the fuel to our exponential growth over the past two years. Key executive volunteers help craft our business plans, identify market opportunity, and maintain best practices. Corporate partners provide funding and donate materials to our health clinics and social businesses. Employment partners advise our employment training classes and hire our graduates; it’s a deal that not only reinvests in the community but also makes smart business sense because our classes reduce employer training, hiring costs and employee turnover.
Partnering with other service providers reduces duplication and increases value for our clients. For example, Habitat for Humanity built 30 homes in the same community where we invest in people. Through this partnership, our BridgeBuilder families have the opportunity to get an affordable new homes, and Habitat knows that their investments will last.

Finally, we are a faith-based non-profit. While the plan is to strive to reach revenue self-sustainability in five years, we know that God is our true sustainer. By faith we have come this far.

*coming Q2 - 2012