City on a Hill is a catalyst working to save children, reach parents, and transform families in our central city neighborhood by breaking the cycle of generational poverty. We seek to end poverty in all its forms by empowering people with the spiritual, social, educational, and economic resources they need to realize their full potential, making transformational change possible in our community.

City on a Hill’s vision is to see the Lord exalted and His Kingdom enlarged as we embrace families in our neighborhood, equip Christians in our city and engage churches across our nation to revitalize entire neighborhoods. Ultimately, we see neighborhood residents empowered as the core catalysts to end poverty in all its forms at the neighborhood level.

Source: Nonprofit submitted responses

Goal One: Catalyzing discipleship-making movements in urban, central-city neighborhoods

Goal Type: Grow, expand, scale or increase access to the existing programs and services.

Goal Two: Accelerating pathways to economic mobility for youth and families in impoverished, central-city neighborhoods

Goal Type: New program(s) based on observed changes in needs among our constituencies/communities served.

Goal Three: Equip and mobilize a broad and diverse coalition of change agents to implement bold solutions and scale what works in ending poverty in all of its forms

Goal Type: This goal reflects our commitment to further our advocacy work for our organization and or cause area.

Describe an investment in leadership

We invest in the development of our Removing Racial Residue program to better equip our team and volunteers to lead change in ways that are cognizant and responsive to the needs of low-income communities and people of color. Further, we invest in sending staff to the Global Leaders Summit and making the content available afterward to our team so they can glean from leaders across the world on the most consequential leadership insights for 21st century needs. We also send a handful of team members every year to leadership journeys where they get to engage in coaching and group conversations about leading teams and creating inclusive cultures that drive impact.

This organization mobilizes for mission in the following ways:

• Strategic Partnerships

• Networks of Collective Impact Efforts

• Thought Leadership

• Raising Awareness

• Community Building

What are this organization’s external mobilizaton efforts?

We are part of the United Neighborhood Centers of Milwaukee collaborative where we share data, insights, and share strategies to better address the needs of youth, families, and neighborhoods in our city. This includes collective impact efforts and events that scale our reach, advocate for what works and share insights across our teams. City on a Hill annually runs webinars, sessions, and events to inform others on that state of poverty in Milwaukee, as well as emphasize research-based solutions to accelerate progress. We work with media experts and higher ed institutions like the Medical College of Wisconsin to raise awareness of factors important in poverty alleviation, like the social determinants of health. Our community-building efforts are informed by close collaboration with other neighborhood agencies like the Near Westside Partners and their community ambassador to ensure we are responsive to the most pertinent resident needs.

We have a blended staffing protocol that allows staff flexibility to work remotely when the nature of their work allows for it or if it becomes necessary for safety considerations (e.g., symptoms or exposure to someone who is ill). While our facility remains closed to the general public without appointments, our staff are mostly on-site serving the needs of the community, as we're deemed an essential service organization. We still offer emergency services (food & hygiene needs) for families and members of the community throughout the week following social distance standards. We've noticed an increase in demand for emergency services in the past months and have needed to provide additional emergency services and referrals to our guests. Our clinic is open and are serving guests, mostly assisting with medication refills, as well as telemedicine visits. Our monthly health outreaches resumed with various adjustments for safety. Our youth program staff are still serving youth, with methods modified to include virtual and outdoor activities due to COVID-19. All off-site deliveries and on-site programming follow CDC guidelines and social distancing practices.