EverHope expands services, enhances support for children, families

Bentonville nonprofit Northwest Arkansas Children’s Shelter recently changed its name to EverHope and released a new logo as it launches and expands services for the children it serves throughout Arkansas.

CEO Rebekah Mitchell said EverHope began a strategic planning process in 2024 to understand what it’s doing well and to ensure it’s continuing to meet the changing needs of children “in a way that aligns directly with our mission. What we realized is that we don’t want to be a moment of hope. We want to be that hope that is always there for children and families.”

To achieve this, she said the nonprofit needed to ensure it “walked alongside children and families on that entire journey all the way from prevention through mitigation and crisis, into recovery.”

The strategic planning process involved its board, clients, community partners and work groups. Through this, the nonprofit learned that it was already doing more than operating as an emergency shelter, “which really is the heart and flagship of our work and always will be,” she said. “But we’ve grown into foster care licensing, into schools, into supporting youth as they transition to adulthood.”

The nonprofit’s growth into this work was the catalyst for the strategic planning process and led it to change its name to EverHope. Mitchell said the nonprofit’s new name allows it to expand into foster care, academic and pathways-to-adulthood spaces.

“The rebrand is being received very positively in this community and across the state,” Mitchell said. “Our organization was started because of this community and has always been a part of the work that we’re doing. So I think that it was a natural transition for everyone.”

Since Benton County Juvenile Court Judge Terry Crabtree founded the nonprofit in 1993, it has supported more than 13,300 Arkansas children in crisis, providing 24-hour residential care to children and teens who are victims of abandonment, abuse or neglect. When children are removed from their home, it is often the first place they go before being placed in a foster home.

Mitchell said the nonprofit serves about 300 children annually, and the number is increasing as its programs grow. She said the nonprofit meets the growing needs of children through partnerships.

“It’s really important to us that we’re stabilizing systems around families,” she said. “We’re not just focusing on the crisis. And so part of this evolution is to also be able to be better partners, really start focusing on the system itself.

“Our hope is … by partnering with other agencies that support the family, that support the health and the mental health, and the school, and the business, and all of those things that a family needs to be sustainable and thrive, that we can actually help prevent this from happening and stabilizing families, and that’s important to us to really focus on those systems of care because we’re all connected.”

IN THE PLAN
EverHope’s strategic plan was developed over the past two years and expands its work across four trauma areas: prevention, mitigation, crisis and recovery. Previously, the nonprofit was largely working in the crisis space before moving into mitigation and prevention through its EverHope school project.

The plan includes the start of EverHope’s foster home licensing program. It allows the nonprofit to license foster homes in the area and ensures there are enough foster homes here, “so that every child in our community can go into a foster home and stay local in foster care instead of being moved to another area of the state,” Mitchell said. “And then the other portion of that strategic plan is to continue our growth of EverHope school project and expand our pathways to adulthood program.”

Mitchell said the school project began in 2019 with charter school Hope Academy and was designed for children who had experienced trauma. It served families in Northwest Arkansas who had children in foster care or who had been recently adopted. She said it was a successful program, and during the strategic planning process, the nonprofit considered replicating it across the state. The nonprofit learned that the charter school model wouldn’t be sustainable across the state, leading EverHope to close the charter and move to a private model that works directly with schools.

“It helped us drastically reduce our overhead and increase the amount of impact we could have in this community,” she said. “So now we’re in the Springdale School District.”

As a result, EverHope is no longer limited in the number of children it can serve. She said this also keeps children in their home schools and communities. The work is also “tying families to the support that the child needs to be successful in school because you can do all the work in school. But if you’re not also supporting at home, then you’re not going to see that change happen.”

Staff work in classrooms supporting teachers and in homes helping with bedtime routines, helping families with jobs, education, parenting and skills — “all of those things to ultimately keep children and families together,” she added. The plan is to replicate the school model to serve children in districts across the state.

COMMUNITY SUPPORTED
EverHope serves children across Arkansas, and as a private nonprofit, its work is made possible by area support. Mitchell said only 15% of its funding comes from the state. The rest comes from individual donors, private foundations and community events. Top fundraisers include the Kentucky Derby Party in the spring and the Kickball for the Kids tournament and Vendor Dinner, which are hosted in the fall.

According to tax records, the nonprofit’s revenue increased by 57.2% from $3.14 million in 2014 to $4.95 million in 2022. The 2022 fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2023, is the most recent year for which IRS records are available.

EverHope has 72 employees who work directly with foster homes, in schools, or in area homes and at the emergency shelter on campus, Mitchell said. The nonprofit also has “an incredible army of volunteers.” The 82-acre EverHope campus includes over 61,000 square feet in buildings, offices, school, cafeteria, gym, playground and bike trails.

Asked whether the nonprofit has plans to add or expand its buildings, Mitchell said EverHope doesn’t have any capital expansion plans in the works. She added that she would rather partner than grow the organization or duplicate services.

“It is expansion through collaboration and efficiency so that we are being the best stewards of our resources, and we’re providing a system of care, not just a program, that truly supports children and families in that process,” she said.