St. Johns Main Street Annual Report Fiscal Year 2015 July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2015
LETTER FROM OUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR December 31, 2015 Dear friends and supporters: It has been such a joy reflecting on this past year and on all the things that we have accomplished as an organization. Since I started in July 2014, the organization has gone through a significant strategic planning process, expanded our programs and services, hired new staff, acquired the St. Johns Famers Market and so much more. It’s pretty mind blowing, really. However, what truly gets me excited is thinking about all that lay in store for the next year! As a part of our strategic planning process, the organization made some bold (and exciting) decisions. For one, we decided to extend our boundaries to the entirety of St. Johns and to extend our target audience. We also made the decision to talk about ourselves as a community economic development organization versus a business support or historic preservation organization. These certainly remain core elements of the work that we do, but our overarching goal is to support a sustainable local economy for the St. Johns neighborhood. With an amazing team in place and growing support from the neighborhood, I am confident that we are on track to knock our strategic goals out of the ballpark in the coming year. I look forward to writing this letter next year and highlighting all of the wonderful things we have achieved in the St. Johns community. We truly appreciate your support and look forward to continuing working with you! With lots of gratitude,
Lindsay Jensen, Executive Director
LEADERSHIP TEAM
BOARD OF DIRECTORS Board Member (as of 6/30/15): Emily Stanfield, Board Chair Salty Teacup Shamaine Coffee, Vice Chair Coffee Kids Emily Spall, Secretary Oregonians Credit Union Nicole Blanchette, Treasurer Leisure Public House Reggie Guyton State Farm Insurance Stephen Green Albina Community Bank Ken Aaron Neighborhood Notes & Ken Aaron Photography John Huckfeldt Marie’s Gilbert Luzader Community Resident Tom Stubblefield Stubblefield Painting Trang Lam Portland Parks and Recreation Nikki Guerrero Hot Mama Salsa
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Lindsay Jensen, MBA Lindsay is a native Oregonian and St. Johns enthusiast. She came to St. Johns Main Street in July 2014, bringing extensive nonprofit management, community development and youth development experience. She holds her BA in Sociology from Seattle Pacific University and MBA from Boston University with a dual concentration in Public and Nonprofit Management and Finance. In addition to serving as our rock star Executive Director, she also serves as the National Board Chair for the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network. She brings expertise in financial management, strategic planning, and community mobilizing. In her down time, Lindsay can be found spending time with her husband and son, shopping at local businesses, watching Oregon State football and telling hilarious jokes.
OVERVIEW OF ORGANIZATION MISSION St. Johns Main Street is working to create a thriving and sustainable local economy for the St. Johns neighborhood. As part of the national Main Street movement, we promote local prosperity and livability by serving as a resource hub for community and local business.
WHAT WE DO • Support local businesses with training and resources to help them succeed • Create spaces where the community can gather (placemaking) • Act as a convener and advocate for local businesses and community organizations • Connect residents of St. Johns with local jobs, and empower businesses to hire locally • Promote community health through access to local food • Advocate for affordable housing
We also like to fight crime with community members!
HISTORY AND IMPACT
St. Johns Main Street (SJMS) was founded in 2010 by a group of community activists and visionaries who wanted to spark community revitalization by focusing on St. Johns’ unique downtown area. With the support of Portland Development Commission and the National Main Street Center, this group of activists and visionaries built up a strong organization that has created significant impact in its five short years of existence. Since inception, SJMS has brought increased vitality to the St. Johns business district through physical improvement projects like new trash cans, refurbished benches, and street sign toppers, and strengthened local businesses through retail promotions and bimonthly seminars and mixers. As a volunteerdriven organization, our community volunteers dedicated over 4,000 hours of service in the last year. Our three committees and board meet monthly, made up of more than 40 dedicated volunteers. Our special projects are supported by many more; in partnership with the University of Portland, our Cleansweep events have engaged more than 400 student volunteers over 2 years. In 2014, SJMS hired a consultant – Carri Munn from CauseIt Consulting – to guide us through an eight month strategic planning process. It was through this process that our board and staff recognized the need to approach our work from a slightly different angle since key needs in St. Johns were going unmet and we were wellpositioned to address them. Since then, we have expanded our service boundaries from the traditional Main Street corridor to the entirety of St. Johns and diversified our programmatic offerings to include local job development, affordable housing advocacy and investing in our community groups, in addition to the traditional small business support and community beautification work we have already been providing. These additions to our programmatic portfolio are based on stated community needs, in addition to evaluating effective community economic development theory of change models.
KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Hired a new Executive Director in July 2014 Developed and launched a twoyear strategic plan for the organization Hosted six business seminars/mixers and a business solutions fair Utilized over 300 University of Portland students to help with community beautification projects like Ivyless Island, trash cleanup, graffiti removal, the Tree Well Project and other landscaping efforts in the downtown corridor Granted over $18,000 in Storefront Mini Grant Funds to local businesses Launched a Public Art project that is currently in the works! Doubled our budget and raised new funds from foundations such as Meyer Memorial Trust and New Seasons Hosted our 2nd annual fundraising event and increased both individual and corporate contributions through the event Acquired the Farmers Market in November 2014 & The Art Constitutional in March 2015 Launched a robust Food Equity Initiative at the Farmers Market and distributed more than $6,500 in free food to residents inneed through our SNAP match and Veggie Voucher programs Fiscally sponsored the St. Johns Bizarre Hosted six Leadership Forum meetings at the Main Street office Organized the annual Volunteer Fair event in partnership with the St. Johns Neighborhood Association Tripled our staff! We now have a Community Programs Manager on staff in addition to our Farmers Market Manager. Organized multiple promotional opportunities like the Fall Coupon Book, Shop St. Johns Saturday, Willamette Week holiday insert, Springo Bingo, Sidewalk Sale Actively participated in community events such as the Halloween Walk and WinterFest Launched the St. Johns Market Analysis, which you can download on our website Successfully worked with Speaker Tina Kotek to create a new grant program that helps communities participating in the Oregon Main Street Network to take on transformative downtown projects
FINANCIAL OVERVIEW
SNAPSHOT OF FISCAL YEAR 15 Our fundraising goal was $215,520.44. We raised $239,056.01 (we deferred $43,989.74 to FY16, so our P&L statement shows total income at $195,066.27). We said we would spend $196,897.94. We spent $177,960.65. We anticipated a profit of $18,622.50 to reinvest in the organization. We ended with a profit of $17,105.62.
COMPARISON TO FISCAL YEAR 14
FINANCIAL RATIOS
FINANCIAL RATIOS Reliance on Government Funding 132,893.26/$195,066.27 = .68 or 68% SelfSufficiency Ratio (the proportion of operating expenses that are covered by earned income) $20,760.54/$195,066.27 = .11 or 11% Percentage of Budget for Personnel $68,062.19/$195,066.27 = .35 or 35% Current assets over current liabilities (ability to pay obligations) $128,169.55/$89,876.83 = 1.42 or 142% Cash on Hand (as of 6/30/15) 3.21 months
Brought to you by our Ratio Robot!
FUNDING SOURCES
SIGNIFICANT FUNDING SOURCES 1. Metro – North Portland Enhancement Grant 2. Portland Development Commission 3. Earned Income/Program Service Fees – Farmers Market, Art Constitutional, promotional events 4. Other Grants – Meyer Memorial Trust 5. Corporate Contributions Port of Portland, Oregonians Credit Union, Urban Living Property Management, New Seasons, Marvel 29, Coffee Kids, Madison Automotive, Burgerville, GreenSavers, Dr. Nick Mellum, Linnton Feed & Seed, Cathedral Park Place, Paychex
FUNDING BREAKDOWN
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE TWO-YEAR STRATEGIC GOALS Goal 1: Strengthen existing and emerging businesses in St. Johns. (Metrics: grow by 15%, select turnover rate; 300 residents hired) Goal 2: Community leaders recognize Main Street as the central distribution point for business and community information in St. Johns. (Metrics: content received, content distributed, growth in distribution lists and information requests) Goal 3: Community organizations, local governments, neighborhood groups and business owners relate to Main Street as a trusted advisor and primary convener within St. Johns. Goal 4: Sustainable financial resources are sufficient to meet current organizational goals and allow for planned growth. (Metrics: total revenue, revenue diversity, cash flow) Goal 5: Internal management and leadership capabilities support Main Street’s expanded role in the community. (Metrics: staff retention, salary increases, performance goals, board composition)
HOW WE WILL MEASURE SUCCESS SJMS has been working to develop a datadriven, learningbased culture so that we can continually improve our work and do things more effectively. Some of the tools we use to measure our success include: tracking business and property information in our Downtown Diva database, utilizing the Project Impact PDX model to evaluate our programmatic effectiveness, having our board & staff use reportout templates to show progress on our strategic plan and sharing out a robust Treasurer’s report at board meetings that features financial ratios and organizational comparatives. These tools are a unique combination of tracking both qualitative and quantitative data. Our plan is to leverage all of these tools to report out on how we are doing as an organization this next year (and beyond).