Thank you for trusting us!
Trust plays such a strong role between and among donors, recipients of assistance, and Bridges & Balm. Donors, thank you for your generous and caring donations. To those who have reached out in need, thank you for sharing your vulnerabilities and situations with us.
Our effectiveness and relevance as a charity depends on transparency and trust. At Bridges & Balm, we understand that while trust is earned slowly over time, it can be destroyed very quickly. We strive to earn your trust every day and treat it with great care.
Trust is earned when we each act and react in expected and appropriate ways to requests and challenges. From the Bridges & Balm perspective, that means we adhere to our stated operational policies and are transparent in our operations without violating the privacy of our community. To that end, we established a comprehensive set of operational and privacy policies that govern our actions. These are all publicly available on our website.
Maintaining transparency in our operations without disclosing personal identifying information (PII) are two important requirements which may seem at odds with one another. But they really aren’t. We can maintain transparency in our operations without disclosing personal identifying information because we can be open about what we are doing and how we are doing it without disclosing identities. Our privacy policies are designed to protect the personal information and identities of those we are working with.
Donors, we appreciate the many ways you have trusted us even though we have a short operating history. Donors put trust in Bridges & Balm to:
Manage your donations efficiently and transparently per our published policies.
Distribute your donations to those in need fairly and consistently, based on our published policies & procedures.
Respect and honor earmarks and donation preferences.
Not use donations to push hidden or personal agendas.
Respect your privacy by not disclosing donor names or donation amounts.
Provide transparency into our operations and financial situation which gives confidence that we operate in an efficient, fair, and honorable way with your contributions.
We also deeply appreciate the trust that recipients of assistance put in us. For us to effectively evaluate the level and likely duration of need, recipients first must choose to ask for support – no small thing – and then are asked to share personal details about their living situations that have placed them in a state of need. We well understand that this can be a humbling experience, and is not an action taken lightly.
More specifically, assistance recipients trust Bridges & Balm to:
Be compassionate and understanding of your personal experiences.
Consistently deliver on our assistance commitments.
Provide assistance fairly and in adherence to our policies and procedures.
Be up-front and transparent about what we can and can’t do.
Keep all personal information private.
As for our part, Bridges & Balm must also trust our donor and assistance community. We have no reason to exist if those with needs do not reach out, nor can we meet those needs without a generous donor community. Thankfully, this has been very easy for us to do – as you have already delivered way beyond our expectations.
We trusted that we would find donors to step up for people needing assistance, and you have. We trusted that resting and transitioning workers and survivors would be willing to share your most personal experiences, needs, and fears with Bridges & Balm staff, and many of you have. We also believe that the more trust we establish with our community, the more you will open your hearts, needs, and pocketbooks to us.
To build and maintain trust, we follow our operating policies and procedures to minimize the possibility of a breach of operational policy or the inappropriate disclosure of private information.
We have established and published policies and procedures and attempt to follow them to the letter. Our operational policies and procedures are available on our website and we hope and expect you will critique them and suggest improvements where needed.
In our internal operations we limit personal identifying information to only those who have an express need to know. In our Board meetings, we refer to assistance recipients by their code names. Access to donation amounts and personal information are limited to only those who manage donations.
We govern ourselves by a comprehensive set of bylaws. If anyone on our staff breaches our privacy, operational or transparency policies, they will either be removed from roles with access to private information, or removed from a role with the Bridges & Balm altogether.
Transparency in our operations is provided by monthly updates of our assistance allocation totals. The number of assistance recipients and the assistance dollar totals are available on the Funds Overview and Activity page on the Bridges & Balm website.
Our latest financial data is also displayed in the form of charts on our website that provide a view of our current finances compared to our current monthly assistance commitments and our six month assistance commitments. We can also provide more information on this page as we gather more operational data and understand better what would be beneficial for you to know about us.
We also hope to share personal stories of how individual lives are being impacted in the future. This will be solely at the discretion of these individuals to share if and when they feel comfortable. In the meantime, we hope you trust that your donations are making a very big difference in the lives of the recipients. In some cases, this means being able to put food on the table that month. In other cases, this means access to desperately-needed treatment for their trauma, reducing the frequency of suicidal ideations that many experience, and otherwise providing tools for healing.
This all leads up to a question we have for you, the Bridges & Balm community: What more can we do to increase your trust in us? Please leave any thoughts and comments by commenting on this blog post, clicking on the “Contact Us” link on our website, or emailing us directly at BridgesandBalm@gmail.com. If you have ideas on how we can improve and ways we can further earn trust in us, the biggest favor you can do is tell us!
Thank you again for trusting us and believing in us!
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