Mission

We’re very proud of what we do here at Hopeworks and how we do it. Each you who comes in our door is cared for by a dedicated and professional staff. We partner with each youth to come up with a plan and then we hold ourselves accountable to that partnership. We measure what we do, we evaluate our selves and we look to improve each year. We are on the forefront of using Customer Relationship Management technology to track the progress and outcomes of each trainee as well as to gather data on each of our programs. We utilize a fully customized version of Salesforce to do this and the results have helped us to first, serve each youth better and more efficiently. Second we measure , evaluate and improve each area of Hopeworks on a regular basis. And finally, it has allowed us to communicate with our donors in timely and creative ways. Our mission at Hopeworks is to empower youth to develop their D.R.E.A.M.S. (Dynamic Realizable Efforts to Attain and Maintain Success) and to own their future. Our youth are Latino and African-American, ages 14 to 23. They live in Camden, New Jersey, the poorest city in the country in 2006. Some 57% of Camden youth live below the poverty line. Some of our Hopeworks youth are students; others have dropped out of school, like 70% of their peers. Others are on the move, like the 60% of their classmates who change schools each year. Hopeworks offers stability and promise. The heart of the Hopeworks program is technology training, which we provide in a safe, respectful and celebratory atmosphere. Our youth learn state-of-the art computer applications: website design, geographic information services (GIS), computer networking and repair, and video. At Hopeworks, we combine computer-based learning with on-the-job learning and learning-by-teaching-others, to show our youth that they can learn. This motivates and empowers them to learn even more, creating an extraordinarily effective learning-to-learn cycle. In the process, our youth can earn up to 15 college credits on-site at Hopeworks and can also attend local college classes. Many advance to earn paying jobs with Hopeworks, either as trainers helping others to learn, or in one of our non-profit businesses. Many of our youth have uneven educational experiences and some left school as early as the ninth grade, so literacy is a constant challenge. Our full-time Literacy Director helps the youth get back on track with daily instruction. This has the dual effect of boosting their confidence and bringing them quickly to a literacy level that enables them to benefit from the full range of Hopeworks programs. For students who are still in school, the Literacy Program helps them develop the tools and attitude they need to stay there and includes academic help as well as preparation for college admission tests.