RECIPROCITY COLLECTIVE
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Mission Statement
Practicing the belief that Vital Connections build Vibrant Communities, The Reciprocity Collective seeks and fosters partnerships between the business and nonprofit communities to respectfully and effectively guide individuals from communities of Poverty and Homelessness forward. Based on our belief that every human has value and deserves respect, we lift voices in the community from marginalized populations, driving cultural change through advocacy, support and empowerment.
About This Cause
Founded in the commitment that every human has value and deserves respect, The Reciprocity Collective (TRC) is a voice in the community, empowering marginalized populations, driving cultural change through advocacy, support, and empowerment. Informed by the belief that vital connections build vibrant communities, TRC seeks and fosters relationships between businesses, community organizations, and nonprofit entities. These connections exist to respectfully and effectively support and guide community members facing poverty and homelessness on their paths to attain sustainable housing, purpose, and health. TRC was established in 2016 in response to the complex, intersecting challenges faced by individuals experiencing homelessness, poverty, and trauma, and traditional service providers' inability to sufficiently address them. Originally founded to create a collaborative model of supportive employment, TRC has since evolved as a dynamic conduit of participants to diverse community resources and allies, acknowledging the integrated support participants need to maintain stability long-term. Through our respect for fundamental human dignity, TRC is committed to earning trust by consistently practicing reliable compassion, vulnerability, and transparency. We differentiate ourselves by our commitment to filling the gaps in our community with strengths-based services, individualized to our participants' hopes and needs. When you live on the margins of healthy community, the path forward to stability and health is obstructed by barriers; external and internal, seen and unseen. For individuals and families experiencing homelessness, confusing and complex support systems, barriers to access due to technology and lack of understanding, lack of coordination between silos of care, lack of respect and value for their histories and humanity, all lead to an endless cycle of hopelessness and despair. In 2016, The Reciprocity Collective was founded with the idea of how an organization would walk side by side with marginalized folks to help support them: Building safe and respectful relationships and working together to problem solve challenges, obliterate barriers, fill gaps in services and to find and create meaningful connections to community resources to help move towards health and stability. Seven years on, the original idea of TRC has grown and flourished. We meet individuals in the community on the streets and in shelters and encampments, providing access to: ● Basic Needs: SNAP benefits, clothing, cell phones, access to technology and mail. ● Transportation: bus passes to where they need and want to go, gas cards, Medical Taxi services. ● Obtaining and often funding vital documents: birth certificates, IDs, SS Cards ● Mental and physical health: helping with medical intake forms, hospital release into safe environments, tele-medical and virtual mental health check-ins, long term Medicaid applications with connections to housing and facilities for care,sober living / recovery, VI-SPDAT and case management coordination. ● TRC has brought together RMHS, DOLA, Colorado Access, RAE teams as well as coordinating with Stout St. Health Center, St. Joseph’s Hospital, UC Health, Salvation Army and the VA to assess and facilitate intakes to needed services and care. ● Working with HOST, MDHI, Atlantis Communities, DHA to access housing vouchers and supportive Housing Navigation to find apartments for residency. Above all, TRC builds safe relationships and becomes a trusted ally with people who have been shut out and are filled with mistrust of the community and “services”. TRC triages their immediate needs and lays the groundwork and action for longer term and will continue to work with them beyond the limits of the shelter operation when it closes in late November. Often support programs take a systems-centric approach that doesn’t respond to immediate needs and evolving challenges. TRC was established to rethink traditional approaches and our nimbleness has proved vital through the pandemic. We’ve stepped in to fill gaps relying on general operating support to enable redirection of services to where and when it’s most needed. We recognize this may not appeal to all funders yet is necessary to ensure rapid and responsive action for the most vulnerable of our citizens. Funding of this important approach and work is vital to the health and wellbeing of the most vulnerable in our community; in shelters and on the streets. INCLUSIVENESS: The TRC definition of inclusiveness encompasses diversity and the agency's underlying respect for the needs, viewpoints, and contributions of all people. Peer Mentors and Peer Community Navigators who work as staff and volunteers are an integral part of TRC’s position and work in the community. Many have overcome the same challenges faced by participants, which ensures TRC’s leadership reflects constituent voices and our programs are driven by the voices and needs of our participants. We will differentiate ourselves by our commitment to filling the gaps in our community with understanding and consistent follow through. We will remain adaptable in delivering strengths-based services, individualized to our participant’s needs, in a collaborative environment without barriers.