Over the last two years, Riis Settlement has experienced tremendous growth. Riis Academy added three new after-school programs, the Senior Center has seen increased levels of participation and our Immigrant Services Program is incubating a new worker’s coop. As Riis Settlement continues to expand, it is essential that the organization remains focused, flexible and responsive to the community. With this in mind, we have been working to develop a comprehensive five-year strategic plan.
Over the past 5 months, a team of senior staff members and our Executive Director, Christopher Hanway, have held meetings to gather data and make decisions that will shape and guide who we are, what we do, and why we do it. Riis Settlement engaged Mr. Mohan Sikka of Community Resource Exchange (CRE) as a consultant to help facilitate this planning process. We have held focus groups within each program to identify emerging trends, needs and assets within the community. We have refined our programmatic logic models and looked at ways to increase the positive impact we have on our participants. We look forward to having developed a five-year strategic plan with concrete steps for implementation by the end of this summer.
Riis Settlement is pleased to have built a secure foundation over the more than 60 years we have been embedded in Long Island City, Queens. Our strong infrastructure, quality staff, amazing participants and close allies and partnerships all help us to fulfill our mission to build and strengthen underserved communities in greater Western Queens and act as a catalyst for change. We are excited to be developing a strategic plan that will build on this foundation and serve as a management tool to set a positive course for the future of Riis Settlement.
We are especially grateful to our Board of Directors for their strong support of this process, to the Robert Bowne and Altman Foundations and the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development for helping to fund this process and to CRE and Mohan Sikka for helping to facilitate the process.
