About Us

The Alliance of Community Assistance Ministries, ACAM, strengthens the regional social safety net by garnering resources and offering programmatic opportunities to community-based nonprofits.

We do more together through:

Creating state of the art programming and initiatives that fosters evaluation and builds a learning community
Aligning and garnering talent and resources to support the expanding reach of the Network
Developing technology and data-driven solutions with the Network
Strategically supporting and leveraging leadership and assets
Building the brand of the Network as a whole
Communicating results to increase the impact of our network

ACAM Members are:

• Premier and expert providers of basic needs services
• Held to a higher standard, and
• Community partners who mentor peer ACAM members to benefit the network and the community

Click here for answers to frequently asked questions about ACAM.

ACAM CORE PROGRAMS:

Organizational Development

ACAM promotes sound practices in nonprofit operations and programming. Organizational assessments inform members on areas of strength and weakness and are used to develop capacity building plans. ACAM supports plan implementation through stipends for training and consulting and direct grants to develop organizational infrastructure.

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Community Education and Outreach

This component is aimed at increasing membership by reaching out to underserved parts of Greater Houston, raising the profile of member organizations as service hubs in their communities and raising awareness around the issues affecting the people served by the CAMs. Activities are focused on rallying support for initiatives and funding that will provide pathways out of poverty for ACAM’s member ministries’ clients.

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Training and Networking

This component promotes best practice knowledge, peer learning and information exchange for the following groups: executive directors, resource development, volunteer management, program development and Thrift Store Institute. Peer mentoring relationships are developed among executive directors. This component also helps to build relationships between ACAM members and funders.

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Collaborative Initiatives

ACAM helps members use their collective strength to develop city-wide service streams and service models that address root causes of poverty. ACAM also organizes member- and funder-driven initiatives to provide immediate response to member needs. ACAM is effective in coordinating efforts to address emergency situations affecting the lives of the clients served by member organizations, including but not limited to disaster relief.

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Management Support

From its beginnings as a funder-initiated project, ACAM has a deeply ingrained appreciation and recognition that ongoing strategic discussion, development and evaluation is critical to the continued success of any organization or collaborative. ACAM’s client organizations and collaborative partners receive an array of supports from ACAM including fiduciary policy and procedure development, case management development assistance, resource development, and leadership and staff mentoring and training.

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For a one page overview of ACAM program components, click here.

ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENTS

Ongoing evaluation is critical to the continued success of any program. Through the services of trained consultants, ACAM members complete comprehensive on-site assessments to determine whether increased collaboration, new learning and growth in services resulted from their participation.

ACAM also enables ministries to evaluate their own programs by offering specialized training, one-on-one coaching, organizational assessment tools and the services of an external evaluator. Participants review specific client outcomes and capacity building efforts in order to develop actionable goals and indicators that better measure community impact.

ACAM and its members designed and implemented the Nine Elements Assessment Tool (NEAT©), an evidence-based system for assessing nonprofit organizational capacity. The project team that designed NEAT© included three categories of stakeholders: 1) executive directors representing the nonprofits that would use the system, 2) the Alliance of Community Assistance Ministries (ACAM), and 3) external evaluators who facilitate the assessments.

ACAM builds nonprofit capacity to increase organizational
sustainability and help groups proactively respond to growing
and changing community needs.

ACAM is part of the growing field of management support organizations (MSOs) that assist nonprofits in developing capacity. MSOs like ACAM have a challenging role with responsibilities to two sets of clients: the nonprofits to which they provide capacity building assistance and the funding community, which expects measurable results from their investment in these programs. The active involvement of nonprofits in “setting the agenda” for capacity building is challenging but important to creating effective programs. Organizational development requires commitment and the nonprofits involved must be confident that the expected outcomes are relevant for their organizations. Their input on content and format can help ensure that the program is customized to fit their context and needs, a factor that can increase program impact. Both ACAM and its nonprofit members are equally charged with identifying goals that that are achievable, but also exciting to funders and board members.