Our Strategic Plan

After months of thoughtful planning and research on poverty in our communities, we determined a shared sense of direction among staff, leaders, and the organization’s board. Using this feedback, we developed core areas of focus:

• Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County’s (CCSCC’s) Footsteps Initiative is a new approach that provides families with a pathway to self-sufficiency. This family-centered community-change strategy adds two new service tiers to the agency’s offerings. 

  • The first is the Integrated Services Model. In this model we tie together our existing portfolio of services and programs with a “Seamless Welcome” and a robust referral service capability. 

  • The second new service tier added by Footsteps is the Long-term Engagement Model. This model, which leverages the capabilities of the Integrated Services Model, will accept a select number of families and assign them service navigators that will journey with the families as they work to get themselves out of poverty.

We believe that CCSCC’s unmatched portfolio of existing social services, staff and volunteers with lived experience, our deep presence in neighborhoods most affected by poverty and inequality, and our broad network of partners provides us with a strong foundation to build Footsteps. 

Organizationally, our internal plans call for:

• An overall technology transformation to engage and evaluate services to inform our work

• Equipping our staff with the training and learning they need to adapt and succeed in this new environment

• And funding the initiatives with partnerships and support from individuals and organizations who share our vision.

The net result: Enabling more families to get out of poverty and to stay there.

Teams from multiple CCSCC programs are now supporting families in Gilroy, where the pilot for Footsteps was launched in 2021