Areas of Impact

Our organization exists to help facilitate the involvement of passionate, faithful, committed mentors in the hearts and lives of these precious, inner-city boys and girls. Novo Ministries is affecting and changing Oklahoma City through the following areas of impact:

Impact #1: We are educating the non-urban community about the inner city.
All of our training is designed to equip individuals to work effectively with inner-city children. Basic Training covers essential elements of working with inner-city children and communicating positive values and life-changing truths to them. Reaching Our Inner City Training provides individuals working with inner-city children with a greater understanding of inner-city culture and effective ministry within that context. During the past school year, we conducted 61 trainings for 197 individuals.

Impact #2: We are equipping faithful individuals to impact the lives of under-resourced, at-risk children.
In order to reach and mentor inner-city children, we believe that those working with them must be properly equipped through adequate training, ongoing mentorship, and the provision of curriculum and resources. The curriculum we have developed is values-based, relevant to inner-city children, and simple (as well as economical) to implement. Over the past school year, we have developed 37 lessons of curriculum and 4 handbooks.

Impact #3: We are impacting the community through program facilitation and beneficial partnerships.
In order to maximize impact and effectiveness, we have established partnerships with local churches and organizations, which we offer at two levels—“Program Site” and “Partner Site.” This past year we added 17 new partners for a total of 28 church and organizational partners.

Program Site partners are entities that have chosen to adopt specific inner-city communities and reach them through a Novo Ministries program. All Program Site partners receive training, curriculum, uniforms, supplies, snacks, resources, and more at no charge. This partnership enables churches and organizations to mobilize volunteers to reach communities that they could not have reached otherwise due to a lack of funding, experience, and / or knowledge.

Our Partner Site relationship assists churches and organizations that have existing programs or plans and do not want to simultaneously run a formal Novo Ministries program. Many of these partners need additional training to equip their workers who serve in church programs and find themselves working with inner-city kids. Others need curriculum for existing organizational programs – such as Whiz Kids program or other weekend program. We serve fourteen partner sites by offering any training, curriculum, or consultation that can benefit their existing work with inner-city children.

Impact #4: We are mentoring inner-city boys and girls, providing positive role models, and offering guidance.
Our program sites include public elementary schools, community centers, housing projects, and apartment complexes—all located less than 2,000 feet from where the children live or attend school. During the 2009-2010 school year, more than 1,500 children enrolled at 17 sites throughout Oklahoma City. Currently, over 170 volunteers are involved in the lives of these boys and girls. Through our partner sites with other local churches and organizations, more than 540 additional children have been reached this year.

Impact #5: We are equipping inner-city children to be productive, contributing adults.
Every day, inner-city children face negative influences and deal with incredible challenges. Our goal is to set a good example for these children and encourage them to make right choices. We want to help them find purpose in life, avoid repeating the poor choices of their family members or those in their communities, and learn to know and serve God with their lives. Although it is somewhat difficult to assess the success of this particular area of impact, we nevertheless see the need to quantify our impact in this area. This year, we have begun the process of establishing two formal methods of evaluation. As of April 2010, we began evaluating our programs using the Youth Program Quality Assessment tool from the David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality (www.cypq.org). This formal method of evaluation is recommended by the Oklahoma After-School Network. We are in the process of establishing a formal survey evaluation for the children who attend our programs with an external consulting firm – The Outcome Zone. Implementation of this formal survey evaluation is occurring during the 2010 – 2011 school year.