For the Women’s Resource Center, 2016 was a pivotal year for growth that included expanded programs and services, an increased number of beneficiaries, broadened internal capacity, and new partnerships and strengthened existing partnerships with the business community and mission-related nonprofits. More specifically WRC:
Expanded Programs
- Experienced a 55% increase in women utilizing counseling services, surpassing our 38% goal.
- Served 90 women and men in informal education workshops on women’s health, women’s rights, financial literacy, and parenting.
- Provided school outreach workshops to 77 students on alcohol awareness, peer pressure, domestic violence, and gender roles.
- Piloted a multimedia program to help students increase technology skills and deal with issues like cyber bullying.
Broadened Internal Capacity
- Created three new staff positions to expand our capabilities, including Executive Director, Donor Relations Manager, and Communications and Marketing Officer.
- Supported staff through 356 hours of training.
- Implemented new monitoring and evaluation processes.
Built and Expanded Partnerships
- Conducted 42 training workshops to enhance the capabilities of our partner organizations.
- Developed campaigns on domestic violence and gender equality that impacted more than 1,100 people.
- Through internal programs and partnerships we reached 2568 direct beneficiaries (1743 women) in the past year.
This growth and record of success was accomplished with a budget of approximately $83,000 thanks to both our corporate and individual donors. Taking expenses into consideration, WRC ended the year in an essentially break-even position.
Plans for 2017 include increasing the number of local women served, including greater community outreach efforts and further expanding our referral network.
Also, we will be putting more metrics in place to evaluate programs so we can increase the rate of successful outcomes even further.
One of the highest priorities is increasing the organization’s financial sustainability. This will be accomplished by attracting more grants funding and building the donor base and partnership programs.
As we look to 2017, WRC remains driven by our vision for Cambodia to be a fair and safe society with equal rights for all and confident that we are making strides toward that goal.
You can download our full 2016 annual report here.