Furniture Bank

Exit: July 2018

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Furniture Bank plays a transformational role in ensuring all Canadians live with the dignity and stability of a furnished home. Based in Toronto, Furniture Bank collects gently used furniture from the community and transfers it to families transitioning out of homelessness or displacement. Furniture Bank’s clients include the formerly homeless, women and children escaping abusive situations, and newcomer families and refugees to Canada. Furniture Bank also operates Leg Up, a program providing work experience, life and skills training, and job opportunities to individuals facing barriers to employment.

“

Working with the LIFT team and its partners has truly been transformative for Furniture Bank. LIFT’s contributions have built the capacity of our board and senior management team. They helped us to adopt best practices in governance, enhanced our strategic planning and processes and ultimately helped us document a National Scaling Strategy. We already see the difference as we grow our impact in the GTA, build new partnerships and diversify our revenues. We are now positioned to rapidly accelerate our scaled impact as we rollout a national expansion plan.”

Dan Kershaw Executive Director

Opportunity

With the support of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Growth, Furniture Bank is able to strengthen its social enterprise to provide more training and employment opportunities which in turn, will help more households furnish their homes.

Plan

Optimize capacity for growth and, develop and execute a national expansion strategy.

Impact

Strengthened foundation: completed an operations audit which identified new systems and processes to enhance efficiency, measurement and ability to scale up
Organization can now serve 40% more clients per year with existing capacity
Supported a capital investment program to serve growth, including larger physical space, additional truck leases, and improved IT
Helped with recruitment of additional talent,
boosting staff numbers by 44%
Executed on a national expansion plan with a second location in Ontario serving as a pilot
Created a public awareness campaign to increase profile among donors
In 2017, increased the number of clients served by 37%, compared to 2015

partners

We thank the following partners for their support in executing the LIFT plan: