GLENDALE, Calif. (PRWEB) June 11, 2018
Assembly member Laura Friedman selected Ascencia as the 43rd District’s 2018 California Nonprofit of the Year. Natalie Profant Komuro, Executive Director, and Debbie Hinckley, Board President, traveled to Sacramento and joined with one hundred other nonprofit leaders who were honored by their state senators and assembly members, during a celebration luncheon as part of California Nonprofits Day on June 6th.
Ascencia is a comprehensive homeless services organization based in south Glendale, also serving Northeast Los Angeles, Burbank, and West Hollywood. Ascencia’s mission, “to lift people out of homelessness one person, one family at a time,” speaks to how it places individualized care at the center of their work. Ascencia’s vision, “a community where people in need can access services and find safe, affordable housing,” calls us to address systemic drivers of homelessness. Ascencia’s integrated programs include street outreach, a 42-bed year-round emergency housing for families and single adults, comprehensive case management services, and on-site mental health care, including trauma therapy and psychiatry. Ascencia works to increase opportunity and meet clients’ essential needs by providing education, advocacy, guidance, critical information related to benefits, employment, and housing opportunities, and training to improve financial literacy, including consumer education, and addressing personal habits and emotions related to spending money. In FY2017, Ascencia’s 29-member staff, along with 880 volunteers, enrolled 875 men, women, and children and served an additional 107.
“Ascencia has been providing critical services to Californians experiencing homelessness in the 43rd Assembly District and across our region. Their steadfast dedication to community service has been an inspiration to all, and I am honored to recognize them for their tireless work.”—Assembly member Laura Friedman (D-Glendale).
“Nonprofits make California communities stronger, yet we’re often so busy that we don’t toot our own horns about the work we’re doing,” explains Jan Masaoka, CEO of the California Association of Nonprofits (CalNonprofits). “California Nonprofits Day is an opportunity for our elected officials to recognize the good work they see nonprofits doing in their districts, and it also demonstrates the larger collective impact of nonprofits throughout California.”
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California Nonprofits Day, now in its third year, was formally recognized by Assembly Concurrent Resolution 191, authored by the chair of the Assembly Select Committee on the Nonprofit Sector, Assemblywoman Monique Limón (Santa Barbara), who will speak at the celebration luncheon. Assembly member Limón and CalNonprofits organized the day.
According to “Causes Count,” a 2016 report commissioned by CalNonprofits, the nonprofit sector is the 4th largest industry in the state, employing nearly one million people. Each year, California nonprofits generate over $200 billion in revenue and bring in $40 billion in revenue from outside of California. The unpaid labor contributed by volunteers at nonprofits is equivalent to 450,000 full-time jobs every year.
