Pietro Bozzo took the helm as Executive Director of La Maison de la famille de St-Léonard in 2018, arriving during a period of governance challenges at the northeast Montreal borough organization dedicated to helping families with children aged 1 to 12 integrate into their local community. His first priority was stabilizing the board by enlisting local community partners, quickly launching a strategic planning exercise that resulted in a five-year action plan, increased project-based and mission-based funding, expanded services, and solid partnerships with the local health, community, and social service network.
Describe your charity/non-profit/volunteer work in a few sentences.
Our mission is to help families with children between the ages of 1 and 12 years of age integrate into their local community.
What problem does it aim to solve?
We offer a variety of services from community day care to after-school programs, parenting workshops, and an educational toys library. Our families are mostly recent immigrants, many having refugee or asylum seeker status so socialization and integration are a priority.
When did you start/join it?
When I started working here in 2018, the organization was going through some governance challenges. Therefore, my first priority was to stabilize the board. I enlisted the help of many of the local community partners who were happy to lend a helping hand. We quickly embarked on a strategic planning exercize that led to a 5-year action plan.
What was the situation like when you started?
The result was that we increased both project-based and mission-based funding, expanded our services and established clear and solid partnerships with the local health, community and social service network.
How has it changed since?
Although the organization is better off today, there are plenty of challenges. We are now faced with decreasing funding from our traditional funding bodies. We have nonetheless also seen an increase in demand for services. We now have to do more with less.
What more needs to be done?
Families are under a lot of economic pressure. Rents are extremely high, and daily expenses are sometimes prohibitive. They look to organizations like La Maison de la famille de St-Léonard to help them cope with their many challenges.
The organization is forced to diversify its funding bodies and look for more mission-based funding instead of the more popular project-based funding. One way to accomplish this is to organize funding benefits and fundraisers. This requires time and energy and a great deal of know-how.
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