Collaboration vital to success

It's hard to believe it's been nearly two years since we 'broke ground” on the renovations to what's now the clean, functional, and accessible 1105 Project. Today, The Crisis Center and our partners - Domestic Violence Intervention Program, National Alliance on Mental Illness, and Free Lunch Program - are settled into our new surroundings and busy each day helping the people we serve at the newly remodeled building at 1105 Gilbert Court.

The dedication ceremony we held last month was an opportunity to reflect back on the incredible community support the 1105 Project received. There are hundreds and hundreds of people to thank, but a handful stand out especially in my mind.

The enormous undertaking would still be a daydream if it weren't for the leadership of the Johnson County Board of Supervisors. In addition to giving away the old Public Health building for just $1, Supervisors Pat Harney, Terrence Neuzil, Janelle Rettig, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan were some of our biggest supporters, helping round up both attention and donations to make the project possible.

The Community Foundation of Johnson County also proved to be an invaluable asset as we undertook the daunting task of raising more than $1.5 million. Under Executive Director Mike Stoffregen's leadership, the 1105 Project was awarded the foundation's first ever Lillig Family Community Impact Grant. The foundation raised more than $200,000 for the project, in addition to more than $300,000 in other donations they processed. Mike and the board of directors at the foundation are tremendous resources for non-profits doing collaborative fundraising like this.

And the United Way of Johnson and Washington Counties provided extraordinary advice and support as we developed a plan to reach the hundreds of donors who were needed to make this project a reality. Anyone would be hard-pressed to find community leaders who show more dedication and expertise than Christine Scheetz, former United Way president and CEO, and Dan Brown, director of annual giving and communications.

The fundraising and renovations for the 1105 Project taught all of the players involved many valuable lessons about collaboration - which I believe is the key to future success for non-profits. We're using those lessons to build upon our success and I want to share a couple examples of the new opportunities that have already taken shape: The Crisis Center is now answering DVIP's overnight crisis line calls; NAMI and The Crisis Center have collaborated over suicide-prevention efforts; and the Free Lunch Program has seen more guests from all the other agencies.

Those collaborations would have been impossible or much more difficult without the 1105 Project and now that our offices are within mere feet of each other, we expect efficiencies like these to keep springing up.

When construction and fundraising for the building wound down this past year, we wondered what would become of the 1105 Project name itself. Since the heavy lifting was done, we considered calling it something different -- 'The 1105 Building,” perhaps.

But we eventually settled on keeping the name. 'Project” invokes a sense that the work still is underway, still evolving, and still making progress. The 1105 Project means forever moving forward.

' Becci Reedus is Crisis Center executive director. Comments: admin@jccrisiscenter.org.