Dreams for Change

Dreams for change training

What they do & why we invested

Dreams for Change serves the needs of families and individuals experiencing homelessness and other low-income individuals. The organization delivers social assistance and wraparound services modeled around three pathways to stability: support to remove barriers, employment, and income stabilization. Efforts include the Safe Parking Program for those who sleep in their cars, Dreams’ Cuisine social enterprise workforce training program, free tax preparation, and financial education. Due to COVID-19, Dreams for Change has seen a delay in contract reimbursement, a decrease in funding for their services, and a significant loss of fee-for-service revenues. Capital will be used as a cash flow to cover operational costs to maintain services and start new programs in response to COVID-19, such as food distribution and growing their social enterprise to provide more workforce opportunities.

Updates

08/2022—Dreams for Change successfully repaid their loan. CEO & Founder Dr. Teresa Smith said, “Our loan from Mission Driven Finance provided bridge funding for us to continue our food distribution work and other projects during state budget cuts. Because this was our first loan as an organization, the Mission Driven Finance team was very helpful in answering questions from our board. The process was easy and straightforward.”

Impact Segment

COVID-19 economic recovery

Impact Vehicles

San Diego County COVID-19 Small Business & Nonprofit Loan Program (nonprofit loan pool)

Dates of Investments

October 2020

Impact Geography

San Diego County

Status

Successfully repaid