Two Rapid City advocacy groups have consolidated. While offering distinct programs, leaders say they’re ready to provide essential services the community has grown used to.
Journey On is an organization best known for their street outreach team, who offer community-based assistance for vulnerable populations in Rapid City. The Front Porch Coalition, another local group, offers education and support for family members and survivors of suicide.
As a result of the move, the Front Porch Coalition will formally dissolve and transition their services as a part of Journey On.
Rich Braunstein is the executive director of Journey On. He said this is an effort to cut some overhead.
"It doesn’t impact our program or the delivery of the services that we engage every day, and we believe it contributes to the long-term sustainability of all our programs to be sharing our administrative structure in this way," Braunstein said. "We saw an opportunity to become more lean, and through that enhancing the long-term sustainability and viability of both organizations.”
Braunstein said the groups have enough in common to not compromise their respective missions.
“Both of these organizations have similar cultures of service to the community," Braunstein said. "Dispatch-based programs, right? We have public safety partners that call upon us to provide the services that we provide. So, the culture and values of the Front Porch Coalition and Journey On align very well.”
For those using these services, leadership said they’ll continue as before.
“This only strengthens out programs. We aren’t going to be reducing anything at the program level," Braunstein said. "Nothing is changing, we haven’t changed, in fact we just hired three new team members last week. We’re building more capacity through this decision.”
Both groups are now based in the same Rapid City office space.
