Non-Profits

Founded in 1980, the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center (GCAC) has been recognized as the “largest community-based, multi-disciplinary organization in the U.S.” The mission of the GCAC is to “preserve, promote, and develop the arts and culture of the Chicano/Latino/Native American peoples for all ages and backgrounds through public and education programming in six disciplines: Dance, Literature, Media Arts, Theater Arts, Visual Arts, and Xicano Music.” GCAC presents and produces yearly events, exhibitions, and festivals including the Tejano Conjunto Festival, Night of Latin Comedy, Valentine’s Day Oldies Dance, Hecho a Mano/Made by hand, and San Antonio CineFestival.

The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) envisions a cultural landscape that fully values and integrates the essential contributions of an expanding Latino arts field and its dynamic workforce.

an Anto Cultural Arts (SACA) is a community-based, cultural arts organization located 2 blocks from the Alazan-Apache Housing Projects. SACA has been in operation as a nonprofit organization, in the heart of San Antonio's Westside, since July 1997. The mission of SACA is to create and provide cultural arts programming that foster human and community development. SACA currently operates 3 core programs - El Placazo Community Newspaper and Mentor Program, Community Mural / Public Art Program, and the Multi-Media Institute. In addition, SACA organizes various community initiatives and services. Some of these include: Dia De Los Muertos Community Altar and Procession; Huevos Rancheros Breakfast Gala and Silent Art Auction; scholarship / financial aid workshops; safe sex seminars; El Placazo Summer Foto Exhibit; Neighborhood Mural Tours; mural consulting; Muralist-In-Residence-Project; Teen & Pre-Teen Mentor Initiative; El Placazo Photographer-in-Residence.

In December of 2005 business and civic leader Bill Greehey watched a documentary on San Antonio’s homelessness that aired on a local TV station. Inspired to transform and save the lives of San Antonio’s homeless, Bill Greehey worked closely with Mayor Phil Hardberger and other city leaders such as Councilwoman Patti Radle and former Mayor Ed Garza’s Council to End Homelessness. 

In 2006, just one year after Greehey’s initial inspiration, Haven for Hope was officially established as a 501c private organization. 18 months of research around the US and over 200 shelters later, Haven for Hope’s vision was born. 

The Capital Campaign and the 15 buildings located on 37 acres west of downtown San Antonio was completed in early 2010. By April of 2010, the very first Members moved onto the Campus. 

Currently the Transformational Campus provides housing and programming to over 900 men, women and children. Prospects Courtyard, an area of safe sleeping for the chronic homeless population, sleeps approximately 500 men and women per night. 

Haven for Hope will begin construction on Phase II “The Terraces at Haven,” a 150 unit supportive housing complex, during the 3rd quarter of 2011 with expected completion during 2013.

Making Connections is a neighborhood-based initiative aimed at improving the lives of children in San Antonio's Edgwood community. It is a collaborative effort bringing together residents, non-profit organizations, faith-based entities, businesses and government in creative ways to achieve neighborhood transformation and family development.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) of Baltimore made a ten-year commitment to co-invest in the Neighborhood Transformation / Family Development Initiative with the residents of the West Side and low-income neighborhoods of four other cities in the US.

The West Side of San Antonio has yet to realize its full economic potential. To do so, our residents need to increase skills and knowledge through workforce training. Once trained, our communities require links to jobs with salaries that will comfortably support our families. MC Partnership supports several strategies in workforce and earnings.

Making Connections Partnership's Work & Earnings Results Area is established to support the overarching goal of ensuring that Edgewood Independent School District (EISD) third grade reading is at the commended level. Work and Earnings seeks to provide the residents of the Edgewood Independent School District with employment opportunities that offer a livable wage and employment benefits which support a livable income.  MC-Partnership defines a livable income inclusive of employment wages, public benefits (food stamps, Earned Income Tax Credit) and work supports (child care, transportation). Living wage is defined by MC-Partnership as the wage obtained by job employment, at or above $9.75 per hour.

Project QUEST, an innovative job training program in San Antonio, has earned statewide and national attention as a model for local workforce development efforts. Since 1993, Project QUEST has met the needs of San Antonio area businesses by training local residents who would otherwise be on public assistance and not in the San Antonio workforce.

As a winner of a 1995 Innovations Award from the Ford Foundation and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Project QUEST remains a national role model among job training programs because of its ties to businesses and community-based organizations. Organizations from other Texas communities, other states, Mexico and Saudi Arabia have found Project QUEST to be a valid inspiration and benchmark entity for their economic and workforce development efforts.

QUEST was honored as a 2003 winner of The Enterprise Foundation and The J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation Award for Excellence in Workforce Development. This award recognizes nonprofit job training and placement organizations across the country that are using best practices to effectively help individuals find and retain quality jobs.  In 2008, QUEST was among a select group of workforce development organizations to receive workforce grants from the US Department of Labor and QUEST continues to leverage the recognition of their excellence from a growing number of private organizations who share QUEST’s vision for greater community involvement in the innovation and development of education and workforce preparation initiatives.

The YMCA of Greater San Antonio was founded in 1876, 32 years after the first YMCA was founded in London England. During this time, cowboys, railroad employees, young men and boys moved from the suburbs into the city to find employment. Without owning our own building, volunteers began providing food, lodging, reading rooms and activities in borrowed facilities around town. In 1907, volunteers were able to raise enough money to build our first facility on North Alamo and Third Street. The services provided were an outlet for the young men and allowed for them to participate in Bible studies, physical activity and educational classes.