A central Illinois non-profit is wrapping up its latest strategic planning process.

Alison Rumler-Gomez is the Executive Director of Community Action and explains every three years, the agency compiles data through a community assessment and its staff meets to break down what they find and come up with a refreshed strategic plan.

According to Rumler-Gomez, the pandemic brought to light some of the shortcomings of its programming and curriculum. In promoting a wealth mindset, she says they found many of their clients were not ready for the challenges the pandemic brought to bear. 

Rumler-Gomez believes there could be a two-fold issue with why some of its clientele were not as prepared as perhaps they could have been. She believes part of the issue was the pandemic interrupted the process for many, but also, perhaps they were not as connected to their clients as they could have been.

Now the mission for Community Action becomes why this happened and how they can fix it.

Rumler-Gomez believes those that are regularly engaged in the recently rolled out mobile application program for its clients, are more likely to be successful in the long term.