A year in review letter from Concordance President and CEO, Danny Ludeman. Click here to read the 2020 Annual Report.
Dear Friends,
I have never been more grateful, inspired, and humbled as I have been this past year. While 2020 gave us challenges we could never have predicted, I stand in awe of the support that we received from our community, our board, our investors, and our team members.
We had a number of large strategic plans in place for 2020, and as March and April brought us the COVID pandemic, we had to change them. While we modified participant programming, sent some team members home to work virtually, and put COVID safety protocols into place, what I’m most proud of is that we never closed the doors of Concordance. Throughout the pandemic, we kept our doors open to the most vulnerable members of our community.
During the pandemic, participants attended half a day of mental health and substance use programming in person and did remote learning and self-guided work the other half. This allowed us to socially distance while still providing over 740 hours of quality mental health and substance use treatment in person to our 247 participants. We also scheduled 259 medical appointments for our participants and provided them over 7,000 rides to community appointments (to/from work, DMV, medical appointments, etc.). We enrolled 334 participants in prison for our pre-release phase of services. While some received in-person services, most received distance learning service materials due to the pandemic.
Looking forward, we hired several new team members and created new roles in preparation for expansion. We also signed agreements with new employment partners. We have continued and expanded our commitment as an organization to diversity and inclusion by creating the Concordance Diversity Council.
As of December 31, 2020, we had served almost 900 participants and lowered the reincarceration rate among them by 44%. None of this would have been possible without our dedicated team members, generous investors, committed supporters, our partners at the Missouri Department of Corrections, and our inspiring participants. We kept our doors open, partnered with our participants on their healing journey, and continued to plan for the future of Concordance. I am eternally grateful and humbled by the support this past year, and I cannot express my gratitude enough. Thank you!
Gratefully,
Danny Ludeman
Concordance President & CEO