Alternative House Resources

Did you know that Alternative House has the highest rating awarded by Charity Navigator, an independent nonprofit evaluation organization? We’ve also been awarded the “Best in America” designation from Independent Charities and provide information on our financial and program practices on Guidestar. At our last Open Door at the House, one of our guests told us how impressed he was by our excellent ratings and he was very interested to learn how much of our funding comes from the community.

Approximately half-of the resources we need to operate Alternative House come from non-government sources. About one-fourth is financial support from individuals, businesses, the faith community and private foundations and one-fourth is in donations of food, clothing, paper goods and volunteer hours. We also receive about one-fourth of our funding from the Federal Government through the Department of Health and Human Services Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. The final quarter comes in various grants and contracts with Fairfax County.

We are currently working on revising our website so that we can put all of our financial information on line. That should happen in the next month or so. Until then, if you would like a copy of our tax return or audit you can find it on-line at Guidestar or call us and we’ll send you a copy.

We work hard to make the funds invested in us by the community go as far as possible and we try to be as transparent as possible about where our funding comes from and where it goes. The excellent ratings we receive from independent evaluators verify that every dollar we receive is used wisely.

by Judith Dittman