Nesha Higgins Executive Director of Tiger Mountain Foundation
The mission of TigerMountain Foundation (TMF) is to empower people by building flourishing community gardens, providing job skills, support and workforce development through neighborhood revitalization and beautification with our multi-ethnic and multi-generational initiatives. 1123 persons plus their families and friends were directly served by TMF programs in 2018. Also many of whom were referred to us through parole/justice systems.
Another 2200 volunteer mentors also helped us accomplish this outreach initiative to resolve food scarcity and educate participants on job skills to earn a living wage. An additional 3,000 also gained knowledge through speaking engagements. Funding has generally been from grants and individual and corporate donors. However, in 2019 has seen a major push for self-sufficiency through our agriscaping (agricultural landscaping) initiatives and farmers market sales.
Many of the staff, including CEO Darren Chapman, are formerly incarcerated persons from the very neighborhoods we serve. Our advisors and 8 board members come from administrative positions in such large organizations. These include Vitalyst Health, Bank of America, and Keep Phoenix Beautiful. We are an Arizona Qualified Charity and receive tax credit donations plus receive individual donations through various employer payroll deductions.
Social and Economic Mobility
To us, “social and economic mobility” means achieving tangible personal agency – building within each person a genuine self-value and competency that enables them to rise above poverty.
The TigerMountain strategy empowers adults and youth via our agriscaping initiatives alongside capable hard-working professionals as volunteers who encourage and mentor them through every step. These programs culminate in the development of good professionals. Participants leverage the skills and morals they’ve learned to build an honest life for themselves, free of criminality and desperation, and have the skills to earn a living wage.
For non-participant community members, SEM means finding genuine nourishment in the food we grow – we are what we eat, after all. TMF initiatives address food scarcity in this food desert area of Phoenix, AZ plus empower the economically disadvantaged participants with job skills to enable them to earn a living wage. In this 80% recidivism area,
TMF participants enjoy an 85% rate of NOT returning to jail, or entering the justice system in the first place! We use an Asset Based Community Development model that gives community members a hand up, not a handout.
