As a six-year board member, I have been impressed with Bridge of Hope's steadfast commitment to several key components of effective work: 1) seeing board work as a learning community, constantly searching for the best ways to work alongside real human people, not a target group; 2) constanting keeping the women & their children as the main focus of our energies, not the perpetuation of our organization; and, 3) seeing the strengths that a woman & her family bring to the task of ending their cycle of homelessness & its attendant issues.