Sober-living. Full-time Employment. Re-engaged Citizens.
We see the data of programming as tangible performance indicators of the bigger work that is not so easy to quantify: the healing of a heart, the connecting of souls, the transformation of mind and body, the strengthening of the collective whole.
To better understand the impact of your charitable giving, be sure to visit our stories and videos to hear directly from clients themselves.
Learn more about our Platinum GuideStar status and our financial accountability here.
Impact by the Numbers
Iron House is the final piece of the full Guiding Light prescription, and is a sober-living community of renovated 2-bedroom apartments. As part of Guiding Light’s values, we are committed to clean, well-maintained environments at all our apartment complexes. These apartments are quality, affordable housing, made possible by investors like you.
At Iron House, clients are working full-time, paying rent, participating in support groups, community meetings, and helping out with yard work. Guiding Light offers something unique: we will walk alongside individuals for as long as they will let us. And what is the result of that? Long-term transformation. It results in responsible employees, active savers, loving fathers, invested community members, restored sons and brothers. Men who want to get out of bed each day and be part of where God has placed them.
We have been tracking and documenting since opening our first four-plex of Iron House in 2013. Since then, if men complete our Foundations program and move into Iron House, they have a 79% chance of reaching at least their first year of abstinence-based sobriety. This is a conservative number because we are only using data from men who are under our umbrella who we can drug-test or breathalyze. There are many more men who achieve and maintain sobriety after our programming who choose not to move to Iron house.
Guiding Light is invested in being a good neighbor in Heartside. We do not want to duplicate the services of other local charities and we also want to make sure our neighbors who are having a hard time can access the resources they need. Gotta eat to live, and having a warm meal with fresh fruit and vegetables is a basic human need, essential before tackling dramatic life changes.
We serve nutritious meals 3 times a day, 7 days a week, for all the clients under our roof, and host full holidays meals for the Heartside community on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. We are able to give food and food supplies to other Heartside ministries serving women and children to meet their needs in their life-giving operations. We hand out winter clothes, boots, coats, and hats to community members during the cold months.
While our sober-living homes for women are solidly in place, providing beautiful, safe space and community, we are so excited to now offer addiction recovery programming for women that aligns with our sucessful men’s program.
In June of 2024, we opened our women’s residential treatment program!! This long-term, holistic addiction recovery program can serve between 11 and 13 women at a time. Our women in programming have a lovely home that they live at and then a day-center on Aquinas College’s campus for daily programming. This is long-term, relationship-based programming that is comprehensive, holistic, and tailored specifically for women looking to break free from addiction and live a new way in this world.
Guiding Light’s four-month residential experience creates a dynamic culture of community, peer support, and accountability to help men “wake up” to a new way of life. After men’s basic needs are taken care of — including clothing, shoes, hygiene products, hair cuts, and physicals — programming starts digging deeper into transforming mind, body, heart, and soul.
The Chapel in our building at 255 Division Avenue is filled with the commitment statements and pictures of men that have come through Guiding Light Recovery over the years. Seeing the success of all the men that have come before them gives clients a glimmer of hope that it is possible to live a new way of life in sobriety and recovery.
Guiding Light’s four-month residential experience creates a dynamic culture of community, peer support, and accountability to help men “wake up” to a new way of life. After men’s basic needs are taken care of — including clothing, shoes, hygiene products, hair cuts, and physicals — programming starts digging deeper into transforming mind, body, heart, and soul.
The Chapel in our building at 255 Division Avenue is filled with the commitment statements and pictures of men that have come through Guiding Light Recovery over the years. Seeing the success of all the men that have come before them gives clients a glimmer of hope that it is possible to live a new way of life in sobriety and recovery.
Transparency. Accountability. Accreditation.
Guiding Light is pleased to announce that it has been awarded Platinum status by GuideStar, the world’s largest source of information on U.S. nonprofits. The Platinum designation is the highest level bestowed by GuideStar, an honor shared by fewer than a dozen of the more than 2,500 nonprofits GuideStar tracks in the greater Grand Rapids area. The Platinum rating – instituted in the spring of 2016 – is GuideStar’s “highest level of recognition and an opportunity for nonprofits to share their progress in a meaningful way,” according to the organization’s website.
Each Guiding Light staff and Board member recognizes the responsibility of being faithful stewards of your money and these men’s lives.
Our finances are always an open book, and you’re welcome to review our 990s and audits online at GuidingLightWorks.org. Our financials are audited each year to ensure the highest standards of accountability.
Your support does Kingdom work, and the movement from despair and isolation to hope and community for the men participating in Guiding Light programming is a beautiful return on investment. We are so grateful that you have chosen to be a part of this. From all of us at Guiding Light, thank you, and God bless.
2024 Annual Report
