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Annual Report 2021
Real Life Skills, Inc. reached a record revenue of $107,030 a 3.7% increase over the prior year. This is the sixth year of consecutive revenue growth.
The target audience for our program continues to focus on the most vulnerable, in our community. This includes those living in homeless transition centers, low-income families who are struggling, parolees coming out of prison, single parents seeking jobs, and at risk youth. We connect to this audience through agencies that serve them.
The year began introducing our new Real LIfe Skills Academy and the online course became operational enabling us to offer both our zoom classes and the online course. During the year the Zoom classes were the most popular with real time instruction as a preferential choice in classroom settings. The online Classes are taught wherever students are physically located and often at home or in agencies using their cell phones.
In 2021 Classes were taught to 137 students with 64 receiving graduation certificates.
A Challenging Environment
The pandemic has affected everyone's, life styles, mental stress, the changing work environment and financial stability. The risks have created a cautious environment for agencies to engage in new programs as they struggle to get funding to stay in operation and resume regular programming. For these reasons we have observed a decline in teaching revenue. We expect this trend to continue and are convinced we will need to obtain outside sources of revenue to support our programs.
In September 2021 we expanded Online Product offering to include the following:
1. Customize content to meet each agencies needs depending on the persons they serve and their unique agency needs.
2. Practical Soft Skills curriculum for personal growth in areas such as self-esteem, knowing your value, adaptability, and good work ethics, etc.
3. Access to Coaching support resources for active students which will be announced when available.
In 2022 we plan to offer this new offering as a free pilot program to a number of new agencies that serve our target audience. The course will include a quiz at the end of each lesson with real time access to results so agencies can easily monitor student progress. As part of the pilot program experience, we will identify and measure specific results and outcomes and use the data gleaned from assessments to make improvements to the program. Outcome evaluation will be based upon lessons completed, test scores, and improved analytics.
A Virtual Campaign began in the fourth quarter of 2021 to raise $100,000 to further develop and pilot our new expanded offering. We were pleased to receive a total of $31,050 with $20,000 from Westminster Manor and $11,000 from a variety of other sources. Thank you all. For 2022, we are seeking $70,000 from outside funding. Please visit our website at reallifeskills.org for more information about our Academy and the campaign.
We were grateful to the San Diego Breakfast Rotary Club and the Catherine Estes Rogers Foundation for their continuing support.
We continue to be recognized as an accredited charity by Better Business Bureau
and have met the required 20 standards for charity accountability.
A special thanks to our teaching staff and to our RLS Board of Directors.
At Real Life Skills, we discovered that part of the solution to helping individuals and families break out from their cycle of poverty and dysfunction, is by facilitating the development of a new mindset that can provide the path to a better life. We embrace the science of cognitive behavior approach. Our program educates a student to better understand his current situation in life, how he or she got there and to learn new life principles. We know everyone has the mental ability to change thoughts, make new choices, and with the right thinking, begin the process to learn these new life skills along with new goals. We are here to help and provide that needed education.
Financial Highlights 2021
Total income $ 107,030
Functional Breakdown of Expenses:
Program expenses 62,635 74.4%
Fundraising 1,531 1.8%
Administrative 20,052 23.8%
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Net Excess for the year $ 22,812
Net Assets Beginning of Year $ 84,474
Net Assets End of the Year $107,286
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Board Roster & Officers
Richard Karlson President
Co- Founder
Susan Zlaket Secretary
Previous Board Director-Kiwanis Club of San Diego
Robinson Treasurer
Devadhason CPA,MBA
James Robins Board member
Executive Director
Co-Founder and Educator
Senior Facilitator
Bruce Menser Board member
Board member-San Diego Downtown Fellowship
John Pressler Board member
Former CEO Paradise Valley Federal Credit Union
Raul Palomino Board member
Executive Director -New Day Urban Ministries
MBA