OUR VISION
Creating Transformative and Supportive Pathways to Life.
We engage with our clients to identify and create useful pathways for themselves. We invite them to consider alternative courses of action going forward. As they do, transformative change in thinking, belief, and action takes root. We support them as they build new habits and patterns for their lives. In this way, we help people help themselves lead healthy and productive lives.
Our Mission
“Helping people help themselves lead healthy and productive lives.”
COI delivers appropriate services to help people help themselves and others lead healthy, productive lives. COI responds to human needs by providing direct services, and by collaborating with other agencies and organizations. COI assists people without discrimination, and treats them with respect, integrity, and dignity. In the broadest sense, COI intends to relieve pain and suffering, lessen oppression, meet basic human needs, and promote justice, equality, and diversity. At the heart of every one of our social service programs lies one of these major principles. They guide our individual efforts, and inform the thousands of small-scale decisions and interactions COI is a part of every day.
COI’s programs and services are specifically designed to move families & individuals from crisis to self-sufficiency. Each of our unique services can operate independently or collectively to create a comprehensive continuum of care.
The staff, board and volunteers of COI value our client-centered approach, which is fostered by trust, inclusion, and fairness for all. We believe that everyone, regardless of their personal circumstances, deserves to be treated with dignity and respect and offered the skills, knowledge and assistance needed to help themselves lead healthy and productive lives.
Our Foundational Values
R.E.A.L.I.T.I.E.S
Respectful
Empowering
Accountable
Learning
Intentional
Truthful
Integrity
Encouraging
Support & safety
Relationship Principles
Relationship Principles are the basis for our interactions, apply to everyone, ensure clarity in our communications, and preserve effective work dynamics. They apply in all situations we encounter.
- Presume Goodness: We presume good intentions.
- Honor: We regard each other with dignity in honor and respect.
- Listen/Understand: We first listen to understand. We communicate concisely with focus.
- Truth: We are truthful, authentic, transparent, and honest.
- Principles First: We place principles before personality and make allowance for our differences.
- Solutions: We are solution focused. We keep a “parking lot” of things needing resolution.
- Accountability: We practice accountability with grace.
- Go direct: We go first to each other to resolve conflict.
- Speak to edify: We speak words that edify each other.
- Creativity: We hold each other’s creativity and ideas gently.
- Serve: We seek to serve well.
- Community: We place our common welfare first; impact on residents/clients, staff, and COI collectively must be considered.
History
Community Outreach, Inc. began as a grassroots effort to serve the youth of Corvallis and Albany. After two years of planning and community input, the doors of “Sunflower House” opened in June 1971. The operation of the agency was a completely volunteer effort and focused on serving youth of Benton and Linn Counties with crisis intervention, drug education, and a food bank.
Over the years our services have evolved as unmet needs in the community have been identified and funding has been obtained. Today, COI’s 42 employees and more than 350 volunteers work to provide a comprehensive, integrated array of the highest quality services to more than 5,500 men, women, and families annually. What began as a small non-profit in a little yellow house in Corvallis is now the premiere social service provider for the mid-Willamette Valley.