2025 Economic Impact Awards 36-74 Years in Business: Victory Mission and Ministry

Nonprofit advocates have said it costs a community upwards of $40,000 annually to provide public services to a chronically homeless individual. Through its programming, Victory Mission and Ministry seeks to zero out that cost and add a positive economic impact to boot.

When considering Victory Mission’s value proposition, Executive Director Jason Hynson says the nonprofit’s support, mentorship and services essentially reinvest donor dollars.

“You’re already paying for homelessness. We’re paying for that through our health care, if they’re in shelter, if they get arrested – whatever’s going on in their circumstances,” Hynson says, noting that through Victory Mission, the script can be flipped as clients get back on their feet. “That’s one less person you’re paying $35,000 as a community for.”

Officials with Victory Mission say the average age of graduates in its 12- to 18-month Victory Restoration discipleship program is 38, meaning those individuals will have contributed at least $1 million to the local economy if they retire at 64.

“They’re able to pay back into the system that was supporting them while they needed it,” Hynson says. “The biggest thing that we do is move people from a level of dependence to independence.”

Like its clients’ experiences, Victory Mission itself has a bit of a comeback story.

Officials with Victory Mission say the nonprofit had nearly $600,000 in long-term debt, more than $500,000 in liabilities and no net cash reserves in 2016. Today, Victory Mission has no long-term debt and has reduced liabilities to less than $267,000, officials say, and the nonprofit in 2024 produced roughly $4.2 million in revenue. Additionally, the nonprofit has seven and a half months of net cash reserves.

Hynson says Victory Mission’s growth in recent years is due, in part, to its employees utilizing the Great Game of Business open-book management system and adding social enterprises to its offerings. Those social enterprises, which include a coffee venture and mattress recycling, combine with program revenue to cover 100% of the administrative and fundraising costs required to operate Victory Mission.

Those social enterprises also provide upskilling opportunities for Victory Mission’s clients, which transfer to the workforce.

“We’re giving people a second chance on the single life they’ve got,” Hynson says.

When local employers look to hire graduates of Victory Mission’s programming, the social enterprises have an added benefit of vetting those potential employees.

“It’s hard for them to take a chance on somebody who’s fresh out of a detox center,” Hynson says. “We’ve got to be able to give them space to get ready for that.”