Our History
FIT was founded because we saw a need in our community that was unmet by any other organization: People need to, and want to, support their families without public assistance. The problem is, without education or employment history, you can’t get, and keep, a job that pays enough to make the family self-sufficient.
Our mission became to help the underemployed and unemployed in southern Nevada gain the vocational education and job training to get that well-paying job. From the very beginning, our program design included matching each client to a Case Manager who works with them one-on-one. While we don’t duplicate services that are available elsewhere in the community, we do make sure that each client has all of the resources they need to overcome each of their barriers to employment.
We believe that at the bottom line, self-sufficient employment is the answer to so many other issues, including homelessness, hunger and even the crime rate.
Our Vision
When people can support their own family by themselves through their employment and without public assistance, they gain dignity and self-respect. As self-sufficient, productive members of the workforce, people can give back to their community and provide a secure future for themselves and their families.
Our Goal
To empower unemployed and underemployed individuals in southern Nevada into jobs that pay enough to make them able to support their family in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible.
FIT provides vocational training, job preparation, education and employment services to move Nevadans into self-sufficient employment and financial stability.
Our Success
Our success comes from our compassionate one-on-one case management together with services that clients need.
Through the generosity of grants and support from donors, FIT is able to meet the growing need in our community by advancing people into long-term, self-sufficient employment.
HOW IS FIT RELATED TO THE ACADEMY?
Foundation for an Independent Tomorrow (FIT) was founded in August of 1997 to respond to a local need: while at the time there were many jobs available in our community and unemployment was not re-markedly high, too many of the jobs either were not full time or did not pay enough for a parent to support their children on their own salary and without public assistance. We thought that the financial stability of having self-sufficient employment was very important. We looked around the community for an organization that strived to help people establish this self-sufficiency and we found none, thus FIT was founded. Our mission was then as it is now: to empower people, through education, case management and support, into positions that paid enough to support their family and make them independent and financially stable.
In 2014, we realized that there were simply not enough accredited vocational schools teaching curriculum leading to industry recognized credentials that would arm somebody for the first rung of a career ladder. Thus, was born the Standards of Excellence Academy (the Academy), a wholly owned non-profit subsidiary of FIT. The Academy is accredited by the Nevada Commission on Post-Secondary Education and the Nevada State Board of Nursing. Its curriculum is varied but all leads to industry recognized credentials to place Academy graduates on the first rung of a career ladder.
