Dorcas + WWCM Merger Update | July 1, 2025

MERGER UPDATE
July 1, 2025

Dear Staff, Volunteers, Donors, and Community Partners, 

It gives me great joy to share this merger update with you! Our staff team has worked tirelessly for nearly six months to explore and align the processes and programs of Dorcas Ministries and Western Wake Crisis Ministry, ensuring we can best serve our neighbors across Western and most of Southern Wake County as a merged organization. We believe that we’re truly better together and look forward with great expectation for what’s to come, starting today!  

In this message, I’ll be sharing more about how, together, we’re providing stronger services and creating a deeper impact, and what that looks like for our community, how it affects growth, and our commitment to honoring our collective legacy as we move forward.

Better Together
Stronger Services | Deeper Impact 

Wins for the Community
More Access to Our Programs and Services: Our merger strengthens service delivery across Western and most of Southern Wake County, ensuring broader access to food, increased opportunities for financial assistance and case management, expanded workforce development, and enhanced advocacy opportunities.

• We’ve doubled the first-time financial assistance limit in Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquay, Willow Springs, New Hill and Friendship, and are providing financial assistance proportionate to household size across our entire service area.
• In addition to food and housing costs (rent, mortgage, and utilities), financial assistance is available to qualified applicants for emergency crises across our entire service area.
• We’ve made significant enhancements to our Food Security Program that will be rolled out in the coming months with the implementation of our new CRM. We’ll be sharing more about those changes as they happen.

Unified Mission and Values: Together, we are committed to helping our neighbors, serving with compassion and dignity as we provide assistance and help create pathways to success, while cultivating a community where everyone can thrive. 

Forward Growth
Sustainable Impact: We’re building a strong, innovative organization that will continue to grow and respond to the evolving needs of our communities.

Expanded Capacity: By aligning and streamlining services and processes, we will reduce duplication and increase efficiency, allowing us to steward resources more effectively. 

Honoring Legacy
Shared Purpose and Values: We will honor our unique histories—rooted in compassion and love for our neighbors, the faithfulness and dedication of our staff and volunteers, and the tremendous support from our community partners and donors—while embracing the future unified as one merged organization. 

Continued Heart: The heart of who we are will never change. Our volunteers, partners, and staff will recognize the same steadfast commitment to serving neighbors in need. 

Brand
The Board of Directors has voted to move forward with a rebrand – including exploring a new name, visual identity and refining our language – that reflects the unified vision of our newly merged organization. This months-long process will be collaborative, thoughtful, and intentional; it will be facilitated by Angel Oak Creative, a third-party marketing firm that has worked with us throughout the merger branding process thus far. 

Our brand is more than a name or a logo. It represents who we are, what we stand for, and how we show up with our community. As we move forward together, our brand will reflect our shared mission and values, amplifying our collective impact.

Stay tuned for more information as we work through this exciting process.

Communication and Online Presence
During the interim period (between now and the rollout of the new brand), we will consolidate a number of things under the Dorcas Ministries name to streamline our communication and fully implement our new CRM. Over the next couple of months, we will transition to a single website. All applications for assistance, volunteering, donations, general inquiries, and other purposes will be directed through this site. We will use DorcasNC.org until a new website is rolled out later this year as part of the rebrand.

This will be a phased implementation, and we’ll communicate updates each step of the way.

Volunteers
Our merged organization is made up of over 1,400 amazing, active, and highly committed volunteers! Volunteers have been the backbone of both Dorcas (since 1968) and WWCM (since 1983), and that has not changed! Our volunteers are vital to the success of our organization and will continue serving across all areas of Community Services and in the Dorcas Thrift Shop. We actually have some volunteers who serve at both the Apex and Cary locations!

Organizational Structure
Evaluating and refining our organizational structure is a crucial step in aligning our collective strengths, effectively stewarding our resources, and positioning ourselves for even greater impact in our community. Our new structure includes five major departments: Community Services, Mission Advancement, Operations, Administration, and Finance. 

• Community Services
  This is the heart of our mission in action—serving our neighbors through emergency financial assistance, housing stabilization, food security, workforce development programs, and advocacy. Last year, Dorcas and WWCM collectively provided over $3 million in financial and food assistance to our neighbors across Southern and Western Wake County! Thanks to our incredible Community Services team, we’re on track to increase that number this year.
• Mission Advancement
  This team is focused on how we tell our story, build relationships, and inspire support. It includes philanthropy and fundraising, community engagement, marketing, branding, communication, strategic initiatives and partnerships, and major events.
• Operations
  The Operations Team ensures that we have the necessary infrastructure, systems, resources, and support to perform our work effectively, all while making sure we fulfill another big part of our mission: providing our neighbors with high-quality essentials at affordable prices and a best-in-class shopping experience. The Operations Team encompasses facilities, retail, IT, and people, including HR and volunteerism. Without them, we could not do what we do every day!
• Administration
  Our unsung heroes! Thriving teams and organizations depend heavily on the people who ensure our foundations are solid, and often, those are our behind-the-scenes administrative staff.
• Finance
  Our finance team is navigating an important transition this season, as we enter a new fiscal year and implement a new financial management system. Their work continues to be foundational as we maximize and steward every dollar and resource to sustain and grow our impact, while also making sure we care well for our people along the way.

THANK YOU!
As I reflect on the merger thus far, I’m humbled and deeply grateful to every single person who has been part of the journey. We have tremendous opportunities on the horizon, and as we continue to grow, expand our services, and care for our neighbors, there’s no doubt that we are better together!

—André

—
André Anthony
Chief Executive Officer
Dorcas Ministries