Nonprofits Create Community is NIA’s theme for 2026, as we celebrate the ways that nonprofits come through for their communities in spite of all the challenges facing them. In this series, meet some NIA-insured nonprofits who share their stories of creating community in their own words.
Meet Safe Organized Spaces (SOS) Richmond of Richmond, CA
Morgan Richie, Communications Specialist of SOS Richmond explains:
“SOS Richmond builds trusted community with people experiencing homelessness, empowering them to achieve health, income, housing, and personal goals through peer-led support, meaningful relationships, and practical services.”
How does your nonprofit and your mission create community for the people and places you serve?
Building trusted relationships with unhoused neighbors.
“SOS Richmond creates community by building trusted relationships with unhoused neighbors.
For people experiencing homelessness, community begins with consistent presence.
Through outreach, our Warm Hand Wellness Center, workforce programs, and peer accompaniment services, we create spaces where people are known by name, welcomed without judgment, and connected to others who understand their experiences.
Our staff have lived experience with homelessness themselves, allowing them to build trust and offer hope in ways that traditional service models often cannot.”
What are your nonprofit’s biggest challenges or obstacles to creating community?
Overcoming the isolation and instability that often accompany homelessness.
“One of our biggest challenges is overcoming the isolation and instability that often accompany homelessness.
When people are focused on meeting their most basic needs — finding a safe place to sleep, protecting their belongings, accessing food, or managing health concerns — it can be difficult to build the trust and relationships that form the foundation of community.
Frequent displacement from encampment abatements and the lack of stable housing further disrupt social connections and make it difficult for people to remain engaged in services, employment, healthcare, and community life.
Many individuals have also experienced significant trauma, stigma, and exclusion, leading to understandable distrust of institutions and systems that have failed them in the past.”
A broker’s take on community in action.
Before a nonprofit can help build community, they need insurance — and brokers are their guide to helping them find coverage, maintain it, and, if needed, make a claim on it.
SOS Richmond partners with John Ziesenhenne, a broker with M. A. Hays Co., who helps them get the most value from their NIA coverage.
As their broker, Ziesenhenne shared his insight into the benefit SOS Richmond brings to the community:
“SOS Richmond has a very important role in the Richmond community by serving the homeless individuals that are in acute situations who need assistance immediately.
SOS has done outstanding work to improve the lives of so many people that did not have hope for a better future before SOS intervened.”
