Restoring Hearts Supporting Hands
501(c)(3) public charity · EIN 93-4976456
Incorporated December 2023 · Florissant, Colorado
Serving El Paso, Teller & Pueblo Counties
Candid Gold Seal of Transparency. IRS determination letter, current financials, and Form 990 available on request. We answer questions directly, quickly, and in plain language.
Request documents →Our outcomes framework tracks what clinical measures miss: pyramid tier progression (are people moving toward peer leadership?), community anchor establishment at 90 days, recovery stability, and purpose engagement. Clinical oversight is provided quarterly by our Clinical Director, Marco Reséndiz, PsyD.
We are a non-clinical program. No diagnosis, no treatment, no case management. We operate as a flank to clinical treatment — creating the conditions that make treatment possible for people who can’t yet access it. When clinical care is needed, we refer warmly and we stay.
Participants are compensated for their time at Tier 1 events. No strings. This is a core design feature, not an incentive program — the people we serve have been conditioned by their circumstances to respond to immediate, tangible support, and we meet them there. We maintain a full participation log. The research on immediate compensation in recovery engagement is clear: it works because it meets people where the psychology of addiction actually is.
An independent board: military leadership, financial oversight, and a licensed psychologist at the Department of Public Health. Staff and board roles are distinct. Program data reviewed quarterly at the board level.
Meet the board →We report what didn’t work alongside what did. We treat outcomes data as a learning tool, not a scorecard. And we don’t take pictures of the people we serve — not because we can’t, but because they are not projects. Their autonomy and dignity matter more than our proof of impact.
We don't take pictures. You're not a project.
amanda@restoringheartscolorado.org →We are asked often what our model rests on. Here is the full citation list behind our programs, our grant applications, and our supporting documents — collected in one place so any funder or reviewer can check the work.
Full citations available on request. Where a finding is summarized above, we have stated it at the level the underlying study supports — and where a study’s population differs from ours, we say so rather than overstate the match.
None of these restorations came from a program treating people as cases to be processed. They came from connection — offered to people the wider world had written off.
One of the gentlest people we serve, so worn down he works to be invisible. At an event a boisterous shelter dog broke away and ran straight to him, and he lit up.
At the Humane Society every week — wanted, and letting people back in.
She had come to believe the world had given up on her. We connected her with a caring community nearby, and something in her began to ease.
Being folded in as one of their own — a peace that wasn’t there before.
We report what didn’t work alongside what did. A true small story beats a polished big one.
The people we serve are not our proof of impact. They are the point.
Program officers: we welcome the hard questions. That’s how you know we’re ready.
Names have been changed and identifying details removed in every story on this site. We never photograph the people we serve. Read our privacy commitment →