CAF began to operate in 2006 in the state of Massachusetts and partnered with a number of churches in the Merrimac valley. In 2009 CAF began to work very closely with the clergy leaders and pastors to strategize how they can be a voice in their communities. Together we created Los Conectadores Program/The connector Program – A Capacity building and leadership program that prepares faith-based leaders to be active leaders in their community by acting as a bridge to fill the gap between their congregations and their community they serve.

The Connectors program follow four steps when developing strategic actions by identifying the challenges/issues faced in their congregations. The faith-based leaders provide surveys that are provided to their congregations to identify what are some of the pressing needs that congregations reflect. The survey is then analyzed and aggregated with the rest of the surveys submitted by all of the participating leaders from a particular community:

• Connecting and making families aware of what is available in the community and the resources and pool of services they can take advantage of.
• Educating families and the Latino clergy through a number of workshops that are presented to the congregations on a number of topics identified by the church members.
• Empowering families with information, knowledge and resources is essential. This is important because often time families don't have those.

Program Vision: The vision of this program is to reach out to Families, To bring awareness and empowerment to families by connecting them to the resources offered by CAF, the churches as well as other institutions in the community and Creating Functional families and sustainable communities.

Project Objectives: CAF’s objective is to provide the faith-based leaders with clear direction on how to develop a successful initiative using simple techniques that can be easily implemented. CAF’s method allows prospective partners to proactively engage faith-based communities and enables a faster way to deliver objectives. Faith-based organizations comprise a growing in number and in presence in small and large communities with a rich concentration of minorities. Many of them are seeking nontraditional partners that can fully serve their memberships. This provide an excellent opportunity for partners with the CAF’s guidance, to reach and educate the minority market through the development of a simple to use faith-based solution, that will expand market size and aid improvements in the Latino social and economic status CAF’s approach to working with the churches efficiently and facilitate the creation of a well rounded faith-based capacity building program by:

• Allowing the faith-based organizations to continue to participate at its own level of expertise.
• Providing guidance on how to reach out to their membership with the right message.
• Giving the “hook” that engages and excites the membership about the possibility of financial stability.
• Demonstrating a clear direction on how to develop successful partnership in the community they serve