Article and photo by Urban Alliance staff.
When founding Urban Alliance, our leaders looked at three organizations to understand their models of ministry and how that could apply to the landscape of the Greater Hartford community. This is how we came into relationship with one of our board members, Jeff Bass.
After 8 years of serving as the Assistant Director of Emmanuel Gospel Center (EGC), Jeff became the Executive Director in 1999 and oversees the ministry that served as one of the models for Urban Alliance’s work today.
Having served at EGC for 26 years, Bass has relevant ministry and organizational experience to offer Urban Alliance as a growing organization; but, after all these years, personal relationships with our staff drew him to get more involved.
While Jeff was on a trip with his team to our office in East Hartford recently, Dave Brooker, UA’s President and CEO, asked him to join the our board of directors. Initially, Jeff thought the distance and his current responsibilities would be a hinderance; however, after considering it more deeply, he accepted the invitation and began serving in September 2016.
“I believe UA and EGC have a lot to learn from each other, so I can help UA grow but also UA can help me and EGC grow. So far, at least, this has proven true,” shared Bass.
Appreciative of how thoughtful Urban Alliance is with community partners and engaging with them, Emmanuel Gospel Center has recently taken some notes on Urban Alliance’s work, including but not limited to our collaboration with World Vision to enhance some of their own Boston Public Schools partnerships.
Jeff is excited about future collaborations and looks forward to learning more about Urban Alliance and the work that is happening here in the Greater Hartford area. He is also looking forward to his drives to and from board meetings, seeing them as a time to get what he calls “a few hours alone in the car to think and pray about things”.
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