STEPS

About Us · Austin, Texas

Every story is different.

STEPS — Striving to Empower Potential Success — is a faith-based, community-based non-profit serving Austin. We focus on the needs that hold people back from stability: food, health, mentoring, education, and home placement.

  • Food
  • Health
  • Mentoring
  • Education
  • Home placement

Life at STEPS

Photos from the work.

All four photos below are real — captured at STEPS food distributions, mentoring sessions, and community gatherings in Austin.

A large group of STEPS volunteers and community members of all ages posing together outdoors under a tree in Austin
The STEPS teamReal
STEPS volunteers in yellow shirts handing bags of groceries to a neighbor during a street food distribution in Austin
Food pantry dayReal
A STEPS mentor speaking to a room of young men seated in rows during a mentoring session in Austin
Mentoring sessionReal
A group of STEPS volunteers and neighbors posing with bags of supplies and cases of water after a street distribution in Austin
Thanksgiving for the CommunityReal

Our approach

Don’t just treat the symptom, find the cause.

Our approach is simple: don’t just treat the symptom, find the cause. When someone comes to us because they can’t pay their bills, we don’t stop at covering the bill — we look at whether the real issue is money management or a genuine lack of income, and we work from there to help them build something sustainable.

The symptom

A bill that can’t be paid.

The cause we look for

Money management, or a lack of income.

Then we build from there — something that lasts.

Founded 2016

The work started before the paperwork.

Registered 501(c)(3) · established 2016

STEPS was legally established in 2016 as a registered 501(c)(3), but the work started long before that — helping people one-on-one, without a formal staff, until judges and community members who saw the impact encouraged formal licensing so the work could grow.

2016 → today

How the story has unfolded.

The 2016 founding and today’s numbers are real. Anything in brackets is a placeholder waiting for a date and a real milestone.

  1. Before 2016

    Real

    Helping neighbors one-on-one

    The work began informally — no formal staff, just people showing up for each other. Exact years [PLACEHOLDER].

  2. 2016

    Real

    STEPS becomes a 501(c)(3)

    Judges and community members who saw the impact encouraged formal licensing, so the work could grow.

  3. 2017

    Real

    Supporting women living with lupus

    After recognizing how many women in his community were living with lupus, Jese used STEPS to help in various ways. That work prepared him somewhat for discovering the following year that his own mother had lupus. In subsequent years, Jese has been recognized as a lupus warrior advocate.

  4. [YEAR]

    Placeholder

    [PLACEHOLDER] milestone

    Replace with a real STEPS milestone — a second location, an annual event, or a giving campaign.

  5. Today

    Real

    Volunteer-powered, still neighborhood-led

    A core team of 12, working alongside other Austin non-profits. Over 1,000 people worked with since 2016.

In his words

“There’s no such thing as a lost cause.”

— Jese Webb, founder of STEPS

STEPS today

Today, STEPS is volunteer-based and works alongside other non-profits, with a core team of 12. We’ve walked with over 1,000 people in Austin. Every story is different — young people we took in who are now raising families of their own, single mothers who found financial footing, neighbors who just needed someone to believe there was no such thing as a lost cause.

1,000+

people worked with

Real

12

core team members

Real

That’s still what we believe.

Be part of the next story.

Give your time, or give today — there’s a place for you here.

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