About

Our Partners

empowOR is the result of a unique partnership. Miles IT, Garrett County Community Action (GCCAC) and organization development expert Paige Teegarden formed CSST Software, LLC which owns, supports, and continuously develops CADS and empowOR. This privately-held partnership leverages the strengths of the partners:

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Paige Teegarden

Paige Teegarden, MPP, boasts an illustrious career of over 30 years marked by her unwavering commitment to improving the effectiveness and efficiencies of businesses and nonprofit organizations of all sizes.

GCCAC

Garrett County Community Action

Garrett County Community Action (GCCAC) is a large, diverse, rural community action agency located in Oakland, MD and has been in operation since 1965 GCCAC.

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Miles Technology

Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Moorestown, New Jersey, Miles IT is a leading provider of business technology solutions to all types and sizes of businesses. With offices throughout New Jersey, New York, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Northern Virginia, and the greater Philadelphia Metro area, Miles IT services the computer consulting needs of more than 1,800 clients nationwide and employs over 100 full-time professionals.

Our Approach

Mission

At empowOR, we believe in changing human services through data by helping the helpers. Our software provides a top tier client services tracking system that supports the Whole Family approach. The tools we provide help agencies across the nation focus on data collection and management, in order to optimize efficiency and maximize results in their communities.

About Us

empowOR was ‘born’ out of the complex needs of multi-service agencies who are trying to:

  • De-silo their data and approach
  • Use data and technology to improve efficiencies in operations
  • Coordinate services
  • Use data for funder reporting & strategic analysis
Our Team

Leadership

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Paige Teegarden

Founder & CEO
Paige Teegarden, MPP, boasts an illustrious career of over 30 years marked by her unwavering commitment to improving the effectiveness and efficiencies of businesses and nonprofit organizations of all sizes. As the CEO & Founder of CSST Software LLC, Paige has been the driving force and visionary behind the inception and evolution of empowOR and its sister product CADS (Community Action Data Store). She believes in the power of data to transform agencies and communities.
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Lil Dupree

VP of Customer Experience
Lil Dupree is the VP of Customer Experience at empowOR and is a dedicated professional with an impressive 19-year journey in the realm of Community Action, spanning both local and national landscapes. Lil is a Certified Community Action Professional (CCAP) and a former Master ROMA Trainer, with a proven track record of leading impactful national initiatives. Her contributions include steering major projects like the Organizational Standards and Emerging Leaders Projects, as well as lending her expertise to the National Data Taskforce.
Meaghan

Meaghan Arzberger

Director of Capacity Building
Meaghan Arzberger has over 15 years of experience working with nonprofit organizations focused primarily on fighting poverty. Meaghan started at empowOR in 2023 as the Director of Capacity Building where she oversees efforts to increase customer’s use of data effectively - from technical assistance, to data migrations, to custom reports. Meaghan brings expertise around CSBG reporting, the ROMA cycle, HUD Housing Counseling, Whole Family approach, and Social Drivers of Health.
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John Fox

Technical Lead Developer
John Fox is the Technical Lead Developer at empowOR. With nine years of robust development experience, John has established himself as a proficient and versatile professional. His diverse background encompasses work on Material Requirements Planning (MRP) systems and the creation of a customized web-based shipping platform, which shares frameworks with empowOR.
Our Team

Sales/Ops

The empowOR Sales & Operations Team is responsible for identifying and acquiring new agencies, conducting product demonstrations, crafting responses to Requests for Proposals (RFPs), and negotiating pricing & terms. Additionally, these individuals are responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of empowOR, ensuring that processes run smoothly, resources are allocated efficiently, and customer needs are met.

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Andrew Toronyi

Operations Manager
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Becka Horner

Customer Acquisition & Retention Manager
Our Team

Development

The empowOR Development Team is responsible for creating, maintaining, and enhancing the empowOR software. This diverse and experienced team of developers are responsible for writing, testing, and maintaining the code that makes up empowOR’s features and functionalities. They work within various programming languages, frameworks, and tools to deliver a competitive software solution.

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Brandon Myers

Software Developer
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Damon Flick

Software Developer
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Derick Tawang

Software Developer
Isaac

Isaac Koranteng

Software Developer
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Juliana Meo

Dev Ops Manager
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Shruti Belhe

Project & Support Administrator
Our Team

Customer Experience

The empowOR Customer Experience Team supports new agencies with onboarding by providing personalized training sessions, walkthroughs, and documentation to ensure effective use of the empowOR software. CET provides day-to-day assistance to agencies who encounter issues, have questions, or need guidance on using the software. They offer timely and effective solutions through various channels, such as email, chat, phone, and ticketing systems.

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Carley Pelella

Empowor Director
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Crystal Rogers

Support Manager
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Gino Mauricci

TECHNICAL COORDINATOR 1
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Liz Belden

Technical Specialist 2
Rebecca

Rebecca Hanlin

Launch & Training Manager
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Tierra Lyles

Technical Coordinator 1

Security

CSST Software has a favorable SOC 2 audit and completes audits once a year. According to this year’s SOC 2 - Type 2 Report, empowOR by CSST has established operational requirements that support the achievement of service commitments, relevant laws and regulations, and other system requirements. Such requirements are communicated in its system. policies and procedures, system design documentation, and customer agreements. Information security policies define an organization-wide approach to how systems and data are protected. These include policies around how the service is designed and developed, how the system is operated, how the internal business systems and networks are managed, and how employees are hired and trained. In addition to these policies, standard operating procedures have been documented on how to carry out specific manual and automated processes required in the operation and development of various CSST services. Our SOC 2 had no findings listed.
In terms of additional security measures, Miles IT, which hosts our application, has been subject to Security, Privacy, Confidentiality and Availability SOC 2 Type II audits annually and CSST Software reviews the report to ensure consistency with principal objectives and service commitments. Current Service Level Agreements guarantee a software response time (defined as the interval from the time the end user sends a transaction to the time a visual confirmation of transaction completion is received), of less than two (2) seconds for 98% of all transactions.

See empowOR in action

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What our clients say

Testimonials

Client inquiry and the ability to send requests for documents have reduced the time that our Case Managers spend doing intake by 50%.

Joseph Figueroa

Tri Lakes Cares (TLC), CO

Before empowOR, La Puente's Crisis Prevention arm was taking up to 2 weeks to process an application. These days, we can process applications in 1 business day! empowOR was a game changer.

Adam Cheise

La Puente Crisis Prevention, CO

The capacity for reporting is far beyond any system we have seen.

Betsy Andrews Parker

Community Action Partnership of Strafford County, NH

We can case note what is going on with someone, read the notes, and pick back up where someone else left off. That wasn't the case when we were in many different systems.

Dawn van Hees CCAP, NCRI

Lakes and Pines CAC, Inc., MN

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