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September 2016

Sep 26

Helping young black males succeed

By Feature

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

What’s in a name? A lot, according to Michael Twyman, the executive director of OpportunINDY.

Formerly called Your Life Matters, OpportunINDY began as a directive by former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard to leaders of Indiana Black Expo and the Indiana Civil Rights Commission in 2014 to reduce the rising level of murders and violence that affected a high percentage of African-American males in Indianapolis.

At the time, 66 percent of the victims and 64 percent of the suspects were African-American males. Ballard asked Tanya Bell, president and CEO of Black Expo, and Jamal Smith, the civil rights commission’s executive director, to lead a violence prevention task force. Their team’s charge: Develop a plan to reduce crime by increasing opportunities for young people.

Twyman, who now leads the project, announced a name change earlier this year. The original name, copyright protected by Radio One, was on loan and was often confused with the national “Black Lives Matter” movement. The new name, Twyman said, reflects the project’s original roots to expand opportunities for African-American males ages 14 to 24.

“One of the interesting things that the task force did — that dovetails with the name change ironically — is to focus on how Indianapolis could begin to provide, create, incentivize and expand better opportunities for African-Americans to be successful,” said Twyman.

“It was a different prism from which to look at the issue. It really puts more onus on the community to say, ‘What are we not doing or not doing enough of perhaps that is leading to why this phenomenon seems to be tragically increasing?’”

Ballard’s other charge was to focus on the conditions that precipitated the troubling statistics.

“It was really a recognition that we’re not just going to look at symptoms, we’re going to look at root causes,” said Twyman.

Twyman came on board in 2015 when Indiana Black Expo took over the program itself. Two years earlier, he left his position as director of grants programs for the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust to become director of the Institute on Race and Ethnicity at University of Arkansas-Little Rock. He was returning to his hometown and to a position where he “could effect change at a level that he could really see.”

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How to help OpportunINDY

OpportunINDY has a common agenda that allows anyone in the community to partner to join or work to improve conditions in their area.

So for example to meet the graduation goal, most school districts are represented at the table. There are nonprofits, too, including 100 Black Men, College Mentors for Kids, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Boys & Girls Clubs, the YMCA, and some of the community centers.

“A number of the usual suspects, but then there are some smaller groups, nonprofits, civic organizations, that have an interest in that area,” said Twyman.

Twyman suggests that there are many ways individuals can engage. Here are six that can help the initiative’s success:

  1. Provide financial support to OpportunINDY. Support the shared work of partners who are stretched thin in every industry as they work alone.
  2. Explore the four focus areas of its plan of action.How might you directly support one partner working on the shared outcomes in your own sphere of influence?
  3. Contact OpportunINDY’s Focus Area Leads.How can you help move the agenda of an entire focus area? Even a bit of in-kind support, a new policy or an open door to information could make all the difference on an outcome.
  4. Sign up for OpportunINDY updates. Remain updated, keep the initiative’s progress and challenges in mind, share what you know with others.
  5. Make a difference right where you are — at work, home, in your neighborhood, in your place of worship.

Consider these ideas: Ask questions. Learn from your own data. Review the stories you tell. Change how or where you conduct business. Review your policies. Think creatively. Engage young black men in planning, outreach and evaluation. Connect with groups, organizations or businesses you wouldn’t normally work with.

  1. Mentor. No matter your age, stage, position or ethnicity, there is a young black man who welcomes your counsel, your listening ear, your constant presence, your encouragement. It doesn’t take a degree or special training to actively care. You can start doing that today!

Contact information

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The task force, according to Twyman, spent their short time together developing a plan.

“Indianapolis did it just the opposite of most collective impact models. They did the strategy first. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just a different way,” he said.

“You have to have buy-in and true collaboration and trust among the players in order to say that you will commit to shared measurements, to being communicative across sectors and across organizations and across silos that you have now dedicated yourself to be part of a larger solution beyond your institution or organization mission,” said Twyman.

That strategy actually worked to the city’s advantage when the Obama White House got wind of the effort several months before the announcement of its own national initiative, My Brothers’ Keeper. White House staff came to the city to sit down with the mayor and task force before the national rollout.

“A lot of the other communities signed on to become a My Brothers’ Keeper community and then had to put together a plan. So having a plan first worked in our favor,” Twyman said.

Twyman said when major funding opportunities geared toward young men of color became available; Indianapolis already had a connection, a plan and work being done. He also quickly realized that there was no capacity organizationally or an infrastructure to manage the work.

Now with a staff of five, and more than two years deep into its work aimed at disadvantaged black teens and young men in its neighborhoods, schools and workforce, OpportunINDY just hosted a citywide conference – Your Mind Matters. The session was intended to plant seeds, and get more nonprofits and programs involved in the project’s overall mission.

Twyman is proud of making the transition from a task force report to hiring staff and developing a volunteer effort in less than two years.

“I think had this remained a program idea or initiative of a mayor or the city of Indianapolis, it would no longer exist. For it to have life and to begin to be worth its weight, it had to become community owned and driven. A lot of times what I say to people when, they say, ‘So what is OpportunIndy doing?’ and I’ll say, ‘What are you doing for OpportunIndy?’ Cause it’s we, it’s not us, we’re the conductor.

“I think that Indianapolis is a community and city that does a few things very well. We do pretty good working across the public and private sector divide and around issues that we care enough about,” he said.

The project serves as a collaborative umbrella to bring people and organizations to the table. OpportunINDY does not create new programs, but works to change conditions with current resources. Often, organizations operate in vacuums, improving their little corner of the world, but without a big picture.

Focused on four areas — education, employment, criminal justice and health/safety — the project has set goals to increase the rate of high school graduation rates among African-American teens; increase the employment rate for young black men; and decrease the rates of homicides, imprisonment and recidivism.

Each area has specific strategies. For example, education’s outcomes and strategy performance measures are:

All young black men will graduate from high school on time and enter the

workforce with an industry certification, enter the military and/or complete other post-secondary education by age 24.

There are three strategies with action plans that help accomplish this goal.

#1: Ensure that all Marion County high schools and alternative programs have positive learning environments that fully engage black young men through quality curriculum, instruction and support services.

#2: Ensure Marion County post-secondary schools have policies and programs that actively recruit, mentor, retain and graduate young black men.

#3: Increase the number of young black men ages 14-24 participating in self-discovery activities, career planning and exposure to high-demand/high-wage jobs.

Besides the focus on graduation in Marion County, there is a targeted neighborhood — the 46218 ZIP code, and even more specifically, two housing projects – Hawthorne Place and Beechwood. That initiative focuses on three primary outcomes: 1) participants graduate from high school; 2) attend college and/or pursue a career with a livable wage; 3) refrain from committing crime or becoming incarcerated.

“We have place/space strategy in 46218, and that came to us through an opportunity through the Department of Education with our linkage to My Brothers’ Keeper,” Twyman said.

Twyman believes that organizations like OpportunINDY can help bring resources into the community and identify things that are working well across the country.

“When you’re doing the work, you’re doing the work. You don’t have time,” he said.

How will the project identify success? One way the public can determine what progress is being made by comparing the gains made in the five goals is through an annual report card that the project will release in the summer of 2017. The report will be in the form of an infographic scorecard on its website and hard copies will be distributed publically.

While it’s early, according to Twyman, it appears that there will be a bump in high school graduation rates due to alternative discipline and restorative justice practices taking root, and even a slight decrease in the homicide rate.

“We cannot lose sight of the opportunity to not only maximize our individual work, but know that our individual work is only as good as it is in helping to solve a larger community problem,” said Twyman.

Sep 19

Nonprofits must work overtime on new rule

By Sponsor Insight

By Stephanie Allgeyer, CPA, CFE, VonLehman

Nonprofit organizations that receive government contracts or grants may be hit hard by the overtime rules that go into effect in December. Many of them have agreements that obligate them to provide services at fixed reimbursement rates that won’t reflect the higher costs resulting from the new rules. This article addresses those concerns and offers two solutions promoted by the National Council of Nonprofits.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) long-awaited final overtime rule will have a significant effect on practically every industry and profession in the country.

And the nonprofit sector isn’t immune. Managers in the sector actually may be scrambling later in the year to comply with the requirements, which go into effect on December 1, 2016. Major changes may be required, particularly as the final rule relates to government grants and contracts.

A recent report by the National Council of Nonprofits (NCN) addresses these concerns and offers solutions government units and funders may have to take.

Background information

Under the new DOL rule, the standard salary level used to determine whether executive, administrative and professional employees and computer professionals are eligible to receive overtime will increase from $455 per week ($23,660 per year) to $913 per week ($47,476 per year) for a full-time worker beginning in December. In light of this, the NCN surveyed organizations with government grants and contracts asking for practical insights on putting the new rules into effect.

Its report on the survey refers to “operational anxiety” among groups trying to figure out how to pay the new required additional costs in very tight, or even declining, revenue environments while providing the same level of services. It concludes that government units may have to be convinced to make accommodations in order for nonprofit organizations to maintain their current levels of service.

The report is widely viewed as a “call to action” for the network of state associations the NCN represents.

Uncertainty and misunderstandings

Because of the uncertainty over the new rules — and misunderstandings in some quarters — certain groups are likely to be affected more than others. This could include organizations where demand for services is unpredictable (for example, groups involved in crisis response or caring for the elderly and disabled), and groups who rely on small donations to keep running. These nonprofits complain that they can’t expect donors to increase contributions just to compensate for higher salaries. And of course, reductions in staff or cutbacks in hours aren’t appealing options for many organizations.

More than half of the 1,000 survey respondents represented human services providers. Arts and education nonprofits comprised another 19%. Most of those surveyed had an annual operating budget between $1 million and $10 million.

The vast majority of respondents reported that their existing government contracts don’t take these higher costs into account. And unlike for-profits that can raise prices or governments that can raise taxes or cut services, nonprofits with government grants and contracts typically are contractually bound to provide services at fixed reimbursement rates that won’t reflect the higher costs imposed by the new overtime rule.

Two solutions

According to the report, 69% of respondents said there isn’t a provision in their existing grants and contracts to reopen or renegotiate the agreements to secure additional reimbursements. Moreover, 28% weren’t sure if their contract allowed adjustments, while just 3% were certain such a clause did exist. One-third of respondents said they expect to cut staff and services to cover the higher costs.

The report offered two solutions to the “conundrum” presented by the new rules:

  1. Grant and contract reopeners. Nonprofits need ways to reopen or renegotiate government grants and contracts either to receive reimbursement rates that incorporate the increased costs or to adjust performance obligations.
  2. Short-term transition support. Private funders can provide additional resources during the interim phase of putting the rules into effect (the first couple of years) and offer emergency funds that will enable groups they support to conduct compliance audits, develop updated job descriptions, implement time-management systems, and make other upgrades to human resources systems.

Government revisions needed

Since the new costs are the result of changes to federal law, the NCN says it seems appropriate for the federal government to give direction to government program officers at the federal, state, tribal and local levels on how to revise existing grants and contracts to ensure that nonprofits are treated fairly.

 

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Different Strokes …

The Department of Labor issued additional guidance relating to two types of employers in the nonprofit sector.

  1. Educational institutions. Under a special exemption, many white-collar employees at higher education institutions aren’t subject to the salary level test or are subject to a different salary level test. Therefore, the new salary level won’t affect them.

For instance, the requirements for a white-collar exemption don’t apply to bona fide teachers. In addition, an alternative salary level governs academic administrative personnel that help run higher education institutions and interact with students outside the classroom. These personnel are exempt from the overtime requirements if they are paid at least the entrance salary for teachers at their institution.

  1. State and local governments. There are several provisions unique to state and local governments relating to compensatory time (comp time). Notably, state or local government agencies may arrange for their employees to earn comp time instead of cash for overtime hours.

Most state and local government employees may accrue up to 240 hours of comp time. Law enforcement, fire protection and emergency response personnel, as well as employees engaged in seasonal activities (such as employees processing state tax returns), may accrue up to 480 hours of comp time. An employee must be permitted to use comp time on the date requested unless doing so would “unduly disrupt” the operations of the agency.

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stephanie-allgeyer Stephanie L. Allgeyer graduated from the College of Mount Saint Joseph with a B.S. in accounting. Her public accounting experience includes auditing, review, compilation and business advisory and tax return services for a wide range of clients. She is involved in the firm’s audits ranging from construction, manufacturing and nonprofits, to governmental, financial institutions and retirement-plan clients.

 

Sep 06

MicroGreens Project: getting rooted in Indianapolis

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors, Photo credit: MicroGreens Project

When Colleen Rocap shares her excitement about the MicroGreens Project, she often gets this question: How are you using microgreens in your work? But for Rocap, it’s not about salad shoots; it’s about working with kids whose families are SNAP recipients and teaching them to cook so they can “sprout” change.

“Long story short, it is a program that teaches kids living on a SNAP budget how to cook food for a family of four for $3.50,” she said. “Let’s be honest, if you’re 12, you’re not making most of your food decisions at home, somebody else is doing that,” said Rocap, the local MicroGreens chapter coordinator.

But Rocap believes she can help change that, arming kids with skills and information.

Later this month, she will pilot the MicroGreens Project with 10 to 15 students from KIPP Indy College Prep Middle, a charter school on the city’s Eastside. Ronak Shah, a seventh-grade science teacher, has offered an after-school cooking club. Shah is working with Rocap to launch this effort.

“A lot of these kids have a single mother who works and a lot of the time are responsible for creating meals for their family. While they’re doing that, they can teach their younger siblings,” said Rocap.

In one class a week over an eight-week period, students will learn how anyone can shop for, prepare, and enjoy a healthy meal based on a total budget of $3.50 per meal per family of four.

“In the first class, the kids learn their knife skills and mirepoix. They’re learning how to chop the veggies and do everything safely, and how to use their cutting board. Then we’re taking all that stuff that they prepped, and freezing it to incorporate in the next lesson,” Rocap said.

Lessons use receipts from the closest grocery store to generate conversation about costs and how to stretch dollars.

“It’s nutritious healthy foods, but it’s all based on budgeting. So instead of just buying a packet of chicken that’s already been separated into different parts, we’re saying, ‘Here’s a whole chicken. It costs a lot less.’ We teach them how to take it apart and use over the course of this many weeks and incorporate it into this many meals.

“Buying in bulk is also a huge part of it and then not just telling them how to cook the food, it’s getting them to do it themselves. Giving them the skills, giving them the tools,” she said.

Every student in the program will get a cutting board, chef’s knife and measuring spoons. Under consideration, based on students’ needs, is giving them a crockpot or a cooking pan and a hot plate.

“Some kids don’t even have a stove. Based on what the need is, that’s what we want to give them,” Rocap said.

Started by then D.C. chef Alli Sosna, local wellness coach Rocap learned about the program from a tweet by Michael Pollan, an author and national food activist. She is adapting the program to meet area kids’ needs. Sosna, now based in New York, was in Indianapolis this summer to train Rocap and was a guest at a special event to raise awareness for the newly forming Indianapolis chapter of the MicroGreens Project. It was started to empower children to feel comfortable making healthy choices in the kitchen, at home and at the grocery store.

“The last class is a kind of ‘Top Chef’ final where we put a bunch of ingredients in front of the kids and say, ‘Get creative. However you want to do this.’ They’re all ingredients that they’ve already used and they’re familiar with them. But that’s just kind of like the fun thing they do in the end,” Rocap said.

In this pilot phase, she is soliciting input for the program. Some have suggested doing demonstrations in a grocery store with a different topic and food each time.

“There is just a huge disconnect between, I mean if you have the food available, that’s one thing. But people aren’t going to pick it up, if they don’t know what to do with it,” she said.

Eventually, she’d like to offer the program in community centers and other places where the need is, and maybe involve parents in the course.

If you are interested in learning more about the program, you can reach Rocap via email at rocap.colleen@gmail.com.

Sep 06

Status of hunger in Indianapolis

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors, Photo credit: KIPP charter school, courtesy MicroGreen Project

Dave Miner discovered a lot as a chemistry student in grad school. But it was outside the lab that he made his most poignant find. He discovered hunger.

It all started with a book — “Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger” by Ron Sider — that Miner received from a friend. Never hungry a day in his life, Miner was inspired by the book’s message, and began what has become a 30-plus-year campaign of volunteer service to help those without food.

In 2009, starting with a diagram of how food was getting to the hungry, he approached Gleaners’ CEO Pamela Altmeyer. She said, “Oh, you sort of got that right, but you didn’t have this, you didn’t have this.” The two began planning an effort to bring major players together to help the large, complex system work better. At the same time, Cindy Huber of Second Helpings was talking with the mayor and trying to get a similar effort started.

The three connected, began informational meetings, and the Indy Hunger Network was born. The coalition has representatives from leading anti-hunger organizations in Indianapolis, both public and private, and seeks to ensure that anyone who is hungry can access nutritious food.

Until recently, Miner served as chairman of the Indy Hunger Network, and is now chairman of the nonprofit’s projects committee.

How many people are hungry in Indianapolis? According to SAVI, the Polis Center’s free data source, the poverty rate in Marion County well outpaced the state and nation, increasing 45 percent from 2005 to 2012 compared to a 28 percent increase in Indiana and 20 percent in the U.S. A Rutgers University survey commissioned by the group in 2014 identified that nearly 200,000, or 21 percent of the county’s residents, need some food assistance.

Through their work together from 2010 to 2013, the Indy Hunger Network increased the number of meals provided in Marion County by 40 million. According to Miner, the network is sort of the conductor of the orchestra. It wasn’t the network itself, but the individual food providers that had the biggest increase in meals.

And while the network has made progress, there have been some setbacks.

Since 2013, there have been reductions in food assistance to SNAP recipients. In Indianapolis, SNAP accounts for two-thirds of the food provided, so anything that happens with SNAP is a big deal.

An emergency provision that boosted SNAP benefits in the wake of the 2008 recession expired late in 2013. Miner said that amounted to about 12 million meals. “Since then, there’s been another change that resulted in a huge drop in SNAP in the last year. Some of that is good because it means the economy is improving, and people don’t need the help anymore or don’t qualify for it, but some of it is people who still need it but aren’t able to get it for whatever reasons,” said Miner.

Another change in 2015 in Indianapolis was the abrupt closing of the Double 8 stores. For more than 50 years, the grocer was there for the underserved. This has added to the challenge, but according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture map, Indiana has 500 neighborhoods that are considered food deserts, and 125 of them are in Marion County, so the problem was already there.

In March, prompted by the Double 8 closings and this national problem, Indiana Democratic Congressman Andre Carson, sponsored the Food Desert Act (H.R.4833) designed to provide loans to nonprofits and others interested in providing food access in deprived neighborhoods. The bill would allocate $150 million to the USDA that would be distributed as 30-year loans, with no entity receiving more that $250,000, to support the establishment or operation of grocery stores in underserved communities.

Although the bill has received positive response and support from some national organizations, it hasn’t moved in Congress. In an election year, any bill that adds government support can be a hot potato, according to Nathan Bennett, legislative director for Carson. Bennett is hopeful that it will gain traction in 2017.

These loans would encourage people to open grocery stores featuring healthy, unprocessed foods. The loans, which the USDA would provide to each state, would be available to nonprofits or for-profit ventures wanting to sell goods for prices at or below the local going rates.

“One of the biggest differences between this and other similar grant programs is you have to continually re-up the money, and that makes you subject to politics. That’s something that we’ve seen with a lot of these programs over the last couple of years. You have great programs in place, but they’re subject to that political dynamic and so they’ve been defunded or flat funded or funded at a level that’s really not workable,” said Bennett.

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Since its start in 2009, Indy Hunger Network has initiated programs to enhance access to healthy food. Some of its efforts include:

Starting in 2013, by doubling Supplemental Nutrition Access Program (SNAP) purchases on local fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers’ markets up to $20 per day, Fresh Bucks was designed to incentivize healthy eating.  This year, Gleaners and Kroger were awarded funding to pilot a program at Kroger’s store on Linwood Avenue.

Pantry Partners was created as a collaborative effort designed to develop a network of leading pantries across Marion County. The effort is led by Gleaners with support from Interfaith Hunger Initiative, St.Vincent de Paul and Indy Hunger Network.

Summer Servings, a USDA’s Summer Food Service Program, is administered by the Indiana Department of Education, it provides meals and snacks to anyone age 18 and under during the months that school is not in session. Indy Hunger Network has provided outreach and marketing to increase summer participation.

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The proposed legislation has a competitive element to it. An application would receive bonus points if the plan includes hiring workers who reside in the underserved community, sourcing food locally, offering classes or education to the public, demonstrating expertise in the grocery industry and not selling alcohol or tobacco.

“Those are actually bonus points on their application if they have plans for those. We cannot tell them not to sell alcohol and tobacco because in a lot of areas that’s the most profitable product or set of products. So as long as they’re providing the food, that’s all we’re really looking for, but if they’re able to make it work by hiring people and by not selling alcohol and tobacco that’s for the better,” said Bennett.

While the bill slowly makes its way through Congress and is not set in stone, Bennett encourages input from the nonprofit community.

“We would like to hear from anyone who is interested in being on the team. If people have better ways to approach this, we’re very interested in hearing from you,” he said.

The Indy Hunger Network, which has been an all-volunteer-led organization, has made some changes, too. With 200,000 people needing assistance, the nonprofit recently hired Kate Howe as its paid managing director. A biologist by training, she has experience with Midwest Invasive Plant Network, a collective group, and most recently, served as board chairwoman of the Mid-North Food Pantry.

“I think we’ve all come to realize that we’re all novices at this kind of effort,” said Miner. “I think there’s huge power in bringing people together, getting clear on what the common objective is, but it’s a very special kind of deal. Nobody reports to you, everybody’s there literally as a volunteer. So I think we’ve come to realize that there’s wonderful power in the collective impact model, but also it’s a specialized deal and a unique challenge.

“We’ve made a ton of progress, but there’s still some more obvious things to do. I’m really pleased at how everybody has done and stayed in there.”

This fall, Indianapolis can showcase its efforts when it hosts the national Hunger Free Summit. The event, on Oct. 5-6, is typically held in Washington, D.C. For more information about the summit, click here.

“It will be good to feature Indianapolis,” said Miner.