By Sara Johnson, director, IU Executive Education, O’Neill School
Unprecedented times. It’s the phrase we keep hearing over and over from leaders around the world to describe the major shifts we’re seeing across all sectors due to the COVID-19 global pandemic.
And in these unprecedented times, we must provide unprecedented leadership.
IU Executive Education at the O’Neill School’s faculty — including Mary Anna Weber, Tom DeCoster and myself — have led teams through crises before. Our experiences can help leaders learn to do the same, starting with five key concepts to form the foundation.
Authenticity
Be authentic. You are going through this crisis just like your team. Be real about how this situation is challenging you, just as you want your employees to share how they are handling things. Don’t vent, though. Save sharing those frustrations for your peers, your family, or someone in a similar role.
Clarity
Be clear about your expectations and your messages. Rich communication channels involve reading body language and being face-to-face with a person. Having face-to-face meetings on Zoom or Skype is better than not seeing someone at all; however, it’s still not the same. People may be distracted physically — working on their sofa and trying to balance a laptop — or emotionally by their current situation. Be sure you clarify your messages at the end of virtual meetings. We know this is an important way to end any meeting, but it’s even more important now.
Empathy
Be empathetic. Lead with grace, focus, and understanding, while being patient and forgiving when everyone is trying to adapt to a “new normal.” Some people have never worked in their home environment before. They may be trying to find ways to work there at the same time their partners are also working from home or while their kids are doing homework. They may also be trying to figure out how technology, like how to log on to the office system remotely. Recognize that all of this can be a challenge.
Expect productivity to dip a bit as people adjust. If you have extremely high standards of performance, you need to relax that a bit or your own frustration will rise. That helps no one at this point. A boss once reminded me, “No one gets up in the morning and decides they are going to go to work and do a really bad job.” If you hired the right people in the first place, their performance will come back. Good people want their leader to succeed, too.
Consistency
Be consistent. Be the person your team knows you to be. Don’t take on behaviors that are inconsistent with who you are. You are a leader and when things are in an upheaval there is a tendency to get into the operations where you can be in greater control. There is no greater time for you to be leading rather than focusing on operations. Keep the sights set ahead and point the way for your team, even if the future is a bit muddied in your own mind. Leaders never have total clarity when leading. Don’t let a little fog stop you from ensuring your team is still moving forward.
Intentionality
Be intentional. Make it a point to communicate regularly and with purpose. There is a balance between inundating people with multiple communications to the point they get overwhelmed and even confused. Know what you specifically want to inform people about, even if it’s simply what you know and don’t know at a given point. People appreciate hearing from you even if it’s just that you don’t have information yet. This builds trust and lets them know you are still there, monitoring developments.
Keep in mind that right now you are helping your team make sense of this new and unpredictable journey. One thing that helps in sensemaking is consistent leadership and being a leader who can be trusted. If you lead with these behaviors, you will ensure your team can trust you to be that same person who looks out for and leads them on the average “day at the office.”
Sara Johnson is clinical assistant professor for the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs and Director of IU Executive Education. Professor Johnson teaches graduate and executive education courses. She is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE) and recently served the College as the Indiana Regent. As Director of Indiana University Executive Education, Professor Johnson leads a team of over 40 faculty and staff who are engaged in providing the highest level of leadership development and strategic organizational consulting.
Last year, nearly 10,500 adults were released from Indiana Department of Correction’s custody. In Marion County alone, 2,485 adults, of which 203 were females, rejoined the community.
While some find programs that help with their re-entry, other former inmates struggle. According to research, however, adults who find immediate, comprehensive support that focuses on transitioning ex-offenders back into society, have dramatic reduced rates of recidivism.
In Marion County, the Re-entry Coalition run by Community Solutions provides a connection and network for county re-entry programs. Lena Hackett, president and founder of Community Solutions, a community development consulting firm, has worked with well-established nonprofits that do this type of work, but has seen start-ups get in the game in the past several years. The coalition convenes monthly working groups and a two-part, large-group quarterly meeting that opens with work groups sharing results, and then sharing information and providing education.
“I know that there are people who have different beliefs or different values, but we’re still all working, using our resources, our networks, to say, ‘How do we make this change?’ It’s pretty exciting,” said Elizabeth (Liz) Wallin, founder of Project Lia, which supports women exiting the correctional system.
Wallin is one of several founders of start-up efforts. Ericka Sanders works with dads inside Putnamville Correctional Facility and founded YouYesYou! to keep dads and daughters connected. Nick Greven is interim director of FOCUS Initiatives, which began as a correspondence project in Bloomington and is just getting started in Indianapolis. His group, which is not yet a part of the Marion County Re-entry Coalition, will provide former inmates with a range of services and eventually will be run by the four inmates instrumental in getting the program off the ground. All believe in the importance of building trust.
Project Lia
Wallin, who grew up in Queens, New York, came to Indianapolis in 2016 for an internship at Mundell and Associates. Her quest was to learn about the Irvington company’s profit-sharing model. As a member of the Economy of Communion network, the environmental company divides its profits in thirds, a portion going to the community, a portion back into the business and the remainder to a general global fund. During her time in Indianapolis, she also volunteered with a group involved in a mosquito netting project at the Indiana Women’s Prison.
As a result of that connection, she started doing research into the root causes of female incarceration. She also started mapping the re-entry programs available in Indianapolis for women.
“I was very much looking at it like an analysis and trying to dig for data (to determine) would that be a sustainable project to take outside of the prison walls, so that when individuals return to the community, they would have that skill set and could plug right in as they gained some sort of stability. I was looking at it purely in a data-driven way.”
And that’s when the idea of Project Lia developed, said Wallin, founder and executive director. When her internship finished, Wallin stayed in the city, and with some of Economy of Communion funding, jumpstarted the program which is named for an Argentinian woman who dedicated her life to building bridges between races, cultures and religions.
Just under 10 percent of America’s prisoners are women. While men and women returning face some common challenges, some other barriers vary by gender. Women are statistically more likely to be expected to care for children or other family members. The basic premise is to help women rebuild their lives after incarceration.
The program’s length is designed to be six months to a year. As advancements are made through technical skills and the life skills program, job titles and pay can also advance. The goal is to make a successful transition to a long-term career opportunity. Along the way, program participants receive instruction in financial literacy, communication, business ethics, and health and wellness, and receive support for a future job search. As part of the process of rebuilding their lives, the women reuse discarded materials to design and build furniture and other items that contribute to the nonprofit’s revenues.
Word of the program is shared at the Women’s Prison, and last fall, “New America” produced a piece for the Atlantic that shared its mission and plans for scaling.
“It’s a pretty exciting moment. I think it also helps us in building our credibility as an organization and the work that we do. Because many times, it’s a hard sell — that very emotional, relational work that happens in community organizing and community development,” said Wallin.
“We’re creating taxpaying individuals, productive individuals, but that work only is sustained through relationships. It only really changes a long-term impact if you build those relationships and invest in the other. And that story’s hard to sell because it can be expensive and it’s messy. It doesn’t look like what you want it to look like, it looks like what it looks like.”
Besides funding from Economy of Communion, the nonprofit has received funding from the Plus Program, and is working with the Department of Correction to determine if a grant is feasible. Revenue from products and projects has been another source of income.
Just before the shelter-in-place order, Timesia Keys was hired as the full-time operations manager. During the pandemic, Wallin said it has not added any participants to the program, but applied for and received assistance from the Paycheck Protection Program through LISC and its landlord has provided some rent relief.
Some of the ways Wallin said the program measures success is to look at savings and checking accounts and financial management before and after the program.
“The career pathway we take is on a very individual basis. It’s like: ‘Where do you want to go? What do you want to be doing?’ and then we work on that,” Wallin said. Wallin also tries to connect women to community resources.
Joyce (using only her first name here) has been in the program for about six months and found it through PACE. Besides upholstering, she’s learned to fix windows, since a revenue generator for Project Lia is repairing all the transom windows in the Circle City Industrial Complex where the program is housed. But at her core, Joyce is a true leader. She is hungry for knowledge about the administrative side of a nonprofit, because she wants to start a transitional home for former women inmates.
Wallin said the program’s first employee is now a manager at a Bloomington beauty salon and has just purchased her first house.
“It’s exciting to be part of her life. She was at that point in the program helping us, more than we were helping her, it felt like. Love her story.”
But at the core, Wallin, who has grown up with people investing in her development, believes it is about social justice.
“I believe strongly in our ability to create a united world and peaceful communities. In loving the other, it is hard and simple at the same time — simple concept, radical implementation. So that’s sort of what’s my guiding post and how do we fight for equity for all,” she said.
Project Lia
WHO SERVED: Women over 18 who have been incarcerated.
WHAT: Social enterprise, started in 2017, working to address economic barriers to re-entry success. Participants develop workforce skills by repurposing discarded material into furnishings and accessories. Participants are paid $10 an hour to start, and after a three-month evaluation, earn $11, and eventually top at $12, and get help opening savings and checking accounts. The John Boner Neighborhood Center offers participants financial literacy and management support.
PROGRAM GOAL: Help women become self-sufficient, build a resume and. According to Project Lia’s mission statement: “We exemplify an inclusive local economy and ultimately help our participants become self-sufficient and valued members of society. We aim to create a space of understanding and mutual respect – a space where transforming material, transforms lives. Using excess materials growing the business and organization step-by-step.”
LOCATION: 1125 Brookside Avenue, Suite C1, Indianapolis, IN 46202.
Before Covid-19, purchasing items designed and made by the women were available in a small shop onsite during the week, and at area farmers’ markets and festivals. In the interim, online shopping is available.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: Volunteers have shared skills, like woodworking and sewing, donated building materials like lumber, tools and fabric and glass jars.
Every year, Ericka Sanders and her husband start their year setting goals. But 2014 was different. That year, she decided this would be her year to “to do something.”
A friend read a story about a father-daughter dance at a Virginia prison. That project idea didn’t go away. Sanders had grown up without her father actively in her life and was driven by a desire to help daughters have an experience that she didn’t have. She decided that a father-daughter dance could be her “do something.” According to a 2017 Incarceration to Reentry study in Indiana, 70 percent of people coming out of prison are parents, and the collateral consequences are often intergenerational.
By November, she had pulled together a first event at the Indianapolis Re-Entry Educational Facility on the Near Eastside. At that dance, 26 estranged fathers got the chance to reconnect with 37 daughters, as young as 2 and as old as 29.
By 2016, Sanders established a nonprofit, YouYesYou!, and began building relationships between incarcerated fathers and their daughters, which now includes programming inside prison facilities. A former Indianapolis Recorder reporter, now working full time for Simon Property Group, she has found the time to grow the program beyond the dance.
Besides the father-daughter annual dance, there are Halloween parties for families and their dads, monthly book clubs and workshops designed for the incarcerated fathers that introduce them to organizations focused on re-entry, rehabilitation and other activities. Additionally, on the outside, families build relationships by attending events like basketball games.
Those monthly Saturday book clubs allow time for the dads to talk and learn to build relationships with each other. She arrives with three or four questions about the book and inspirations that can be drawn from the text and asks if the inmates see themselves in the book’s characters.
“A lot of the times, the stories that we read are stories of triumph. Stories of people who have been dealt the most terrible hand but somehow, some way, they made it through. We talk a lot about the future and about dreaming. They don’t like to think much about that. But I kind of force them to do that because it’s important,” Sanders said.
But mostly she said, they just talk and learn a lot about each other.
“They’re pretty vulnerable at this point. By the time they’re in book club, they know me and they trust me. We know what each other is going through, so when we’re reading these books, we’re drawing from all of those different things.”
Sanders also encourages participants to thank whoever is taking care of their kids while the participants are incarcerated and to advocate for each other. Many guys, she said, are so much closer and are friends who hold each other accountable to stay out of trouble.
“The fathers in my program have made terrible, terrible decisions, multiple, multiple times. But they are human beings, and they are people, and sometimes if you just sit and you listen to their stories and you listen to their life and the brokenness that they come from and the things that they’ve had to deal with, you can kind of understand why they made some of the terrible decisions that they made.
“I really think that connecting them with their kids is the push that they need to be on good behavior and the push that they need that when they’re released, they will not come back. That is the basis of what we do.”
“A YouYesYou! father who getting out of prison has confidence, they believe in themselves. They’ve healed some relationships. They’re just different people. I hear that all the time. Basically, it’s just believing in them. It is so important that I get across that what we do is that we just believe in them,” Sanders said.
Earlier this year, she received a $50,000 United Way’s Innovation Award and is using part of the funds to hire a consultant to strengthen and grow her board. Plans are also underway to grow the program with the addition of the program at Plainfield, but the Department of Correction requires programs to be similar. So Sanders started her year honing the activity specifics, re-entry organizations’ workshops and the book club. Christamore House has plans to add a re-entry program, and YouYesYou! will collaborate and handle the family-engagement workshops to keep families of incarcerated engaged and connected.
She is still in communication with the Plainfield facility and Christamore House, but with the pandemic, expansion plans are on hold. The time has afforded her the opportunity to recruit a three-member working board which is scouting for additional members, and fine-tuning the program’s syllabus.
“Families of incarceration are often forgotten about. I think often people don’t realize the impact that incarceration has on families. What I’ve found, just the communication that the kids have with their dads, it helps the family all the way around,” Sanders said.
In five years, she sees the program expanding to more facilities and doing more family engagement activities in community centers.
“(The key is) to be able to just keep those families connected,” Sanders said. “The easy part is being in jail, if you want to be real about it. You know some guys are terrified to come out of prison. I would love to be able to share my blueprint with other individuals in Indiana and with other prison facilities and other states. It doesn’t have to be me running this program, it can be done anywhere, everywhere.”
She doesn’t want anything in return, she just wants them to be great dads. “Because by being a great dad, you’re not only helping yourself and your kids, but you’re helping their future.”
YouYesYou!
WHO SERVED: Fathers at Putnamville Correctional Facility, a medium security correctional facility. First father-daughter dance in 2014. Started at Putnamville in 2018 with 20 dads and ended up with 10; in 2019, 23 dads in the program, ended up with 21; and in 2020, the prison had 225 applications and selected 30. Those 30 are still involved. To date, eight have been released from prison and have not returned.
WHAT: Two-year project. Features workshops provided by re-entry organizations, like PACE, Recycle Force, EmployIndy, Goodwill’s New Beginnings and CareSource, which provide connections on the outside to employment and services. Fun activities with kids – father-daughter dance, Halloween party for daughters and sons and a family back-to-school event in August to maintain connections to family. A monthly book club that begins in November. When the program wraps up, the majority of dads are either out or on their way out when the program wraps up.
PROGRAM GOAL: To support the relationships between incarcerated fathers and their children by offering fun and engaging programs inside prison walls.
LOCATION: Putnamville Correctional Facility, 1946 W. U.S. Hwy 40, Greencastle, IN
Nick Greven has had firsthand experience with prisoners who struggle outside prison walls. His involvement started five years ago when he helped start IDOC-Watch. It’s a watchdog group that corresponds with inmates, particularly those who have been incarcerated for lengthy periods of time. While IDOC-Watch started in Bloomington, it now has about 50 people involved in chapters in Indianapolis, Gary, South Bend, Evansville and Fort Wayne.
Through contact, the group came to a greater understanding of incarcerated life and potential need for increased support. And what it also learned was that for individuals who have been incarcerated for decades, there are enormous challenges to reacclimate to life outside prison walls. Often, they have lost contact with their prior support systems, particularly if they were incarcerated at a young age. For those with little experience outside of prison, navigating the world is new and finding stable housing and employment are among their significant hurdles.
The urgency of creating FOCUS Initiatives became clear when Faheem Shabazz (formerly Jerry Smith), incarcerated as a teen, was released from prison in 2018, and efforts were made to help him navigate the hardships of re-entry. He had been corresponding with IDOC-Watch.
“I was trying to help him get on his feet,” Greven said. “He was locked up in adult prisons when he was 14, and been in prison for 20 years, actually growing up in prison. He was ill.
“It was just really hard for him to get on his feet. Impossible to find a place to rent and was really hard to find a job. Unable to find consistent work, he was staying with his mom, and it wasn’t going well. He just didn’t really know how to exist in the world.”
What he needed, the group realized, was sustainable support until he got to a position where he could take care of himself. This experience to help Shabazz resulted in FOCUS Initiatives that was designed by a team of current and former incarcerated individuals in collaboration with community allies. Not created in isolation, it drew on models like San Francisco-based Planting Justice and a Los Angles program for women, A New Way of Life. FOCUS Initiatives launched in 2019, and stands for Forever on Course United in Solidarity.
Shabazz is currently incarcerated on a technical parole violation at Westville Correction Facility in Westville, Indiana. Greven’s hope was that he would be more involved if he was released in March, but parole was denied.
“He’s been involved to the extent that he’s able to while incarcerated, but it’s pretty difficult. Anything that is time sensitive or detailed is pretty challenging,” said Greven, who is serving as interim director until the men are released from DOC custody.
“I’m the interim director until people are ready to take it over fiscally. We have people who are planning on doing that and get on their feet. Four people who are close collaborators on the project are getting out (of prison) between now and June,” said Greven.
“They have like some time to adjust, get their feet under themselves. A period of months to get used to be in a world outside of prison before there’s any financial pressures. The first step is getting people what they need to survive without having to be under a lot of stress when they first get out. And then also having a supportive community, especially of people who have been or had similar experiences around them to where they can consult with each other about what they are going through. There’s all kinds of PTSD and prison has all kinds of psychological effects. People who have not been in prison cannot understand how it affects someone,” said Greven.
The first phase is to buy a house that will be available for two to five former inmates. The house will have a group counseling space with a re-entry circle. It can also host formerly incarcerated or family members for get-togethers. It will be a place for several to live and work to organize the rest of the program. The group has been looking at the Eastside, east of Rural Street, to find affordable property that meets the program needs. The group has plans to start a business in the second phase.
“They’re going to establish a prototype or test run for the project to see what we need. It’s long term, and we’re trying to do it in a way so that we’re not dependent on big grants, so it’s an independent organization,” said Greven.
FOCUS Initiatives
WHO SERVED: Individuals returning to Marion County/Indianapolis from prison.
WHAT: Four-phase project that takes into account the underlying or “root” causes of mass incarceration.
PROGRAM GOAL: Launched in 2018 by a group of community allies and incarcerated individuals to build a Marion County community for former inmates. Plan is to include counseling services, a business, a legal clinic and medical services.
LOCATION: Seeking to purchase a house for two to five former inmates on the Eastside of Indianapolis.
By Jan Breiner Frazer, managing member, Planningplus, LLC
In this country, we have experienced a number of events during the last two decades that resulted in immediate impact on business and industry, beginning with 9/11, followed by the 2008 recession and the far-reaching Affordable Care Act.
But in those cases, we could somewhat foresee the horizon and plan accordingly – we had end goals in sight. But in this world of the global pandemic with various levels of quarantine, shifting guidelines and re-opening dates, and bombardment of news (often conflicting), we are not sure we can even plan on next month.
While strategic planning is still valid, it is not as we’ve always known it. Planning Plus’ expertise has long been in designing and facilitating strategic planning, generally for three-year periods. However, we are revising our methodology during this extraordinary time to remain flexible and adaptable.
As we enter the post-COVID office environment, we are shifting to assist our clients with 18-month micro-planning cycles accompanied by some of the following critical recommendations:
Break down the mission into priorities. One of the challenges in planning with nonprofit agencies is that, by their very nature, they want to help everyone within their sphere with multiple programs, multiple stakeholders, and the requisite multiple funding streams. We are encouraging our clients to focus on the top three priorities as dictated by their mission statements – and then prioritize those. Get very, very clear on what you do and for whom, with a sharper focus on funding options.
Build accountability checks into the plan. We need to keep as little as possible from slipping through the cracks, and following through on initiatives and meeting time deadlines is more critical than ever, particularly as funding sources are still fluid.
Place more emphasis on searching out alliances and partnerships. After the dust settles, if it ever does, there will most likely be fewer nonprofits standing, and those that survive must work closer together.
Build in scenario planning. While the global pandemic took many of us by surprise, there are possible scenarios we can begin discussing, particularly when facing funding reductions. Think through what could yet change and begin to create responses. For every goal or initiative, create a Plan A, Plan B and then Plan C along the lines of “if/then.”
Establish a cash reserve, even it that would mean scaling back on services and/or programs. It doesn’t help your stakeholders if you can’t weather any future storms and go out of business.
Tighten relationships with your board. This is the time when board members can no longer passively attend board and committee meetings. As staff has been trimmed, identify the skill sets the board can contribute to administrative and operational decision-making to make up for fewer staff members. We are certainly not condoning moving from a governance to a management role but boards need to increase help where they can.
Most importantly, build in and utilize formal channels to ensure consistent communication with internal teams and external stakeholders – particularly donors. While communication may appear to an operational rather than strategic initiative, everyone is trying to make sense of what has happened, how it affected them, and what may come. Staying close to those who make the organization successful is imperative.
If your head is spinning on how to move forward, we can help structure a focused, effective, and realistic plan to continue to move forward in a world of uncertainly and unknowns.
Jan Breiner Frazier, managing member of Planning Plus, has been a consulting professional since 1987. She has designed and facilitated strategic, annual, and operational planning sessions for a multitude of organizations, often bringing together diverse philosophies, opinions, and perspectives to help groups collectively meet stated objectives. Often, her planning projects have resulted in assisting with organizational design and process improvement initiatives. Her work with nonprofit boards and associations has ranged from strategic planning, board development and committee structure to identifying organizational competencies. She can be reached at jfrazier@planningplusllc.com.
By Sandy McCarthy, president of Retirement Services, OneAmerica
In the face of these uncertain times, we’ve seen new-found levels of appreciation and respect for the organizations providing vital assistance to our communities and citizens. As you know, hospitals and healthcare systems, social and community-service organizations, and religious institutions have stepped up to provide care, support and relief to those in need. These tax-exempt organizations are the foundations of our communities and have always been a top focus for OneAmerica®.
Though 2020 – with the SECURE Act, the COVID-19 pandemic and the CARES Act – has presented challenges for all plan sponsors, tax-exempt plans have some unique concerns and considerations. Here are a few things we’re urging tax-exempt employers to keep top-of-mind as they navigate the current environment.
Responding to the SECURE Act: This landmark legislation provides the most significant changes to the retirement industry in more than a decade and makes investing for retirement more accessible to millions of Americans. Though the most dramatic changes are for 401(k) plans, there are also provisions impacting 403(b) plans and participants. From tax credits to distributions and more, it’s important for your plan to work with a company that understands the ins and outs of this legislation.
Benefiting from the CARES Act: Aimed to provide relief in crisis, the CARES Act has a number of provisions that benefit tax-exempt organizations. Depending on each unique situation, organizations may want to take advantage of specific provisions – loan resources, employee retention credits or deferring employer payroll taxes. It’s beneficial to work with a company that understands your challenges and helps you best utilize available relief.
Providing for participants’ needs: These uncertain times are challenging organizations and individuals alike. Ensuring your employees have the resources they need to understand recent legislation, market volatility and financial wellness in general will help support them to make the decisions that best align with their needs. And, employee education should cover more than just financial wellness. We recently introduced materials to focus on employees’ emotional wellbeing – understanding that the two are deeply connected.
Complying with the 403(b) plan restatement requirement: The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has extended the 403(b) restatement deadline from March 31 to June 30, 2020. By restating plan documents onto an IRS-approved document, the IRS is essentially putting a seal of approval on the plan – providing it the type of protection that 401(k) plans have had for decades. Restatement or transferring the existing plan provisions also gives plans a chance to fix errors proactively, and may be an optimal time to review the plan itself. You can learn more about plan restatement here.
Maximizing plan design: Plan design can be vital to achieving desired outcomes, and it’s necessary to keep a constant pulse on whether the plan is operating as intended. COVID-19 has caused many organizations to reassess elements of their plan, like employer contributions, and make difficult decisions on other issues, like temporarily eliminating matching contributions. Your plan’s service provider should be able to work with you to ensure your plan is designed in a way that meets your goals and aligns with your mission.
Ensuring your service is customized: We believe tax-exempt employers do best to work with a company that understands the nonprofit sector and can offer customized solutions that meet each plan’s unique needs. With a 55-plus-year history of serving tax-exempt plans, the companies of OneAmerica have taken a unique approach to offering guidance in the COVID-19 era. Combining industry research with findings from virtual client focus groups, we created materials for our nonprofit and healthcare clients to outline industry issues and hot topics, as well as action items to consider. It’s important to keep in mind that off-the-shelf, cookie cutter solutions aren’t always best-suited for tax-exempt plans, and these employers should ensure they’re getting the customized support that meets their needs.
Connecting with a financial professional: When compared to the for-profit market, many tax-exempt organizations are underserved in this area – with approximately 46% of plans not connected with a financial professional. Now more than ever, these plans may wish to work with a trusted professional who can help them understand and react to changing conditions and legislation.
In these truly unprecedented times, we’re seeing more reliance than ever on the hospitals and nonprofit organizations that exist to care for and support those in need. As the foundation of our communities, tax-exempt organizations continue to be essential. These vital organizations deserve the support and assistance they need to thrive.
As president of Retirement Services, Sandy McCarthy leads the OneAmerica® team offering defined contribution and defined benefits services with a strong focus on customized retirement plans through highly personalized administration and recordkeeping services. She brings more than 30 years of industry experience, including key leadership roles at Mercer, ING (now Voya), and CitiStreet.
Previously she spent seven years in leadership roles as a senior partner at Mercer, where she served as North America Region Benefits Administration Business Leader, following a position as CEO and board member Asia Pacific Outsourcing Business living in Melbourne, Australia.
McCarthy graduated with honors from Tufts University, earning both her undergraduate in sociology/education and Master of Arts degree in education, then completing an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
She currently serves on the boards of the American Red Cross of Indiana (ARC), Junior Achievement of Central Indiana (JACI), Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and LIMRA LOMA Secure Retirement Institute (SRI).
OneAmerica is the marketing name for the companies of OneAmerica®. Products issued and underwritten by American United Life Insurance Company® (AUL), a OneAmerica company. Administrative and recordkeeping services provided by McCready and Keene, Inc. or OneAmerica Retirement Services LLC, companies of OneAmerica which are not broker/dealers or investment advisors. Provided content is for overview and informational purposes only and is not intended and should not be relied upon as individualized tax, legal, fiduciary, or investment advice.
By sheer numbers, very little good has come as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. In the U.S., there have been more than 2 million cases, more than 110,000 lives lost, nearly 40 million people unemployed and no clear signs that better times are close.
But for two Indiana nonprofits — Carey Services and Second Harvest Food Bank of East Indiana — the pandemic has forced them to rethink their operations. For the leaders of both organizations, resilience is a key word in their vocabularies.
And maybe … just maybe, they will be stronger when life resumes as normal.
Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana
Muncie-based Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana is a hunger-relief organization started in 1983 that provides food through a network of 96 agencies and 35 schools in eight counties.
Tim Kean has been its CEO/president since 2012. During the pandemic, he said the agency is finding new ways to reach people.
“I think when circumstances present themselves, you can push back and try to resist,” said Kean. “But if you have the perspective of leaning into the circumstance and using that force that you’re feeling in your favor, then I think you can leverage a lot of benefit (for) the people that you’re trying to serve.
“(Second Harvest) has moved to the place where we are leaning into this and looking at it on some level as being transformational.”
So, what has changed and how has the organization adapted?
Its food supply has been interrupted. Consequently, with donations not coming from its traditional sources, it has had to find alternative ways to procure food said Kean. As a Feeding America network member, it has leveraged national food opportunities, but the bottom line is it has had to purchase food in the marketplace to give it away.
With the high demand, food banks have been forced to quickly ramp up their efforts. In Indiana, news reports have depicted long car lines waiting for mobile food distributions. And while Second Harvest has used this delivery method for over 20 years, what is new is the volume. Nearly double, for each distribution it now uses two loaded semis and serves 2,000 to 3,000 families, up from 800 to 1,000 a year ago. During June, 32 mobile distributions are scheduled.
Volunteers have been a mainstay for the nonprofit, and in a typical year, it relies on 4,300 volunteers to assist with food distribution. But in March, the organization sought to eliminate risk and curtailed access to the warehouse and headquarters, forcing it to find alternative ways to distribute food.
Local organizations have helped fill the gap. Now, rented cargo vans loaded with food are picked up by community groups and driven to underserved areas for pop-up pantries. In the first six weeks of the pandemic, 15,000 pounds of food helped 750 families. In addition to food, diapers, an often-overlooked item, are part of this weekly distribution.
Activated citizen soldiers have been part of its new crew. When the governor activated the National Guard, Second Harvest Food Bank was assigned 30 men and women from a Brigade Support Battalion (BSB). Kean said they are assigned only until June 24 if funding is not approved to extend deployment. If not, Plan B is in place – to hire temporary workers to continue the activity at the current level.
“Quite honestly, I don’t anticipate the need diminishing during that time period. So, we’ve got to figure out how to get that done,” said Kean. “
“We’re not doing it, the community’s doing it. We’re finding that there are new opportunities. So, it’s that kind of thing that I think lends itself toward stepping into the change and embracing it and figuring out how you can become something bigger and stronger than you were in the past and more effective. It’s not just about being bigger, but it’s about being more effective,” said Kean.
Kean noted that there are internal changes as well.
“We are transforming our organization internally in our staff structure, in areas of emphasis. We’ve been hiring people, and we’re going to continue to hire people. We’ve been acquiring new equipment because we’re in a different place.
“I don’t see us looking in the rear-view mirror saying, ‘I hope we can get back to where we were some point soon.’ That is over. We’re at a new place and we’re embracing that, and we’re looking at ways we continue to facilitate growth.”
“I am not at all driven down by the circumstance, if anything I’m energized because this has given us an opportunity to go and find some diamonds. You have to push a lot of things out of the way to get those diamonds, and we’re willing to do that.”
Carey Services
Marion-based Carey Services has served people with disabilities since 1954 with the mission of helping people “turn abilities and barriers into opportunities.” Since 2013, Jim Allbaugh has been its CEO/president. During the pandemic, he said he’s been constantly reminded that the answers to challenges were close.
“It’s almost always members of our team, our staff, our families and the people who we serve who are the ones that have the right answers. So (it’s important to) listen, understand and get perspectives,” he said.
“As we came into the pandemic, there was a clear recognition, and it became more evident during this pandemic that we are individually focused on the people that we serve, and on our employees. So what we realized more and more each day was that need to be aware of what each individual that we serve and each employee would require of us during this pandemic,” said Allbaugh.
Among the agency’s services are group homes, an early Head Start program, workforce development and day services. Over the past five years, the agency has worked to integrate its clients into the community.
Roughly, 61 million Americans are living with a disability of some kind, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). While the vast numbers are able to live at home, some live in residential placement. That is the case for 90 adults who live in Carey’s group homes that provide 24-hour supervision for six to eight people.
Allbaugh credits staff creativity for helping clients continue to make positive progress during the pandemic. Residents have struggled with understanding why their routines were being disrupted, and why going out in the community was curtailed, and why people are wearing masks.
“If you can imagine, people with intellectual development disabilities sometimes struggle to even say, ‘Why are you wearing this mask? I cannot see your lips, it just doesn’t make sense to me why you’re doing that,’” he said.
As they readied to reopen the main campus, one question drove their efforts: “How can we get back to whatever the new normal is to continue to maximize that level of independence for the folks that we serve? That’s kind of been the path or really the journey, if you will.”
On June 1, the facility reopened some of its services, and Allbaugh said his staff was pleased with the outcome.
“It is so great to see people engaging and turning abilities into opportunities back at our main campus. We look forward to next steps with our Phase II and Phase III, and in July, our Early Head Start classroom reopening,” he said.
During the pandemic employees in different departments advocated for alternative ways to deliver services to continue progress. When the agency furloughed the Employment Services team, Allbaugh said an employee challenged that decision. He presented a case for reinstating the team, using Zoom and other technologies to engage participants.
Allbaugh said his employee made a persuasive argument. “‘He said, ‘Jim, we’ve made too much progress with these high school-aged special needs kids who need to keep the momentum moving on their career goals. You need to let us come back and get back to work and do these things from a technology base.’
“The positive results from that effort are great. They’ve kept in contact, kept engaged, kept learning and growing,”Allbaugh said.
And while, staff were already investigating these methods, the pandemic jump started them. And Indiana officials have been open to learning what kind of alternative-service delivery is possible.
“One of our goals is figuring out how to tell the story to those that fund us in such a way to say, ‘You know we cannot go back. Here’s the success and certainly the data is proof.’ We’ve got to be able to figure out how to be allowed to continue to provide this kind of support,” Allbaugh said.
The internet has also helped in other ways. In 2016, the nonprofit started an arts program, Creative Hearts Art Studio. Besides individual expression and discovery, the project was also about integrating clients into the community. During the pandemic, however, that effort was thwarted, limiting the community’s access to the shop. So, plans to open an online store became a priority.
“Knowing that everybody was now on their computers and living virtual lives, our team got together and said ‘Now is the time. We’ve got to push this out because people are on their computers right now.’ This is another opportunity to tell our story in a world where folks are living in that online environment,” said Allbaugh.
Allbaugh said from the beginning of shelter-in-place, rather than wallowing in the challenges of the daily stresses, staff began planning for the “new normal.”
“Our team has not permitted that kind of culture to be here.”
A funder commented on the agency’s forward thinking, sharing feedback on an agency proposal that asked for dollars for plexiglass, duct tape and portal hand-sanitizing machines.
“On the surface those things are all kind of simplistic, but the thing the funder appreciated about those three simple tools is the sustainable nature of those items. Those are things that our team thought about that will be something that we may be using for years.
“We need to realize that we’re still in a situation where we still have the same virus, with the same risk, and what this last period has allowed us to do is build and learn and put together a toolbox of safe and health practices and build a sustainable behavior of our employees and the people that we serve,” said Allbaugh.
