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Mar 09

Combatting early childhood education deserts

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

In Indiana, the month of March is filled with basketball, and if that madness doesn’t grab you, then just wait till May when the roar of the crowds turns into the roar of the engines. Hoosiers, like people all over the country, love a bit of competition. But not all of it takes place on the playing field, and not every competition ends up with someone holding a trophy.

That’s not to say there aren’t winners, especially in the world of nonprofits, which have adopted the concept as they attempt to expand their presence and draw attention to their work.

The Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation has an admirable mission: “To support creative people, effective institutions and influential networks and build a more just, verdant and peaceful world.” In order to discover those elements, the foundation launched a $100 million grant competition in 2016. It was looking for a single proposal to solve a critical problem affecting people, places or the planet. Called 100&Change, it was open to organizations working in any field of endeavor anywhere. After reviewing 1,904 proposals, it named its recipient in 2017 — Sesame Workshop and International Rescue Committee.

While competitions in general are not new, what is new is nonprofits turning to these challenges to drive innovation. Increasingly, they are discovering that many of the very best ideas lie outside their organizations.

This is true for Early Learning Indiana (ELI). Not only was its recent statewide Child Care Desert competition designed to spur innovation, but there was another motivation – it was a way to expand early learning seats in Indiana, said President and CEO Maureen Weber.

“As an organization, we are really focused on bringing together sort of a system of stakeholders to create accessible, high-quality early education opportunities. We absolutely know that we cannot do this on our own, not on our own in Central Indiana, and not on our own across the state. We needed a way of bringing others into the fold. We felt as though we were having conversations with the same sets of people,” said Weber, who has been in the role for two years.

The light bulb went on for ELI in 2014, when it changed its mission and name, its leadership team and board wanted to do more to expand access and quality early childhood education across the state. They knew that crucial brain development occurs during those early years and can provide a foundation for success in school and beyond. They also knew that early education could have a positive ripple effect that extends to their families, communities and the economy.

The mission gained steam in that same year, ELI approached Lilly Endowment and was awarded a $20 million grant to launch the Partnerships for Early Learners. The initiative was to increase access and quality of early childhood programming across Indiana. ELI now not only had a goal but the funding to pursue it. The next step was to invite potential partners to the table, discover what needs were out there and attempt to fill them.

Andrew Perrin, ELI’s board chair and PNC’s senior vice president and regional sales executive joined the board in 2014.

“My take was the headwinds to getting early childhood education to where it should be were so big that the status quo clearly wasn’t going to cut it. I welcomed any innovation in the space. So, the idea of having a competition, maybe there are other avenues to do it, but I loved the energy of something fresh,” said Perrin.

“I think what makes ELI uniquely positioned is at our core we are a provider of early childhood education. It gives us a level of expertise, as well as, appreciation for what the challenges are. I think that core helps inform our partnerships and advocacy for expanding both quality and accessibility.”

The Partnership for Early Learners initiative added a new role for ELI. It has received and granted over 55 grants to help other providers in the state build their capacity. Early in the effort, Weber said, providers needed funds to meet either licensing or quality requirements. Funds from the grant also helped 400 early childhood educators earn new degrees or credentials.

“Maybe they were lacking a scald valve on their sink or early learning curriculum. So, that was something we could help them invest in and then they could meet the standards and then they could serve children,” said Weber. “We had to get more creative in how we thought about the work, so that the amounts of the work got bigger as well because there were just bigger gaps to close.”

Lack of access, however, continues to prevent many Hoosier children from receiving the benefits of an enriching early learning experience. In 2018, in tandem with Indiana Business Research Center (IBRC), ELI studied access, capacity and need and found that in Indiana, 45.2 percent of children live in a child care desert. ELI defines child care deserts as places with no more than one child care seat for every three children. This study also helped illustrate and raise visibility.

“I think the research, especially in a fiscally conservative state like Indiana, built a business case for early childhood care and education. Anytime you can measure something, it gives people more assurance that this is an effort worth buying into and joining. So, I think what the desert study did was is say, ‘Hey, look, here is the gap,’” said Perrin.

When ELI launched its Child Care Deserts competition last summer, its goal was to address these critical care shortages around the state. Unlike many competitions, ELI offered webinars to ensure applicants understood the data to better incorporate it into proposals. Weber said ELI also shared with potential awardees what is a high-quality seat and the long-term impact of having those available.

“We started this effort by surveying the national landscape and getting a really good sense of what ‘good looks like,’” said Weber. “We wanted to bring those best practices as food for thought to the communities that were applying, while understanding unique community needs. So, part of our education process was to share some great things we’ve seen done across the country. But we also had to understand the unique needs of each community with whom we were working.”

“We spent a lot of time helping our audience prepare their applications, and so we hosted webinars, we had self-service data opportunities so they could know ‘Here’s what the state of the state in our community looks like,’ and had people on tap to sort of help walk through those questions as they had them,” said Weber. “The award itself had to go to a nonprofit, but we encouraged really diverse partnerships. That’s what we had in most places,” said Weber.

Having funding available and the Child Care Deserts study provided an opportunity to have a conversation with a business audience, too, said Weber.

Purposely, there were two phases to the challenge. The first was a letter of intent. From that pool, ELI narrowed the pool to 19, which gave time for those communities to formulate plans and build local partnerships before submitting final proposals. In January, ELI awarded $1.4 million to 13 organizations that will add nearly 1,000 high-quality seats for child care across the state by the end of the year.

Montgomery County Community Foundation was one of the awardees. Although they have many other partners, the funds had to be awarded to a nonprofit. The IBRC study ranked the county among the 10 lowest for child care seats, with only 2 percent of the county’s children under the age of 5 enrolled in high-quality programs. The $100,000 grant will help two local providers add 80 seats by the end of the year.

But that’s not all the grant competition did. Not only will it increase availability in these 13 communities, it elevated the conversations in the community.

As the Montgomery County Community Foundation’s executive director, Kelly Taylor had seen an uptick for early learning and child care grant requests over the past five years. In fact, the foundation had granted nearly $150,000 to child care nonprofits. She said the child care deserts’ study only confirmed what they were hearing. But the competition coalesced the community’s efforts.

“I think what we saw come out of this competition in our community was it rallied diverse groups to work together. We wanted to represent our community well and increase the number of child care seats and have them be of quality level. It really spurred people to action,” Taylor said.

“We know there is still a lot of work to be done, but we think having that success brought a lot of attention to the value of early learning throughout our whole community. We could not have done it on our own. We were able to talk about that data and about what this $100,000 award will do in our community. That has really captured the attention of people in our community and will help us to again continue to move forward,” said Taylor. “We had this early success and we want to build on this. I think it keeps the momentum moving forward.”

Currently, the community is formalizing its Early Childhood Coalition. As part of this effort, it reached out to seven corporate organizations that have provided financial support for the efforts. Part of the plan is to start a resource fund to help providers with training and credentials. In addition, the community foundation and city came together to understand the issue in their community. They engaged a local consulting company to do a community-wide needs assessment. Through surveys, focus groups and a bus tour of existing child care facilities, they understood what is being offered. They did video conferences with other Indiana coalitions to learn what was working.

“We started in August and finished our strategic plan in January. We were meeting constantly during that time, gathering data, analyzing data and putting together a five-year strategic plan. We have a plan to move forward now and really focus on this issue in our community,” said Taylor.

Weber has seen other changes, too.

“When I started in this role nearly two years ago, we were still having conversations about ‘Why this matters. What’s the value? What’s the importance for economic development?’ I have very few of those conversations any more. It’s much more a conversation about what do we do to address the fundamentals. How can we help?” said Weber.

“What we were trying to do was to really elevate the conversation and get people talking from a variety of different perspectives. I really felt like we did broaden the top of the funnel in the number of people that we are reaching,” she said.

Feb 24

How you doin’? Nonprofits benefit from formal evaluations

By Feature, Trends, Uncategorized

 
By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Jodi Snell grew up in a small town. Under 20,000 people live in Jacksonville, Illinois, but Snell remembers her parents were always busy helping to make their tiny community a better place.

Like organizing a softball tournament to raise money for a young cancer patient and her family. Snell recalls personally delivering a Game Boy to the girl in the hospital and recalling that garidathe joy was clearly two-fold: on the girl’s part and hers.

Amanda Lopez had similar experiences in her hometown of Wabash, Indiana. Her mom and dad over the years were foster parents to more than 100 children.

In each case the message is the same. For those who do it, community work can be a rewarding. Most volunteers say it is time well spent and personally fulfilling, even if they can’t be sure they made a significance difference.

In the nonprofit world, where organizations depend on donations and grants, it’s a different story. Nonprofits must prove their worth to keep the operating cash flowing.

And how exactly do they do that? With a little help from folks like Snell and Lopez whose vocabularies these days are full of somewhat dry words as program evaluation, data collection, logic model, outputs and outcomes.

Lopez is the president and founder of Wabash-based Transform Consulting Company. She learned the importance of evaluating programs from her days at Purdue University. She was a member of a service-learning project team whose goal was to interest third graders in engineering and science. But without a tool to measure success, it was hard to know if the kids were really coming on board.

As the only non-engineering student in the group, Lopez had a double role: to ensure that activities were developmentally appropriate and to execute short- and long-term evaluations to provide data.

“That really opened my eyes up to evaluation and the opportunity there,” Lopez said.

“When I went to grad school, I focused on systems and evaluations. (How can we) collect the right data that tracks and reports the impact that (nonprofits are) having or gives them the data that they need to improve and strengthen,” she said. After a stint in the government and coastal agencies, in 2008, she returned to Indiana and formed her consulting company to help nonprofits do just that.

Snell moved to Indiana after college with plans to be a teacher. But at the time, Indiana was laying off teachers, so she stepped into a job in the nonprofit sector. She quickly realized it was her dream job. In those early years, she admits that while she did evaluation work, it wasn’t formalized. ln fact, she describes it as “scrappy.” But from the start, she understood the importance of assessment.

Now, one of her responsibilities at the Indianapolis-based Hedges & Associates is to lead the evaluation team’s work. Since beginning in 2002, the company has offered services to build nonprofits’ capacity and later help with evaluations.

In 2013, a widely circulated essay by Microsoft mogul Bill Gates extolled the role that measurement plays in improving the human condition, how it improved the delivery of vital services worldwide. But he also offered a rueful observation.

“This may seem basic,” he wrote, “but it is amazing how often it (measurement) is not done and how hard it is to get right.”

Perhaps in response to the essay, Snell said local nonprofits began requesting technical support, heavily focused on quantitative measurements. To that end, the company hired a technical evaluation expert to help develop stronger metrics and intentional strategy.

But in many cases, this was a bit disconnected from reality. Snell’s team learned that what should be done might not be what nonprofits had the ability or capacity to do.

“Nonprofits were all of a sudden expected to track certain metrics and do certain things with very little resources provided to do so. Evaluation work is not cheap. It is labor intensive, it takes a lot of time even when you think of just cleaning up data,” said Snell.

So, her team began asking to see a nonprofit’s data before it developed a proposal or entered into a contract.

“Before we develop a proposal, can we see what you’re working with? We will take a look at it, and if it’s not consistently collected or there’s not enough data to make a valid finding, we’ll say, ‘Don’t waste your time.’” Instead, in those cases, she said, they suggested qualitative collection, to determine where to improve and oftentimes the development of a logic model and evaluation foundational pieces, helping to put measurement tools in place.

“Many nonprofits didn’t have data or the right data to do thorough and meaningful evaluations. What they needed was support to determine what to collect as a precursor to evaluation,” Snell said. “Then a year or two years from now, we have something meaningful to evaluate.”

Snell said initially local foundations drove evaluations, but now more individuals and corporate donors have joined the ranks. More importantly, some nonprofits have tackled evaluation, not because of outside influence, but because the organization is committed to its outcomes.

Today, the use of data governs almost every aspect of our lives. This is particularly true for philanthropy, which relies on it to inform decision-making, define problems and measure impact. Lopez and Snell have seen this shift firsthand. Nonprofits understand that they must show qualitative and quantitative data, but the challenge for many nonprofits revolves around the “hows” – how to accomplish it, how to pay for it and how to help staff understand the correlation between collecting data and their day-to-day functions.

And nationally, that’s been the case. In a 2018 book, the authors of Engine of Impact: Essentials of Strategic Leadership in the Nonprofit Sector, 50 percent of the 3,000 nonprofit stakeholders surveyed struggle with impact evaluation. Respondents cited inadequate or unreliable measurement of impact and performance being a challenge, and of the group, 42 percent said that more than half of their major donors require impact evaluations, but only a fraction are willing to pay for it.

And that’s not all they worry about. Lopez said nonprofit staffs often have a palpable fear of not meeting targets and that that will have an adverse impact on funding.

“We really try to build a culture of ‘We do evaluation for the purpose of learning and growth and improvement.’ And it’s OK, if that means we’re not hitting those targets. Let’s figure out why and what to do differently. If we’re not studying and implementing an evaluation plan, we’re not going to learn,” she said.

Snell said she found that local funders are looking for the nonprofit that discovers what’s not working and changes it. While the funders want outcomes, they’re practical and know that it takes time to set up tracking procedures and measuring for some time before it can be attributed.

“I think you definitely have to be looking at which of your programs are producing outcomes, but I think the other side of that is we’re working with humans,” said Snell. “Most of our work is in the social services sector. Some of the evaluation pieces may not always feel ethical. When you’re thinking about a test group, would you deprive a certain group of the population from a certain service to see if it works? I think there will always be that challenge of how valid you can get the data.” said Snell.

Bottom line, Lopez believes that Central Indiana funders are more partner-oriented.

“Local funders have pushed grantees to get clear about outcomes and have strong metrics in place with quantitative data to demonstrate their impact,” Lopez said. “For them it is not a high-stakes test – meet the metrics or funding isn’t continued – but rather, ‘Let’s have an honest conversation around where you are or aren’t meeting those metrics and what kind of capacity support is needed. Accountability is a strong word, but in a way, they’re really pushing the grantees that they’re partnering with to get clear about their outcomes and have strong metrics in place with quantitative data to demonstrate their impact.”

“And that’s where typically, we’ll be asked to come in to help support these nonprofits,” said Lopez. “Organizations are collecting data, that’s really not the issue. When it comes to evaluation, it’s helping them to figure out: Are they collecting the right data? Is the data clean and accurate to reflect what they’re wanting to collect? And how are they using it to make meaning and inform their work. And That’s what we really come in to help them with.”

Oftentimes, federal and state funding requires an external evaluator. But she’s seen the tide change at the federal level, moving from compliance to quality improvement and looking beyond a checklist of accomplishments. They are asking the nonprofits to show how their work is moving the needle.

“In multiyear grants, they want to see how you’re choosing your data and show that you’re using that data from the first year to inform any changes for the next year of programming, professional development and other refinements,” Lopez said.

What most nonprofits struggle with is carving out the time to collect the data.

“So, we really try to help them understand the critical value and importance of building that into their schedule, just like they would build in the next level of programming or services that they would offer. There are really tremendous and helpful data tools out there,” said Lopez who uses a participatory evaluation framework.

“We really want to build their capacity and that sustainability beyond our engagement because we know that most of them cannot afford to hire us forever to do evaluation work. We really want it to become a part of their culture, not just something they outsource to the consultant when a grant report is due. That’s why we spend time building that capacity and knowledge, called data literacy, and evaluation literacy within the organization,” she said.

Snell said it needs to be part of staff’s job responsibilities, not an afterthought.

“Nonprofit professionals typically didn’t start in their career wanting to be evaluators. Right? They started because they are caring and passionate about the program,” said Snell. “However, we owe it to the individuals we’re signing up to serve to know if what we’re doing really matters. This is a step to get there, and it’s not as scary as what people think.”

The opportunity and responsibility are there to utilize the results for planning and decision-making.

“That’s when you see the transformation really occur. And when we see it, it gets us excited.” Citing an example of a local Head Start organization that her company trained, agency staff reached out after it reviewed its data. The staff called because they wanted to go deeper and look at how dads are engaged.

“They felt like that’s an area of concern and stopped to really use their data and to dig into ‘What is happening with dads and where are the gaps and opportunities?’ before they just went to program changes. We’re like ‘Yay, this is so exciting.’ We didn’t have to remind them. They got it.” said Lopez.

Snell cited similar experiences.

“We’ve seen some really great success stories from organizations that have utilized research to inform and change their programming decisions,” she said. “We had one client who was able to secure funding for a whole new curriculum to be developed based on what we learned about the outcomes they weren’t able to get to with the current curriculum.”

Another local organization, she said, did the full evaluation gamut and learned that their collection measurements weren’t telling the entire story.

“We were able to reset how they were evaluating and now their story will be even stronger. I sat in hours and hours of interviews with their participants, and (through) the collection process (learned), we just weren’t getting to that same data,” said Snell who’s hopeful that both the qualitative and quantitative information will tell the same story in the next year.

Lopez believes that if a nonprofit is struggling with fund development, enrollment or retention, evaluation can help solve those problems.

“A lot of the issues that we hear a nonprofit is struggling with, usually evaluation can help solve. A lot of times, individual donors are becoming more sophisticated and want to see the impact that their dollars will have. Your evaluation can help tell that story of how (a donor’s) funding goes to support the cause and furthering its mission. It goes back to using your data.”

Not every organization is ready to jump into impact evaluation, there is a continuum. Some nonprofits begin with number counts. But as nonprofits become more sophisticated, here is some advice from Snell and Lopez.

• Meet your staff where they are. Hedges offers a workshop called “Love your Logic Model” and Transform offers “Evaluation 101.” Both companies believe in starting staffs with the basics. With turnover rate in the sector high, implementing standard operating procedures with internal systems and procedures in place is key to continuing the effort.

• Involve programming staff early in the impact strategy, helping to see the entire picture.

• Start by including metrics in job descriptions and take time to explain to potential candidates how data collection is part of the culture.

• Create a work-flow chart with a clear understanding of how evaluation fits into the day-to-day work plans to ensure the effort is not an addition, but a daily expectation.

• Continuously refine how data is collected.

• Reinforce that if data indicates a programming isn’t working, the focus needs to be on readjustment, not blame.

• Design pilot or innovative programs with research. There are multiple evaluation methods and numerous processes nonprofits can use to match desired outcomes.

• If resources are tight, interviewing participants should top the list to inform your program with the voices of those you are serving.

• Share what you are learning with two audiences – internal and external. Internally can be a powerful affirmation or enlighten staff, board and volunteers about targets not hit.

• Research to locate best tool, particularly with the more “social side” like self-efficacy there are tried-and-true evaluation tools that have been validated to test those specifically.

Evaluation Resources

If you’re interested in keeping up-to-date on evaluation, Amanda Lopez and Jodi Snell recommend two membership organizations that offer top-notch resources, webinars and conferences and share the ethics of evaluation and trends.

These are:
Indiana Evaluation Association that meets quarterly and every other year hosts a conference and
American Evaluation Association on the national level.

If you are looking for further reading, Snell recommends the 2011 publication “Leap of Reason” by Mario Morino. The author focuses on integrating evaluation into regular work.

“It’s the expectation that everyone is driven by those outcomes. What I really like is that nonprofit evaluation is not being driven by an outside force, but it’s the responsibility to the community you signed up to serve to make sure that what you’re doing works. If you’re not making sure it works than what are you doing. Why would we keep doing what we’re doing?”

Lopez has several tool recommendations.

• Data-informed decision-making toolkit : Transform Consulting worked with the Indiana Early Learning Advisory Committee (ELAC) data workgroup to create this material, but the resource could be utilized by any organization. Some highlights: The data visual is a good overview tool and follows the 4-step evaluation process. It also includes a list of publicly available data by category and data visualization tips and strategies.

• Data Playbook: A helpful resource for organizations to guide the evaluation process and plan. Lopez’s team used it to help develop the Indiana Early Learning Advisory Committee’s data toolkit.

• National Head Start Association (NHSA) launched its own Data Playbook resource for how to use data to inform programmatic changes (CQI process). Even if an organization is not in the early childhood education industry, this site provides an example of how organizations are using data to drive change and how applicable it is.

Jan 13

Nonprofits added depth to mission of outgoing drug czar

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

For more information about Indiana’s Next Level Recovery Initiative, visit: https://www.in.gov/recovery/

Jim McClelland first tried to retire five years ago after leading Goodwill of Central Indiana for 41 years. He planned to travel a bit with his wife, Jane, and maybe write a book.

Those plans changed in 2017 when Gov. Eric Holcomb called on McClelland to spearhead Indiana’s Next Level Recovery initiative, a statewide effort to address substance abuse. McClelland became known as the state’s “drug czar” and wore the mantle with gusto.

Last week, a reflective McClelland retired again, and was quick to credit his experience in the nonprofit sector for some of his successes in the state’s response to the growing opioid crisis.

Goodwill’s focus was on poverty, but the nonprofit found it could not just tackle it internally. Poverty wasn’t a stand-alone problem, but rather it was intertwined with multiple health issues, and a collaborative effort with other nonprofits and community groups was needed.

“Just like at Goodwill, social problems are interrelated,” McClelland said. “They tend to reinforce and compound each other. But as a society, we have tended to treat them individually, in isolation from the others. We’ve been lousy at connecting the pieces. We don’t solve the problems, if we don’t address all of them.”

But addressing them all would be a daunting task. It wasn’t the magnitude of the opioid crisis that was a surprise, but its complexity.

“There were hundred different things we needed to be doing all at once. It was extraordinarily complex,” McClelland said.

During his tenure as drug czar, McClelland spoke with over 150 groups across the state — including a number of nonprofits — and encouraged public and private groups to work collectively. In response, he has seen communities step up and form substance use disorder coalitions (SUD) to bring people together and focus on prevention, treatment and recovery.

“They’re bringing people together from business, education and health care, local government, law enforcement agencies, the courts, philanthropy, faith-based organizations, community-based organizations,” McClelland said. “They get to know each other, they get to learn from each other, and they can sometimes begin to see is how they can work together, leveraging their resources and their capabilities to help cause some good things to happen that otherwise wouldn’t happen.”

“They also gain an appreciation for different perspectives. You know, public safety typically has have a different perspective from the medical side, but they need to understand each other’s perspectives and have some respect for each other, and I’ve seen a lot of that developing.”

McClelland has been not only these groups’ cheerleaders, but he helped secure state funds for 10 coalitions. In early 2019, Indiana awarded 10 groups one-year $75,000 grants to support efforts locally to combat the drug crisis. The organizations were in Bartholomew, Cass, Clark, Dearborn, Hancock, Howard, Knox, Marion, Scott and St. Joseph counties. Recipients were selected from applications received in response to a request-for-funding announcement from the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.

In Howard County, Paul Wyman, a county commissioner, saw the problem and decided to do something about it. In 2017, after the number of overdose deaths in Howard County spiked to a record high of 44, he organized a summit of community leaders and the nonprofit resource center Turning Point Systems of Care was born.

“Wyman had the ability to get a lot of people to come together. He brought about 100 people together and said, ‘We need to organize ourselves, and we need to attack this.’ He led it, and is still leading it, along with everything else that he does,” said McClelland.

As a result, the Howard County coalition hired two staff members — a coordinator and a navigator who connect people with services and provides continuity in the relationship. The group recognized that so many people needed help and wanted help but had no idea where to go.

“Everywhere in a local community where you see some really good things happening, there’s always strong local leadership, and it comes from different places,” said McClelland. “To me the coalitions are (one area) where we need to continue a strong emphasis.”

Bill Corley, a coach/consultant with Integrity Health Strategies, has led the INSTEP coalition, a nonprofit which coordinates the resources of 75 providers in the Greater Indianapolis area and serves as a hub for resources. Corley, who served for 25 years as president and CEO of Community Health Network in Indianapolis, said McClelland was the communicator in chief.

While McClelland would be the first to say he is not a health care guy, not only was he a great communicator, but he asked good questions, said Corley.

“That’s just a wonderful characteristic to have. He didn’t go into the job thinking that he knew everything, because he knew that he did not know everything,” said Corley. “When he communicated, he explained the why. The ‘why are we doing this.’ It should be obvious that people were trying to save people’s lives, but it’s more than that, it’s a social problem and people needed to understand why he was doing things.”

McClelland is also a great connector, never missing an opportunity to share what was going on in another part of the state.

“And that is extremely valuable to the rest of the state,” said Corley.

Getting all the providers to work together resulted in INSTEP hosting the SUD (substance use disorders) coalition summit in August on behalf of FSSA. The summit provided and opportunity for SUD coalitions like INSTEP to compare similarities, differences and common challenges for how others are addressing SUD issues in their communities. Now, Corley said, there is a desire to do it again and involve other groups in the state.

As McClelland exits his position, he is proudest of the number of people who responded to the all-hands-on-deck request.

“It’s just been really gratifying to see so many people who are willing to contribute. Some of them in a big way, some of them in small ways, but there are so many people really.”

In addition to coalition work in counties, efforts from LaPorte to Redkey were driven by local individuals.

Take for example, Larry Smith, a recovering addict. He pulled together a recovery support group built around exercise and physical fitness. Now in four communities, he has worked with existing fitness facilities to establish programs in the LaPorte area.

In Jay County, Randy Davis, a retired United Methodist pastor, lost a member of his congregation (substance use disorder). In 2014, he decided to do something to help support people who were struggling and formed volunteer recovery support groups. According to McClelland, under Davis’ tutelage, there are now at least 35 groups in various towns in Indiana and Ohio. Manned by volunteers, Davis now has a paid staff to keep them going.

McClelland’s work will continue under new leadership. Douglas Huntsinger was named to the post last week. As deputy director for drug prevention, treatment and enforcement since 2017, he stepped right into the position.

McClelland’s message to Huntsinger is that the state is on a good path.

His advice? “Keep bringing the pieces together. Continue to support strong local coalitions. So much of what needs to be done on the prevention side and the recovery needs to be done on a local level.

“We also need a lot more recovery housing, that’s been a really tough nut to crack because of the lack of capital.

“Yes, we got a long way to go,” McClelland said. “We have also seen a resurgence in meth, it’s not the kind of meth that was made in the kitchens and bathrooms of people a few years ago. This stuff is mass produced in Mexico. It’s high impurity, it’s very low in price, and it’s everywhere. It’s all over the country. We need to make sure that our infrastructure is able to deal with addictions of other types.”

“I can look back over three years, and say, ‘My gosh. We put together the strategic approach.’ I look at it now, there’s not a whole lot about it I would change.”

Some Next Level Recovery highlights
By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

There’s not a whole lot about his work as “drug czar” that Jim McClelland would have changed, except to have quickened the pace.

“I’d love to see things move faster than they do, but I’m pretty much that way on everything,” McClelland said. “We have, I am told, compared with the usual pace in state government, moved with lightning speed. It’s kind of hard for me to believe sometimes, but we’ve gotten a lot done.”

In 2017, over 1,800 Hoosiers died of overdoses, and the number one priority of McClelland’s initiative, Next Level Recovery, was to keep people alive.

“Our death rate peaked in November of 2017, and then began a gradual decline. It is still declining, but much more gradually. We were down 12.9 percent last year, and nationally, it was down about 5.1 percent. So, we were like 2.5 times (better than) the national percentage. We are still declining greater than the national rate,” said McClelland.

Here are some highlights of the state’s efforts.

Legislation: McClelland credits the Indiana General Assembly with passing a series of drug-related bills. In 2017, he said, Indiana had the 10th highest opioid prescription rate in the country. In that year, the legislature limited first-time prescriptions to seven days for anyone under 18.

“We’ve had great legislative support. We’ve had a number of bills over these three years that passed both houses unanimously or maybe with one or two negative votes. The chief justice and all the other members of the Indiana Supreme Court have been incredibly helpful and supportive.”

Prescribing practices: Another tactic, undertaken by the Family and Social Services Agency (FSSA), was to provide doctors with comparisons of their prescribing practices. Awareness letters were sent to doctors who received payments through Medicaid. This effort resulted in a 26 percent drop in prescriptions from that group of doctors.

State-data base: Additionally, doctors are now required by law to check before prescribing an opioid. To aid this effort, the state paid for the integration of INSPECT with the electronic health record systems and pharmacy management systems around the state. That task is close to being completed.

“It has made it a really easy process that used to be laborious and time consuming,” McClelland said.

The Indiana Department of Health and the Indiana Hospital Association and Indiana Medical Association also developed new prescribing guidelines to manage acute pain. Basically, these guidelines suggest that doctors should attempt non-pharmacological approaches first, and if those don’t work, they should start with the lowest dosage for the shortest duration.

Disposal options: More safe disposal options have made it easier for people to get rid of excess meds.

“So, you take the lower prescribing rates, and a greater number of more convenient safe disposal options, and you have fewer pills available for non-medical use. That has helped,” McClelland said.

525 foundation launches Rx drop box effort South Bend-based Beacon Health System is taking steps to prevent unwanted prescriptions from falling into the wrong hands. The health system is partnering with the 525 Foundation, a national advocacy group based in St. Joseph County, to install drop boxes for unwanted or outdated medications at several hospitals and a supermarket chain in northern Indiana. Read More

Access to treatment: Timely access to treatment has been enormously important. To support this effort, the state invested in an interactive system to connect drug users with treatment facilities in order to make the process easier for drug users in desperate need of care. To support that effort, the and Indiana 211 streamlined the treatment search. The program, called OpenBeds, provides real-time data of beds available for facilities that cater to addictions.

Education: The Next Level Recovery website was launched and pulls together many of the programs and services at a one-stop site.

A new exhibit designed by the Indiana State Museum, FIX: Heartbreak and Hope Inside Our Opioid Crisis — the will share ways for Indiana communities to come together and shift the conversation and reduce the stigma surrounding opioid use disorder. Its goal is to show how all can play a role in finding solutions to this devastating crisis. Exhibit opens Feb. 1.

Dec 02

Bold action rescues Joy’s House

By Feature, Fundraising

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

The warning signs were out there, the proverbial perfect storm brewing on the horizon. And Cayla Rosine, the vice president of finance and operations at Joy’s House in Indianapolis, was worried.

“We were drawing on our line of credit, and we’ve never done that before. This was serious,” said Rosine of a critical juncture last summer when Joy’s House found itself staring at a potential shortfall that threatened to shutter the organization just as it was approaching its 20th anniversary.

Joy’s House provides caregiver services for adults with life-altering diagnoses and like many nonprofits, relies on donations and traditional government funding sources. When those funding streams change quickly for the worse, nonprofits and social enterprises generally lack the extra funds on hand to make up the difference. Unlike traditional businesses, it’s hard for a small nonprofit to develop a rainy-day fund when donors and investors expect most of the money to go toward programming.

Joy’s House accepts Aged and Disabled (A&D) Medicaid waivers, the CHOICE program and long-term care insurance. But changes in Medicaid reimbursements, state funding and declines in donations put Joy’s House in a financial bind.

The potential shortfall, however, is only part of the Joy’s House story. The organization’s proactive approach and what it learned about itself and the community offers ideas for other nonprofits seeking to avert a crisis.

Rosine has worked at Joy’s House for 21/2 years and knows what it takes to run the organization: about $1.5 million a year. When the financial picture darkened, she had a hard conversation with Joy’s House founder and CEO/president Tina McIntosh.

The Joy’s House board was hoping things would get better based, Rosine said, on 2018 being better than 2017. Joy’s House has two sites, one in Broad Ripple on the Northside that opened in 2000, and a Southside center that opened in 2014 near the University of Indianapolis.

Joy’s House isn’t unlike many human services nonprofits facing financial challenges. Government contracts have not kept up with the cost of services. Many nonprofits reporting receiving roughly 70 percent of direct program costs, according to a 2018 report commissioned by the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities. Nearly one in eight organizations have liabilities that exceed their total assets.

Sarah Shadday, the center’s outreach coordinator, said according to AARP, Indiana ranks 46th in the nation when it comes to Medicaid and state-funded spending. The state also ranks 51st for long-term services and supports.

“Our society in general does a really poor job of caring for our aging adults. We’re not respecting the amazing people they are now, and the amazing things they have done with their lives. We have people here who have birthed 12 children, we have Ryan White’s primary care physician in this house right now. Just to cast them aside because of a diagnosis. It’s asking a really hard question of the community,” she said. 

Earlier this year, Joy’s House already had made some tough decisions. It reduced staff and eliminated its WIBC radio show, “Caregiver Crossing,” which was transitioned as a podcast in August.

Unfortunately, the Joy’s House board realized, those cost-cutting measures weren’t enough and in late summer, the decision was made to start a critical fundraising campaign, a somewhat unusual move for a nonprofit.

“Tina (McIntosh) would talk about how when they were thinking about the idea of the critical fundraising campaign, she Googled it. There’s nothing out there. Nonprofits just don’t do the critical,” said Shadday.

“The decision to launch this campaign was not made lightly. A critical campaign is not something you can do multiple times in your organization’s existence; it was a one-time shot. It was a pivotal time for Joy’s House and the campaign would help make it or break it,” said board treasurer Lisa Curry, who is a director in Katz, Sapper & Miller’s Healthcare Resources Group, an Indianapolis-based accounting firm.

Board chair Corrine Walter said the board saw the incremental challenges facing the organization and asked three critical questions: Are we needed? Should it be us providing this service? Do people care?

The campaign was covered by local media and in September, the center launched a fundraising campaign. In multiple stories in the local press, headlines painted a bleak picture if the organization didn’t generate the necessary community support.

Stories that appeared in local media in the fall

IBJ: Broad Ripple not-for-profit launches emergency fundraising campaign

RTV 6: Money woes could force Joy’s House to close after 20 years

Indy Star: Joy’s House helps Charlene stay at home. It could close and send her into a nursing home.

Fox 59: Broad Ripple nonprofit needs to raise $559K to avoid closing

WISH: Broad Ripple nonprofit facing closure after 20 years

RTV6: Joy’s House receives $100,000 donation, inches closer to monetary goal to keep doors open

The response and results were overwhelming.

While the campaign’s goal was $559,000, Shadday said by the organization’s 20th anniversary on Nov. 1, it had actually raised $720,000, and that figure is still growing. But she said more importantly, it provided validation.  

“In a typical year we have 700 to 800 donors, which include foundations, donors and individual gifts from people. And in this eight-week time frame, we had over 1,000 donors and half of them were brand new,” she said.

Rosine said she hadn’t seen so much activity that saw even neighbors stepping up.

“There’s a church nearby that called and said, ‘You’re our neighbor. We cannot let this happen.’ The church members took up a special collection and sent a check. It was overwhelming in a good way. It made us emotional at times to see that people do care,” she said.  

Shadday had a similar story. After an article ran in The Indianapolis Star, an Eastside woman drove to Broad Ripple and announced her desire to help the effort. The center’s senior vice president of care services happened to be covering the front desk for the receptionist and talked with the woman who shared how much the organization’s mission spoke to her.

“When the woman left, they opened the envelope and found $1,000 in cash. This woman had never heard of Joy’s House, 24 hours before,” she said.

While the nonprofit has utilized social media, they witnessed its power and ripple effect. They also saw caregivers who already had so much on their plate become part of the army that spread the word.

While the campaign ran from Sept. 1 to Nov. 1, the Joy’s House lobby became a bit of a merchandise center. One local donor, Best Boy & Co., provided jars of whole grain mustard for Joy’s House to sell onsite, and the company sold it in other area retail shops to benefit the campaign. Another donor, Wood Warbler Coffee, provided 50 percent of the proceeds of coffee sold both at Joy’s House and online. There were other in-kind donations as well and local restaurants that provided a percentage of the day’s total sales to benefit the nonprofit.

As board chair, Walter, who is an assistant vice president at Capital Group, saw a positive community response to its internal questions.  

“Our answers to those (internal) questions were all ‘Yes,’” she said.

But it did more than that.

“The critical campaign was a means to shine a light on needs within our aging population, needs for those with a variety of diagnoses, and we wholeheartedly found out the community also said ‘Yes,’” Walter said. “They said ‘Yes’ in their words and in their incredible financial support. We cannot thank our community enough for their support during this campaign for the many years to come.”

According to Rosine, some of the campaign funds eliminated the center’s line-of-credit debt and got the checking account up to 60 days operating and beyond. Additionally, after a board vote this month, a portion will be set aside as a board-advised fund.  

“We’ll have an endowment light. We won’t touch the principal balance unless we absolutely have to, and we’ll have to go through the board for that approval. It’s kind of an emergency fund, if you will, but also the interest that we can generate on that will help us with our direct cost variable, so we have (dollars) to keep the lights on, heat on, things like that that don’t change whether we’re doing well financially or not. That’s the intention for those funds.”

McIntosh, who began a medical leave as the campaign wrapped up, wrote in a blog post: “This campaign has opened up conversations that needed to happen – about partnerships, opportunities, and how to do things better, not just at Joy’s House, but in our city and state. We are excited for the possibilities that will come in the near future. And we are grateful for the team that is being assembled to look at long-term sustainability for Joy’s House.”

What will change?

In Kim Klein’s book, Fundraising in Times of Crisis, she explains that an organization can survive a time of crisis, and even grow, if it addresses the changes that need to be made while not sacrificing its mission. The tendency for most nonprofit organizations is to determine how to cut corners rather than how to raise more money. She encourages the implementation of diverse fundraising techniques as the solution.

So, what are the changes are on the horizon?  

Improve marketing

For the past seven years, a large portion of the center’s marketing budget went toward producing the radio program. Transitioning that to a website-based podcast significantly reduced the cost, and going forward, it will refocus it. Some of its marketing budget will be for referral marketing to ensure the centers are at capacity.

“We really want to get the word out about what we do so that people will know we’re here, which leads to assessments and leads to guests,” said Sarah Shadday, Joy’s House outreach coordinator. “For me, it’s making it strong referral marketing and strong community outreach.”

“Part of what this campaign did and will continue to do is really is kick us in the butt a little bit about marketing – what is important, what are the best practices and how do we keep this campaign momentum that put us in front of all these people who had never even heard of Joy’s House.”

Tell a more relatable story

There is a perception that most of the nonprofit’s clients have dementia. Part of the work is to change that stereotype. In reality, the nonprofit hosts clients who cannot stay home alone because of health and safety concerns. While some are living with dementia, others have multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, are stroke patients or have other medical challenges.

“We are an adult-care facility. We have guests in their 20s and 30s. Yes, it’s your mom with dementia, but it’s also your brother with a traumatic brain injury or his sister with autism or an aunt with Down syndrome. So really highlighting those individual stories to show that we’re relatable,” said Shadday.

Ongoing fundraising

One of the things learned is that donors need to be cultivated on an ongoing basis. Getting the donors is part of the effort, but donor retention requires long-term engagement.

“We have to be really careful of making sure that people don’t see that campaign as the end all and be all. ‘Oh, now we’re great.’  The campaign helped us to continue, and in continuing, we need your help,” said Shadday.

“This might sound silly, but if we don’t ask people to help us, then they’re not going to. They’re not going to know that we need their support for this important work. I know that sounds really basic, but I feel like in the last few months, we had done so much better at just saying, ‘Hey, remember us, we want to still be here.’ Not in a critical campaign fundraising way, but in a more sustainable ongoing,” said Cayla Rosine, the vice president of finance and operations.

Develop network of other adult day cares

In 2014, the National Adult Day Services Association (NADSA) identified 5,685 day programs operating in the United States, up from 4,601 in 2010. This rapid growth is based on the increasing number of people who are getting older and require community-based solutions. Nearly 78% of these centers are operated on a nonprofit or public basis.

Joy’s House staff said other centers are not the competition and see banding together to support each other’s efforts. To that end, they have just started an internal discussion.

“These are our friends, how do we work together to make each other better?” said Rosine.

Nov 18

At IU, teachers thrive at tech-centric institute

By Feature, Technology

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

The term “pathfinders” is often used to describe a person or people who leads a pack and shows the way. Seventh-day Adventists call their youth group by that name, and there is a role-playing game comparable to Dungeons & Dragons with the same name.

As such, it’s a fitting name for one of the Infosys Foundation USA’s signature programs, the Pathfinders Institute. The foundation launched in the U.S. in 2015 as the company’s nonprofit.

For the past two summers, teachers from around the country, both elementary and high school, have spent a week on Indiana University-Bloomington’s campus immersed in computer science and maker education courses. So far, over 1,000 teachers have accepted the foundation’s offer, and have left the campus armed with practical knowledge and ideas for classroom lessons. In many school districts, they are truly the pathfinders.

Kate Maloney, the Infosys foundation’s executive director, joined the foundation’s team in February. This summer, she witnessed these teachers build their confidence.

“I watched teachers come in slightly trepidatious and excited on the first day, but more on the terrified end of the spectrum, and then they left a week later so empowered,” said Maloney. “They knew they needed to bring this inspiration into their classrooms.”

In informal conversations with teachers, she listened as they animatedly told her stories about what they were learning. She observed their growth in classes like those offered by the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics (https://www.kipr.org).

“These teachers were using robots to do all sorts of things. It’s the arc of their journey — watching them start with a blank slate, all the way to developing the impassioned, confident teacher. I think that is the positive lesson. We hope that Pathfinder teachers go back and influence (students),” Maloney said.

Steve Goodman, Executive Director, The KISS Institute for Practical Robotics and a group of teachers showing Ravi Kumar S, Infosys Foundation USA Chairman, their work.

A key partner in this work has been Indiana University where the effort has been spearheaded by Laurie McRobbie, the wife of IU President Michael McRobbie. Both McRobbies have computer science backgrounds.

As a woman in the field, Laurie McRobbie, with 25 years experience, has seen the world of technology begin to address the gender gap.

“We’re seeing a concerted effort to address it, and a real, much deeper commitment on the part of a lot of organizations. I don’t think it’s moved the needle yet in any really significant way, but there are some bright spots to point to in the state of Indiana,” McRobbie said.

According to criteria compiled by the financial technology company SmartAsset, Indianapolis has been ranked as high as fourth in the country for women in tech. That 2017 ranking has since fallen to 14th in 2019, but remains in the top 25 percent of the country’s major cities.  In Indianapolis, the tech workforce is approximately 25 percent women, according to SmartAsset.

In 2016, the McRobbies were invited to attend parallel conferences sponsored by Infosys in San Francisco.

“I was invited to participate in the foundation’s conference, along with a couple of faculty members from the IU School of Education in Bloomington and a number of other computer science educators from around the country, including the founder of Code.org,” said McRobbie. “We talked about the importance of computer science education. We talked about a lot of what we need to do to address this problem is to address it as early as possible in terms of exposure and essentially mainstreaming this study of computer science in our schools.” 

After this conference, McRobbie and then-Infosys Foundation USA director, Kaustav Mitra, continued the conversation about the impact the foundation could achieve. Creating a professional development opportunity for teachers could be the key. The IU connection was hatched.  

“I remember, we just started talking about here we are in the middle of the country, and this is an area that is growing its tech sector. We don’t want the tech environment nationwide to be bicoastal with nothing in the middle,” McRobbie said.

Together, they decided that IU would host the Pathfinders Summer Institute and McRobbie said the university’s events team jumped in to provide a remarkable onsite experience.

“We all sort of viewed it as a bit of an experiment. It wasn’t clear that we would get the numbers that we had hoped,” she said. “There were all kinds of questions about how that might go, but it was incredibly successful. People got a lot out of it, and they loved being on the Bloomington campus in the summer. We’ve just gone on from there, and I’m thrilled that we’re going to be able to do it again in the summer of 2020.”

She said it’s been a wonderful opportunity for IU’s faculty, particularly for faculty who are looking at the evolution and development of curriculum and pedagogy and tools in the classroom. They are able to see what’s working.

Two members of IU’s faculty were in San Francisco with McRobbie at the outset, and according to her are national leaders in the area of maker education. Adam Maltese at the elementary level and Anne Leftwich have been prominent in education research circles.

“I think for them to have this, ready-made, practicum with working teachers, has got to be an incomparable opportunity to further what they’re doing and their understanding of what works,” said McRobbie.

In many school districts, teachers understand that the world is becoming more digital, and a strong understanding of computation, networking and systems interactions (hardware and software) is important to students’ future opportunities. Couple that with the fact that in Indiana, by 2021, implementing computer science curriculum is mandated by law (Senate Enrolled Act 172). So, it’s not surprising that this year, 25% of the teachers at the institute were from Indiana.

Zach McKeever, an engineering and technology teacher at Lafayette’s McCutcheon High School, was one. He attended both institutes to learn computer science principles and computer science discoveries. This summer, the institute offered 19 different courses offered by 15 professional development providers.  

“I was looking for some training with computer science in order to further my curriculum, and to better prepare my students for a world with computer science being at the forefront. I came back for a second year for a different class because of the experience I had the first summer,” said the sixth-year teacher. “I would definitely say it’s the best professional development that I’ve ever been to. Getting teachers who have the summer off, who’ve got kids, who’ve got other responsibilities, to take a week out of their summers to learn some new stuff for their students because they find value in it, is saying something,” he said.

McKeever said he didn’t learn computer science skills in college, but knows the importance for his students. He was among 92 returning teachers. The foundation offers 50 percent of the funding for tuition, airfare and accommodations, with school districts and DonorsChoose.org providing matching funds so teachers can attend at no cost. This summer, 177 of the more than 400 teachers requested funds through DonorsChoose.org. 

A byproduct for McKeever has been the community of learners he’s a part of. Starting out, he knew two area teachers who taught computer science. At the summer institute, he connected with a group of nearly 30 teachers who continue to talk to share lessons and teaching strategies via texts and emails. He said, they even share different Kahoots, which are teacher-made lesson quizzes.

McKeever’s classes are electives, and the foundation for his computer science classes is Code.org’s curriculum, which is free online. A Pathfinder partner, Code.org is a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to computer science in schools and increasing participation by women and underrepresented minorities.

What is encouraging is that according to McKeever, both genders were well represented. Many of the instructors were women. There was diversity, too.

“I think that has a lot of do with what you’re talking about that they’re trying to target people from those schools that are a higher need. Because the curriculum, specifically for code.org, is accessible to everybody. So they want people to know about that and buy into that. All you need is a computer and Internet access. Which is still a big ask, but you know, to me, income and where you come from should not determine what you can learn. All it takes is creativity. It takes creativity and a willingness to learn, and you can get that from any student,” said McKeever.

Melissa Babcock, a Providence, R.I., fifth-grade teacher, would agree. Her elementary school has 94 percent of its students living in poverty. While her school is behind in technology, the administration is supportive of her efforts. Last year, she and another teacher taught an after-school coding and robotics class. They were in Bloomington this summer to learn more, and both will attend Infosys Foundation USA’s Winter Institute, which will be held in Providence in February. At both McKeever’s and Babcock’s schools, every student has a Chrome book, but may not have Internet at home.

This summer, 272 teachers were from Title I schools and 134 were from rural schools. Teachers in attendance represented 45 states and the District of Columbia. IU worked too, to encourage rural teacher participation. Oftentimes, McRobbie said those are schools with just one teacher providing this coursework without a lot of colleagues.

McRobbie said IU is honored to be partners.

“I think it is a hopeful sign to see this kind of investment. Teachers have some knowledge about computer science and some knowledge about how to teach, but oftentimes they’re as much students as their own students,” she said.

“I think that is very much aligned with our mission as a research university and our commitment to educating Hoosiers and people outside the state as well. So we’re really seeing this as a wonderful alignment of our mission, Infosys’ mission, addressing a crucial social need and a crucial educational need. We’re honored to be doing it,” she said.

As the nonprofit arm of Infosys Limited, a multinational India-based information technology company, the foundation hopes to affect computer education through its professional development work with teachers, and ultimately ignite a spark for students. Here are some examples of its work.

A regional institute

In February, Infosys Foundation USA is offering its first ever Pathfinders Winter Institute. It will take place in Providence, Rhode Island from Feb. 16 to Feb. 20. Applications for K-12 public school teachers are open through Dec. 16 on the Infosys Foundation USA website.

Grants to nonprofits

Some examples of grant recipients are Code.org, the Hispanic Foundation to offer family coding nights in Spanish; Teach for America to build computational thinking capabilities with cohorts in particular cities and the Girl Scouts for a badge program called Coding for Good.

This year for Computer Science Education (CSE) week, Dec. 9 to Dec. 15, Infosys Foundation USA is supporting activities. Traditionally, it has given out micro-grants during this week, but this year are working with existing grantees to hold events during that week.

Some examples:

  • Dec. 10: Family Code Night in Providence, RI
  • Dec. 13: LOFT Coder Summit (with Hispanic Heritage Foundation) in Richardson, TX
  • Dec. 14-15: Girls For Tech Hackathon in Hartford, CT

Policy conference

Crossroads conference (May 2020). This signature event brings together thought leaders to explore ideas on increasing access to high quality education in computer science, coding and making, with a particular focus on equity and inclusion.

Infy Maker awards

Through the Infy Maker Awards program, it supports today’s makers at schools and in communities, encouraging them to become our next generation of inventors. This #InfyMakers awards program, launched in June 2015 to celebrate the White House’s “National Week of Making”, recognizes the Maker Movement and inventors.

Oct 28

A look at Indiana’s Women’s Funds

By Feature

WAYNE COUNTY FOUNDATION, Richmond

FUND NAME: Women’s Fund

TYPE: Special interest

SOURCE OF FUNDS: Individual donors; major event (annual luncheon featuring silent auction with 100 donated works of art); luncheon underwriters

WHEN ESTABLISHED: 2001

GRANTS: First given in 2006, total to date, $258,000

HOW MANY MEMBERS: 200 attend annual luncheon

GOVERANCE: No formal structure; luncheon committee determines luncheon theme and grant recipients

RESEARCH: Informal

PROUDEST OF: “When we started, we had no idea it would grow to be what it is. We just thought that there was a need.  We had seen women’s foundations in different places, and we wanted this. We’re a small community of 35,000, our county’s about 50,000. We wanted it to make a difference in our community. I’m proudest of women who have been changed.” — Mary Jo Clark, co-founder Women’s Fund

FUND NAME: Women Helping Other Women

TYPE: Giving circle

SOURCE OF FUNDS: Annual membership dues of $500; individual donors; endowment

WHEN ESTABLISHED: 2008, added endowment in 2011; has just over $15,000 in assets

GRANTS: To date, nearly $72,000

HOW MANY MEMBERS: 22                   

GOVERNANCE: Group consensus; Wayne County Foundation staff person executes

RESEARCH: Informal, shared by foundation staff

FUND NAME: Girls That Just Want to Give

TYPE: Giving circle

SOURCE OF FUNDS: Annual membership dues of $300

WHEN ESTABLISHED: 2014

GRANTS: To date, $21,450

HOW MANY MEMBERS: 15                            

RESEARCH: Informal, shared by foundation staff

FUND NAME: Women with a Purpose

TYPE: Special interest

SOURCE OF FUNDS: Endowment; annual women’s conference; option to donate individually

WHEN ESTABLISHED: 2007

GRANTS: First $400 given last year; endowment of $12,800 started in year five of conference

HOW MANY MEMBERS: 103 conference attendees in 2019    

RESEARCH: Informal, shared by foundation staff

GOVERNANCE: Workshop at the conference with attendees becoming the grants committee; aim is help attendees understand the grant selection process and the difficulty of saying “no.”

RESEARCH: Informal, shared by foundation staff

PROUDEST OF: Growth from the women’s conference. “When I came here, I realized that we still have the good old boys’ network too much.  We were talking to the men when we were talking about charitable giving but weren’t including women in those conversations. I started trying to make a difference in how we approached that, and trying to get the women involved more. I set up the women’s conference, a one-day conference. It’s a day of networking, and learning and honing skills and being together with other women from the community.” —Rachel Hughes, Wayne County Foundation development officer

COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF CENTRAL INDIANA, Indianapolis

FUND NAME: Women’s Fund

TYPE: Special interest

SOURCE OF FUNDS: Donations to endowment and operating fund

WHEN ESTABLISHED: 1996, now has a $16 million endowment

GRANTS: To date, $7 million

GOVERNANCE: Advisory board with officers; grants committee of about 20

RESEARCH: No original research, but uses research that’s compiled by others; will occasionally fund research, particularly through the Indiana Institute for Working Families to help inform the work the fund does with economic mobility

PROUDEST OF: “We’re really proud of the work we have done with Grameen to establish a branch of Grameen Indianapolis to help women who are living in poverty become small-business owners and to become economically independent and really change the trajectory of their lives. We’ve made a very bold investment with Grameen. We gave them a half million dollars along with the Indianapolis Foundation and some other funds, and we gave them their first money in 2011. Over 5,000 women have been served, $37 million dollars of loans have been deferred and 5,359 jobs have been created with a 99 percent repayment rate. That’s 5,300 people whose lives have been changed immeasurably because they had a small loan. The average loan size is $3,200.”.” — Jennifer Pope Baker, Women’s Fund executive director

COMMUNITY  FOUNDATION OF SOUTHERN INDIANA, New Albany

FUND NAME: Women’s Foundation of Southern Indiana

TYPE: Giving circle

SOURCE OF FUNDS: Membership fees; individual donations; endowment

WHEN ESTABLISHED: 2005; became a giving circle in 2017

GRANTS: 2017, $50,000; 2018, $100,000; 2019, $106,000

HOW MANY MEMBERS: 139                                              

GOVERNANCE: Advisory board with 23 this year

RESEARCH: Commissioned a research project by Indiana University Southeast on the actual needs of women in the community. Reinforced that there was a need for affordable housing, day care, health care and good transportation.

PROUDEST OF: “Being a person who’s been involved in philanthropy and many different fundraising efforts, working with a group of women that are singularly focused on helping other women in the community has just been really an amazing experience. I just think when women get together with a real purpose, amazing things happen.” — Lori Lewis, Women’s Foundation of Southern Indiana president

MADISON COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION, Anderson

FUND NAME: Women in Philanthropy

TYPE: Special interest

SOURCE OF FUNDS: Century Club; annual luncheon event; endowment of over $100,000

WHEN ESTABLISHED: 2005

GRANTS: Still actively growing endowment

HOW MANY MEMBERS: 200                      

GOVERNANCE: Committee that meets monthly to plan luncheon

RESEARCH: Informal

PROUDEST OF: “That it started from scratch, it started from nothing and look where we are. In the last couple of years, we had a drive to increase our endowment to $100,000 and we reached that in no time flat, so we just said, ‘Hey, you did so well on that, let’s go for another $100,000 in the endowment, and we’ll be able to start giving away some significant money.’” Sally DeVoe, Madison County Community Foundation executive director and founder of Women in Philanthropy

Oct 28

Trend in philanthropy: Women helping women

By Feature

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

The need was out there. It was just flying a bit under the radar until a women’s group took it upon itself to recognize it and do something to fill it.

Like many parts of Indiana, Wayne County, in the eastern part of the state along the Ohio border, had a growing Hispanic population. That also meant a growing set of language challenges for Hispanic women and their families when it came to medical care, specifically in the maternity ward.

At a time when communication is vital, especially during impending deliveries, doctors had trouble getting their messages across and their instructions understood. A stopgap solution was to have Earlham College students serve as translators. But babies don’t always arrive on a timetable, and students weren’t always available.

Enter the Wayne County Foundation’s Women’s Fund.

The women’s solution was to provide a grant to train medical translators for the maternity ward.

“We sent two women (to be trained as medical) translators, and today one of them is working fulltime at the Wayne County Health Center after receiving more training. At that point, the doctors were all men and (change) was slow with the hospital. They were surprised that we identified that need,” said Mary Jo Clark, one of the co-founders of the Women’s Fund. “We have been able over the years to identify a lot of needs in the community.”  

The fund’s first grants were given in 2006, and since then, the group has given out over $258,000. The Women’s Fund is one of four funds targeted to women and girls at the Wayne County Foundation.

And this isn’t the only Indiana community where women provide funds to make their communities better places for women and girls. There are seven community foundations that host women’s funds, according to Elizabeth Gillespie, a doctoral candidate in the School of Public Administration at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, who has just completed a study in partnership with the Women’s Philanthropy Institute based at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

While women’s funds started in the 1970s, it wasn’t until 1991 that the National Network of Women as Philanthropists was established. It would later become the Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI), and a free-standing nonprofit. WPI moved to the Lilly School of Philanthropy in 2004 and expanded its mission to include research and education. Its signature series, Women Give, is an annual publication.

The report, Women’s Foundations and Funds: A Landscape Study, was released in May. A companion publication, based on the second phase of in-depth interviews with fund leaders will be released in December.

Gillespie found patterns studying more than 200 women’s foundations and funds to demonstrate the positive change for the broader community from an investment in women and girls. Five funds from Indiana were included in Gillespie’s report. Of these, four – the Women’s Fund of Central Indiana (Indianapolis); Southern Indiana Women’s Fund (New Albany); Women’s Fund of Wayne County (Richmond); and Women in Philanthropy of Madison County (Anderson) – were interviewed for this story.

They vary in size and activities, but all support nonprofits in their local communities, reflecting the idea, according to the report, that women’s foundations and funds “connect the well-being and success of women to the well-being and success of their communities.” All talked about the collective impact beyond grantmaking their efforts are having, and most rely entirely on volunteers for events and committee work.

The first in Indiana, the Women’s Fund of Central Indiana, was launched in 1996. At the time, a feasibility study led a group to action, and Julie Cagle, the consultant who led the study, became part of the inaugural staff. Jennifer Pope Baker, its executive director since 1998, said the impetus came from the grassroots level, not from the foundation where it is housed.

A look at Indiana’s Women’s Funds

According to Pope Baker, a group primarily of women wondered why the needs of women and girls were not receiving the same attention as boys and families. They wanted to learn why that was the case and what could be done about it.

“The why really was that women typically have silent problems that are easy to ignore — teen pregnancy, domestic violence, hidden addictions and those sorts of things. They weren’t violent problems that were tearing at the fabric of our society,” said Pope Baker.

“The idea was let’s change the thinking around the needs and issues of women and girls and the thinking around philanthropy to benefit women and girls. Let’s be bolder in all those things and not place blame. Let’s just accept responsibility for creating change,” Pope Baker said.

And accept the challenge, they did.

The next step was to seek a home. Serendipitously, Ken Gladish, the then-Indianapolis Foundation president, thought that joining forces could be mutually beneficial. He recognized that the foundation lacked diversity, and believed a partnership could give the Women’s Fund instant credibility and provide the foundation gender diversity. He sweetened the pot with a $1 million match to launch fundraising and the group accepted his offer and the women’s group became a special fund of the Indianapolis Foundation.

Shortly after, the foundation merged with the Hamilton County Community Foundation to create the Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF).

Other funds in Indiana started in similar ways with a woman or group of women identifying the need to focus on women and girls and a desire to make a difference with their donations.

For example, Richmond, which has had a women’s fund since 2001, last year awarded a grant to two high school seniors. For four years, the girls had enrolled in what traditionally was considered the boys’ domain – an auto mechanics class. Both had landed jobs in the profession after graduation. Recognizing that a lack of strength put them at a disadvantage, the girls requested money to purchase a car lift. At the fund’s annual luncheon, the girls were awarded the funds, and in addition, received a classroom plaque to acknowledge for future generations their barrier-breaking efforts. In response, the awardees arranged a meeting with underclassmates sanctioned by the school’s administrators to interest more females in the coursework.

Each of Indiana’s women’s funds has developed its own grant-giving approach to fit the needs of its community. Several have taken a giving-circle approach, raising money through dues memberships and then distributing the funds in the calendar year.

New Albany began its efforts in 2005 with an endowment, but after careful study in 2017, made the shift to a giving circle. Two of the four funds at the Wayne County Foundation are giving circles. The others – Indianapolis, Anderson and two in Wayne County – are set up as special interest funds of the community foundation.

New Albany’s initial effort was a biannual dinner. President Lori Lewis said it was a successful dinner, but the growth was slow. 

“We know that the founding women wanted to involve women in philanthropy, and they wanted to make a difference in the community. And around 2005, the only way they saw to do that was to get an endowment going. We saw the giving circle as a way to involve more women and to be able to make a bigger impact in the community quickly. There’s ownership in being a member. I think it just makes them more aware of what’s going on in the community, more aware of us trying to change the community,” she said. Cincinnati, which has a giving circle, mentored the group.

Earlier this month, at its annual dinner, the women awarded its third grant — $106,000. Each year the number of women has grown, enlarging the distribution. Lewis said the change has also caused grantees to dream big. Its first awardee, St. Elizabeth Catholic Charities, put in a commercial teaching kitchen for women to teach culinary arts skills, and as a result, find good paying jobs. Last year it funded self-esteem camps for girls in Floyd, Clark and Harrison counties. The group has also committed to fund the original endowment to respect the fund’s originators.

Initially, the Women’s Fund of Central Indiana had a cadre of women investigate different models of women’s funds to determine its best course of action. Their recommendation was to create an endowment of at least $4 million before making any grants to ensure it would be a growing fund. Today, the endowment is about $16 million.

Over time, it has awarded not only program funds, but also general operating, believing that a nonprofit cannot provide quality programming without operating dollars. Recently, it changed the language for its grant initiatives to caregiving, violence against women and economic mobility. It has also provided significant support for several initiatives, including a commitment of $10 million to Bellfound Farm.

“Our First Next Initiative helping to incubate and launch Bellfound Farm, a residential urban farm designed to help young women coming out of the criminal justice system with re-entry and a lifetime of economic security coupled with extraordinary mental health support, will be extraordinarily significant,” said Pope Baker.

“The work that we’re doing with our next initiative to help women and girls who are 18 to 24 years old who are underappreciated and fall through the cracks to really engage in a thoughtful path to economic security is incredible.”

For all, community foundations have been the incubators. In fact, Sally DeVoe, the executive director of the Madison County Community Foundation in Anderson, started the effort in 2005 with the first task of raising visibility.

“We started the endowment, but we never made an issue out of the endowment until much later. We looked at it and said, ‘The money doesn’t need to be paramount. What needs to be paramount is that women understand they need to give the money and why they need to give the money,’” said DeVoe. The group is actively growing its endowment through its Century Club and its annual luncheon.

“We’re raising $10,000 a year, and certainly more than that. But we’ve just set that as a doable goal in a community like Anderson in Madison County where we haven’t been on the best side of the economic fence for a while. We’re coming back and stronger than ever, so we’re beginning to address some things and able to address them financially and, you know, emphatically,” she said. The group’s annual luncheon draws close to 200 women.

All the funds see the need to democratize philanthropy and create buy-in from the women in their communities. They have all found innovative ways to cultivate philanthropy. From silent art auctions to annual luncheons to a conference, all with the goal of raising the profile of women.

In the beginning, Pope Baker said women were not as good at asking for the funding they deserve, but she has seen a big difference and credits the women’s fund for being part of that difference.

DeVoe agrees.

“Women are not good at giving money to themselves, treating themselves well or donating to other women. What they want to zero in on is children, families and caregiving without looking at the fact that there are an awful lot of women in need,” she said. “I think a different look at women’s roles has been the thing that I’ve seen change the most.”

Wayne County Foundation’s development officer Rachel Hughes recognizes that more women are giving after the establishment of the different funds. 

“I feel good about the fact that we have empowered them to give philanthropically, and that doesn’t have to be to the foundation. We are helping them to gain their voices to be heard philanthropically in our community, whether that’s supporting strictly women’s organizations and programs or anything that they care passionately about.”

From day one, the Women’s Fund of Central Indiana has planned for the future with philanthropy education.

“I believe that you do not turn 50 or 60 years old and start writing big checks to organizations to whom you don’t have a connection. So we have been cultivating and developing relationships since the day we opened up our doors to engage people so they will want to support our work in a way that’s meaningful for them and the right time. We are always excited when more people want to join us in making positive change, join us in helping women and girls have all the tools they need to be economically successful. When a woman’s successful, a family is successful, and when a family is successful our community is as well,” said Pope Baker.

Oct 07

In fundraising, ethics should cause red flags to wave

By Feature

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

The fallout was immediate and severe. Since New Yorker reporter Ronan Farrow broke a story in early September about the donor relationship of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, the prestigious school has been on the defensive. Ultimately, the Media Lab’s attempts to conceal the extent of its contact with Epstein, both publicly and within the university, were exposed, resulting in its longtime director resigning and a deeper investigation by the university.

But after the headlines, what lessons are there for nonprofits? Just as the MIT scandal raised questions about that institution’s ethics, it can be a teachable moment for nonprofits, encouraging them to scrutinize fundraising efforts and practices and to evaluate their own organizational ethics.

Jim Langley has worked in higher education since the 1980s, and until 2010, was Georgetown University’s vice president of advancement. Since leaving the world of higher education, he founded Langley Innovations, a consulting company that advises clients on an optimal philanthropic path. Recently, he spoke with Charitable Advisors to share thoughts on ethics and to suggest ways for nonprofits, large and small, to shore up their fundraising practices. In short, Langley believes that integrity is everything, and when it is maintained, it is the most powerful personal and professional brand.

“Ethics are something that will protect you over time or add value to your career, will add value to your employability and be prized by an institution,” Langley said.

For him, if all things are equal, it’s also one way for a nonprofit to differentiate and find a trusted partner, and thinks that each organization needs to reinforce its ethics and raise awareness of ethical lapses or situations that start to create potential ethical compromises.

“The consumer then has the assurance that they’re dealing with somebody who will safeguard their time, their talent, their treasures, their sensitivities and their trust. I believe that, and this was triggered by the Epstein case, how profoundly stupid it is to behave in a short-term expedient way with the hopes that you never get caught. You put yourself on thin ice and the consequences are potentially enormous,” Langley said.

And while organizations like the Association of Fundraising Professionals published principles and adopted enforcement procedures in 2015, there haven’t been consequences for those in violation. Langley thinks there is need for an accrediting body that will censor flagrant violations and raise accrediting questions about those “that are wobbly and affirm those doing an exceptional job.”

“There are several organizations that have codes of ethics for fundraising, but then remain silent when those ethics are violated or trounced on. So, you kind of wonder, what’s the point of a code without teeth?” asked Langley.

“I think the standards are pretty clear. ‘Thou shalt not take from pedophiles’ doesn’t need a lot of nuance, but who speaks up? There’s a lot of tsk-tsking behind the scenes, but who speaks up and says, ‘The MIT Media lab should be censored in a public way so that everybody knows if you think of doing something like that again, there may be consequences greater than the dollars you’ll secure.’”

Langley said a public calling out will put organizations on notice and they might lose money as a result of their behavior if they are seen as being on a slippery ethical slope if not in a complete violation of something that so unimpeachably clear and important.

One contributing factor is the fundraising landscape and a contraction in philanthropic participation. Giving by individuals decreased as a percentage of total giving in 2018 to 68% (down from 70% in 2017), despite achieving its third-highest total dollar amount on record, adjusted for inflation. While there are fewer people giving, it’s masked by people giving larger gifts.

“If the volume of giving contracts, then the importance of big giving in terms of safeguarding the institution or advancing the institution’s mission becomes ever more important,” Langley said.

Couple that with what Langley sees as utterly false expectations surrounding fundraising.

“The top seems to inspire delusional thinking, and then that gets passed on in the form of goals imposed on development staff. ‘Thou shalt go out and get all of this money’ that we think is out there without any concrete evidence that it is. You put pressure on the fundraisers, the board puts pressure on the CEO, and it becomes what I learned as a boy in Catholic education is the occasion for sin.

“The circumstances create more wobble, more unethical behavior. You put pressure on people and they want to elevate the pressure, so I’d say all of those factors are now coming to play in a greater form than ever before. And so as philanthropy becomes less democratic, then the aristocratic few, at least some of them will then say, ‘Oh, then what leverage do I have?’”

One way to combat that is to learn the difference between high and unrealistic standards and that there are analytics that help determine what is reasonable within certain timeframes.

“In other words, a $1 million gift is generally 21 to 24 months in the making, not three months,” Langley said.

“I’d add one more point, and that is that when you don’t have a strong case for support, when you cannot point to where money will make a difference, when you think the only way to raise money is through ingratiating yourself with the rich, then you’re inclined to make these mistakes. If you’re more of a performance-driven organization, you’ll have far more confidence in the fact that as long as you are able to define differences to be made and as long as you prove that investment in (your organization) yields a significant sustainable societal return, you’re not going to be so quick to compromise yourself,” said Langley.

Langley offers these take-away lessons for nonprofits:

1.Include ethics as part of the staff onboarding process.

      “An organization has to have an orientation process that emphasizes the importance of character in both personal career development and in protecting the credibility of the institution.”

2. Develop an accountability policy.

“Spell out the larger the gift, the more comes with it. A large gift sort of out of the clear blue, we might want to go ‘Does this person have an ulterior motive? Is he or she trying to redeem or cover their own wont of character by aligning with us and appearing to be charitable? You have to have something like that in place. It’s all too easy to get around via big gifts and want them so badly that you suspend credulity and then you pay for it later.”

3. Determine who will administer the accountability policy.

“Have a devil’s advocate. Someone outside the advancement operation, maybe in the legal staff, maybe somewhere else, but outside. It needs to be someone who could say ‘While I have no personal interest in receipt of this gift, I want to protect institutional credibility.’

“In my ideal world, I want nonprofits to have an office of accountability — someone reporting directly to the president — and I want them to start projecting the philosophy that ‘We are accountable to a code of ethics, we are accountable to keep our promises to donors. It’s not just thanking donors. It is too many unkept promises, too much glib transactional fundraising and not enough conscience commitment in delivering on commitments, not enough taking the convictions of donors as seriously as we should have.’”

4. Hire the right development people.

“There are two schools of thought, which I’ve characterized as the hunters and the growers. If you’re hunting, you don’t really worry, because you just drag home the carcass, but if you’re growing, you say, ‘Well wait a second, I need to think about the implications of this over time.’ Too many organizations hired fundraisers for the wrong reasons. They thought it was all about asking and not about a process of relationship building. So, they hired people who they thought were presentable, persuasive and had the courage to ask. But over time, sheer experience started to prove that donors actually liked the curious frontline gift officer much better than the aggressively persuasive one.”

5. Develop board fundraising training modules.

“We need board onboarding. A board must orient itself. It’s something that everybody thinks they know, and they don’t know at all. So there has to be some schooling, and then second, there has to be the raising of questions and the monitoring of areas that might be predictives of ethical problems. Boards are often the guiltiest in terms of putting pressure on the CEO to produce magical fundraising results. I spend a lot of my time trying to orient boards to reality and say, ‘Yes, clamor for high achievement, but don’t throw out arbitrary metrics or suggest something is possible without having it grounded in sound analytics and a solid understanding of philanthropic behavior.’”

6. Help boards ask the right questions.

“What should really be happening between a CEO and a board is each asking the other intelligent probing strategic questions. So, for instance, ‘What are we doing to retain the loyal support that we have?’ That will open up a lens to how accountable an institution is. ‘How affective are we at retaining our gift officers?’ If they’re turning over a lot is that an indication of discomfort or unrealism.”

7. Listen to the testimony of frontline gift officers.

 “Listen to complaints coming in from external constituents and log those complaints because those can be early warning signs. Don’t get into a cocoon or to an echo chamber. Be very open to evidence that disrupts your thinking or shakes up your complacency and treat it very seriously. Understand that by definition the conscientious person is in the minority, so don’t dismiss internal discontent as the few soreheads. The minority are always the ones who make the majority of difference, who always preserve the integrity of the institution.”

8. Have a written gift policy with steps spelled out before formal acceptance.

“This should include reviewing the conditions of the gift and scrubbing the ethical character of the donor. The organization should say, ‘Make sure we don’t compromise ourselves unwittingly or wittingly in such a way where we’ll lose credibility and that will diminish our ability to do other great things going forward.’”

9. Pay attention to anonymity.

“It’s a flag that we should pay more attention to. If there’s not a longstanding relationship with an institution and someone starts to give, ask, ‘What is that about?’ Is it in fact some sort of laundering situation in which (the donor) is laundering that money to redeem (his/her) reputation or to create some standing that (he/she) wouldn’t have otherwise. But you have to juxtapose that with remarkably modest loyalties. People give to institutions for years out of spiritual motivation and nothing for themselves, and any kind of review of that ground would quickly reveal which was which.”

Sep 16

Talking about trauma helps to overcome it

By Feature

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Consider the unexpected power of the spoken word.

 

Researchers have found that storytelling practices are linked to positive outcomes for children’s development, and that fathers who tell family stories enrich their children’s development.

Consider, too, that the African culture is rooted in oral cultures and traditions, and that since ancient times, storytelling in the African culture has been a way to pass on traditions, codes of behavior and maintain social order.

So, when Fathers and Families Center married the two, it resulted in Story Telling, its program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Forward Promise initiative.

The project is designed to guide young males of color through a process of self-discovery and reflection that can help them address trauma. These fathers have choices, and can tell their story through poetry, journals, letters, music, videography and other creative approaches.

When the program began two years ago, many fathers did not see the connection. It took staff members to create the bridge. Anthony Patterson, a program coordinator, had his own story. By telling his, he shared the power and helped dads make a connection.

According to grants manager Anna Melodia, his efforts springboarded the program. Many decided to open up and tell their stories. Facing their trauma, they discovered more options in life, and inspired others through their art.

Since early 2018, these creative workshop sessions have been taught by Stephinie Johnson, a poet and counselor who is a contract consultant. Later, she wrangled her husband, Milton Johnson, a music composer and producer, to join the effort.

Participants start with Terrence Harper, the center’s health and wellness manager. Before the Robert Wood Johnson grant, Harper was practicing cognitive behavioral therapy or psychotherapy, but through this initiative has developed a hybrid of narrative and narrative exposure therapy.

With a focus on historic and systemic trauma on boys and young men of color, ages 16 to 24, the center’s program was designed to buffer the effects.

“What we found is these men weren’t necessarily in the heat of that trauma, so I had to do some adjustments where I did a hybrid between narrative therapy and narrative exposure therapy.”

Harper uses several survey instruments, like Life Events Checklist, to identify and hone in on specific trauma. Through the survey, he’s found that the majority have experienced things like family dysfunction, abandonment of fathers, lack of education and judicial trauma.

“I do a lot of person-centered therapy with them and individual therapy by way of the arts to further express that narrative in art form — painting, the music studio or poetry. What’s interesting is a common theme that continues to emerge is resiliency and perseverance,” said Harper.

“Some of them have actually disconnected from it. It was traumatic at the time, but as far as the ongoing and lingering effects, I think that a lot of time they don’t realize how it is still hindering them and holding them back because they’ve moved on. But they’ve moved on in a mode of survival. ‘Yeah, it happened but I just need to keep it moving.’”

Initially the men and boys talk about their childhood to illustrate some of the challenges they have faced, and Harper tapes the sessions to pinpoint specific traumas that are still barriers. By the time they return for the second session, he reviews the stories with the individuals.

“And so by telling their story and helping them to slow down, there is a form of healing that begins to take place. Unfortunately, though, because of the transient nature of our population, generally I’ll keep them about three to four sessions. We’re just hitting the tip of the iceberg. But hopefully as a result of that, they’ll want to continue on even after their narrative is completed,” said Harper.

“They may list that they witnessed a violent event. What I want to do is make sure within the context of their story that I address it on some level. ‘Hey, you said on that checklist that you had witnessed a violent event, can you share a little bit more with me about that?’” said Harper, who has worked at the center for 12 years.

“This is not necessarily about adverse childhood experiences, this is about adverse experiences that have historically manifested as trauma. Everyone who comes in doesn’t necessarily tell a story because they may not be ready. So, I have to use discretion on whether or not they’re ready versus moving them on. Maybe they don’t tell their story in this way, but maybe they are ready to share and express it through art or through music.”

Along with counseling work, the creative sessions with the Johnsons help put experiences in context and into words. The fathers acquire new skills and develop confidence to craft and share their stories.

“I think that it works very well because a lot of the youth when they work with me, they’re able to break down barriers that they didn’t even realize they had. They’re able to open up, they’re able to express themselves and have something tangible. I think it has a tremendous effect on the youth that we work with,” said Stephinie Johnson who has a counseling background.

Milton Johnson grew up in Virginia and understands these young fathers. He and Stephinie were in the Army stationed at Camp Atterbury, and after leaving the service, decided to put down roots in Indiana.

“I grew up kind of how they grew up. My goal has always been to go back to the same type of neighborhoods and communities that I grew up in and show that you don’t have to be a product of the environment, you can be different,” said the music composer and producer.

Music, he believes, is therapeutic.

“What happens with a musical connection is that we build a relationship that allows them to build trust and they share things that they wouldn’t normally share with an instructor. We’re able to dig deep, and as they talk and relive some of the things they’ve gone through, they kind of see where they might have messed up and it gives them more of a motivation to fix the things that were broken in the past,” he said.

This rap was written and produced by a participant in Milton Johnson’s music storytelling sessions.

Harper believes that once fathers come into the program, and see the authenticity of the staff, it helps them lower their inhibitions and guard.

As they relate the things they’ve done and what’s happened to them, they begin to see what they’ve survived. Then they go from being a victim to a hero of their story. It’s not “here’s what’s happened to me, poor me, but here’s what I’ve overcome. Strong me.”

In the end, it is the hope that each client produces a retelling of his story.

“And the hope is at some point, they’ll be able to pass it on to their children and let their children know, here’s where dad started, he’s what he went through and the challenges, and this is him as he’s emerging and received his own healing.”

Sep 16

Innovative storytelling program aids young fathers

By Feature

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

For Anna Melodia, the process began in 2017 with a chance phone call from a friend in the nonprofit world. The alert colleague happened upon a grant request by Forward Promise, an initiative of the nationally respected Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The foundation, the nation’s largest philanthropy dedicated solely to health, was seeking organizations to develop culturally responsive programs to buffer the effects of historic and systemic trauma on boys and young men of color. Its plan was to have nonprofits test innovative approaches to treating trauma.

As the grants manager for Indianapolis-based Father and Families Center, Melodia reviewed the request and was intrigued. So was Terrence Harper, the center’s health and wellness manager. Father and Families had an innovative idea to treat the problem of trauma. Perhaps, just perhaps, Forward Promise would be willing to give the local nonprofit the funds to implement it.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, historical and contemporary oppression, discrimination, and poverty have led to negative physical, mental and emotional health outcomes across life spans and generations. The Forward Promise initiative was designed to find culturally responsive healing solutions.  

At the time, the center, under Harper’s management, was primarily using cognitive behavioral therapy with clients. Staff members, however, wanted to test a new method. Harkening back to the African tradition of storytelling, their idea was simple – design a program to help young fathers of color find their voices through written, spoken or visual arts as an alternative to counseling.

Melodia said Forward Promise was not prescriptive in the application process.

“I think that freedom allowed us to be really creative in our approach and talk particularly about some of the strong African traditions that we continue to invest in,” said Melodia.

Even though Melodia and her staff believed they had a solid idea, they knew that securing a grant from the national foundation was a long shot. The process was competitive, and Forward Promise received over a thousand applications.  After Forward Promise whittled the pool to 50, Fathers and Families was still in the running. After each program was paid a visit by national staff, Fathers and Families was among the organizations asked to submit a full application.

“I was happy to be in the club,” Melodia said.

Ultimately, nine organizations received grants, and Fathers and Families Center was awarded $450,000 over two years.

The long shot made it to the finish line.

“The whole process was just amazing,” said Harper.

Grounded in oral traditions of storytelling, the project guides fathers or expectant fathers ages 16 to 24 through a process of self-discovery and reflection that can help them address trauma. These fathers have choices, and can tell their story through poetry, journals, letters, music, videography and other creative approaches.

The resource program for fathers originated at Wishard Hospital in the early 1990s, and moved to its current location on North Illinois Street in 2003. Its signature three-week Strong Fathers program helps fathers or expectant fathers prepare for their responsibilities. After three weeks and course completion, fathers may move to job search activities or participate in continued education and training programs.

According to Joseph Palus, the center’s director of programs and evaluation, the national grant complemented the center’s existing work. With a background of supporting nonprofits in program evaluation and research, Palus came on board shortly after the grant was awarded and is responsible for ensuring that the center hits its program targets.

According to Melodia, it took time to get the right people around the table to launch it properly. While the center isn’t a stranger to working with outside support, this opportunity allowed the center to create deeper connections with participants and develop some new relationships.

“The biggest thing is we don’t do this work alone,” said Palus. “We work with a range of partners. Those partnerships developed both organically and intentionally. Organically meaning we saw a need and found an organization to fill it, and intentionally meaning this is something we felt we should do based on best practice and evidence, and so we’re going to reach out and find somebody who will help us do it.”

The other eight awardees provide support, too. One organization, Drexel University’s Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice, is most similar to the Indianapolis-based nonprofit. Many had existing programs designed to heal from trauma, and used the grant to tweak their models. Unique to Fathers and Families is its narrow participant pool – it must be male and fathers or expectant fathers.

Among the other differences between programs, according to Melodia, is its length of intervention.

“Ours is more short term. It’s a transient population, they’re dads and their lives are complicated. So, we have to get them where we can, when we can, versus some of the other programs that had a nearly yearlong intervention and in some cases a captive audience,” Melodia said.

With the grant’s cycle ending in October, the center has applied for continued funding from Forward Promise, and will receive notification in November.

The center’s second proposal focuses on determining effective quantitative and qualitative measurements to compare those who receive cognitive behavioral therapy versus men who go through the narrative process and to learn how the outcomes differ. The center will investigate whether fathers are able to keep a job longer and earn higher wages than peers who have been traumatized but not gone through treatment. The center will also look at participant’s self-importance and possible increase in parenting time and quality.

“I actually identified a measurement instrument, but it was so painful, it was almost re-traumatizing. It would start with, ‘Here are the things I came here to address, here’s how I did it.’ When you look at it on a week-by-week basis, it can be very traumatizing, and so we dispensed with that and stuck with the model and our own observations just to how guys have been doing,” said Palus.

Melodia said Forward Promise is poised to learn how systems, like education, criminal justice or health care, can be affected by acknowledging trauma.  Many of the dads have trauma that was inflicted by these systems. One goal is to help participants interact with those systems and not be a victim to them.

“I think we’ve done a really good job doing that, and I think one of the other important measures is recidivism and criminal justice engagement. We actually have a very low recidivism rate, we’re very proud of that. Right now, it’s less than 7 percent,” she said.

The funding has also helped the center figure out ways to identify trauma, and to some extent, quantify.

“We never looked at trauma systematically before. This gave us a chance to look at that more closely and figure out what is actually going on,” said Palus. What they’ve learned over two years is that 50 percent had been physically assaulted and assaulted with a weapon, and 22 percent had experienced sudden accidental death, sudden violent death or death of someone close to them.

With the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the center learned other things, including how to continue engagement with certain participants beyond the three-week program.

“It’s strengthened our systems for making sure that kind of relationship lasts longer, so we can continue to work with guys to continue to address issues that may be more long term,” said Palus.

“The second thing is that we’ve incorporated the storytelling aspects into the class. It is my hope is that we will continue that so that those stories get told, because you’ll see some of the things that guys have experienced, and some of the things that they’ve done themselves, that have affected them. Having that information helps us to tell the story, but it also helps the guys, at least in some way to process what happened to them.”

Through connections to other organizations and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, it helped the center realize it didn’t do advocacy well.

“One of the things that we have started to do is to take the men down to the Statehouse and have them understand that they have a vote and a voice, and they also have a responsibility to their community,” Melodia said. “And even to the point when we do a voter forum, we get the men registered to vote as well as prep them to meet the candidates.”

“Again, I think it’s really shifting their sense of worth and confidence and realizing that they are just passive participants in this process and walk. And I think that’s made a big difference as well.”