Skip to main content
Category

Feature

Dec 04

Advice from those who have been there

By Feature, Governance

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

For many people, experience is the best teacher. And while not all nonprofits have taken a pause, two local organizations have recently been through the rigorous process and can offer their perspectives.

Kimberly Sterling, the former board president of the Martin Luther King Center, and Allison Luthe, the center’s current executive director, shared advice applicable to a human services agency.

The Indianapolis Opera’s Matt Mindrum, the current board chair and David Starkey, the general manager, looked at the pause from an arts perspective.

Here are some of their suggestions:

Have a clear plan and consistent messages

Sterling said it’s not enough to just ensure that clients will be served. The board should have a purpose behind the pause. Why is it happening? Is it purely financial or are there services that are being duplicated by others?

Before the pause, a nonprofit needs a media plan, and everyone from staff to leadership has to be clear in their descriptions of the reasons for the break. Electing a spokesperson is important to make sure messages are consistent. Having one person delivering the message also frees up others to attend to other steps to turn around the organization.

Know your board

Sterling said it is critical when planning a pause to understand who on the board is willing to work. During a pause, there will be an additional time commitment, and an oversight board will not work.

“Everyone needs to be all in, and if you’re not, it’s OK, we just needed to know who’s staying and who’s not. It needs to be a board that clearly understands its role and works well together. Board development was absolutely critical, especially in the short term, particularly when we didn’t have staff.”

In MLK’s case, the board chair decided to step down because of other commitments, and Sterling took the helm.

The board also knew it needed a strong treasurer and someone to work with the auditors. MLK’s was a volunteer who stepped up after reading about the center’s situation in the newspaper, and volunteered his services to help. Although his term is up, Jeff Gearries continues to serve on the board.

When Sterling rotated off the board at the end of her term, she wanted to make sure there was a strategic plan. The board’s responsibility was not only to fight fire an immediate need, but also plan for the next three to five years.

Sterling said the board’s work was guided by a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King: I am what I am because of who we all are.

“As you think about what a community center is, it’s about the community, it’s not about the staff members, and it’s a reflection of the community or at least it should be.”

Recognize that healing needs to take place

In both cases, there was a lot of personal attachment to the organization as it was.

Starkey, who became the Opera’s general director in March, recognizes that the healing is still happening.

“When you have an accident and you injure your body, you have to be very dedicated that you heal, and you must be very optimistic. I came to a city and to an organization that was deeply troubled. I knew many of the people and many of the circumstances, knowing the past leadership of this company, admiring it from a distance. The healing is still happening. And I think we have the greatest healing tool, and that’s music, specifically singing. Time does heal. If you come back pretty quickly, then some of that didn’t have time yet.”

Know your community

Luthe’s first month on the MLK job saw the Double 8 food store on Illinois Street close. Her first reaction was to move into action and provide support. While the center didn’t have a lot of money at the time, they did have two shuttles available, and people in the neighborhood that needed food.

Their plan was to drive folks to the nearest grocery store. They produced fliers, and got everybody excited.

But nobody showed up to ride the shuttles.

“That’s when I said, ‘We’re going to have to get in touch with people and find out what they do need.’ If you’re going to be a community center, you’ve got to be grounded in the neighborhood. Make sure that in your renewal that you’re really connected to whom you should be connected to.”

Define your organization

Luthe said people had to understand that, “collectively this is going to be a new thing.”

“If you have a million dollar house next door (in Tarkington Tower), and then you’ve got an abandoned block of boarded-up houses, what’s your mission and who are you really here to serve? So I think people needed to figure that out. Are we a social justice organization that is a cultural center, are we a social service provider or are we a gathering place?”

Nov 13

Partnering to measure poverty

By Feature

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Poverty in America. It’s a problem that has been analyzed and dissected by many sources. It’s been the subject of books, TV documentaries and combatted by a host of social services agencies.

But do we really understand the ins and outs of poverty?

A complete answer likely remains elusive, but a local university and a national nonprofit have been working together to get a better grip on the changing needs of America’s poor.

The resulting product is the annual Human Needs Index (HNI), a multidimensional report that stems from a partnership between IUPUI’s Lilly School of Philanthropy and Salvation Army USA. The index is a more comprehensive in-depth look at our nation’s poor, according to Una Osili, the Lilly School’s assistant dean for research and international programs.

Traditionally, poverty has been measured in a narrow vein: income level based on government figures. The HNI goes beyond that and uses data the Salvation Army has been collecting on its own since 2004 based on the services it provides.

The first HNI was released in 2015, but the project was seeded four years prior, when the Virginia-based Salvation Army invited the Lilly School to a conversation at its headquarters. While reading the latest U.S. poverty statistics in USA Today in 2011, one of the agency’s board members recognized that the Salvation Army had more up-to-date data on poverty than what he was reading, and together with the entire board, suggested a potential partnership with the Lilly School.

The meeting led to the partnership where both entities benefit: the Lilly School is able to disseminate information helpful to the nonprofit sector, and the Salvation Army gets validation that its data and work are valuable tools to better serve the public.

While often associated with urban work, the Salvation Army’s safety net programs have a presence in every ZIP code, including mobile outreach in rural areas. For years, the organization had amassed data from more than 7,000 sites. Four statisticians oversee the collection of its data, one for each territory. Most of Indiana is part of the Central Territory, which covers 11 states and has 2,342 operations centers; the exceptions are the seven counties that comprise Indiana’s northern border.

The HNI tracks need in seven areas: meals, groceries, housing costs, clothing, furniture, medical bills and energy bills.  The need is also compiled seasonally. A score is assigned to the nation as a whole in addition to scores for different regions. Scores were assigned retroactively back to 2004. Upward and downward movements in the scores often reflect economic conditions such as a recession or even natural disasters.

When first approached by the Salvation Army, Osili said the School of Philanthropy was intrigued but it was too early to tell whether the data was relevant.

First the university conducted a validation process, doing a rigorous analysis comparison of Salvation Army data with other local, state and national figures on poverty. In addition, multiple calls with the territorial statisticians helped the Lilly team understand the story behind the data. Working alongside the Salvation Army,  the Lilly team better understood its collection process and had the opportunity to raise lots of questions.

“I’ll give you one example. We noticed that energy orders that the Salvation Army was providing spiked in March, April and May. That was a bit of a surprise to us, because you would have expected that people would have needed assistance in the winter, not needing energy in the spring when temperatures tend to be more moderate,” said Osili.

What they learned, through conversations with the Salvation Army’s team, was that many cities and municipalities have ordinances that prevent winter heat shutoffs for low income or elderly residents. Even with unpaid balances, the heat stays on. But come March when temperatures were more moderate, the needs inflate, resulting in higher assistance requests from the Salvation Army.

“We wouldn’t have found that out on our own. Salvation Army had the data, and so that’s why the collaboration and the partnership made a lot of sense. Clearly, they were the content experts. It was basically taking all that information and then distilling into what we thought were the basic aspects of human needs,” Osili said.

[content_box box_type=”normal”]

Sharing the knowledge

Filling an information void about local safety net programs, the Human Needs Index can be more just a cool data visualization tool or source of information inquiry into the measurement of need.

It can model how communities and philanthropy might collect, share, and use data to improve outcomes for clients, organizations, and community residents.

To that end, the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy has begun to share the lessons of HNI through workshops and webinars.

And while encouraging, Osili cautions that an organization needs to have a process to validate the data, and compare to other figures in order to establish a benchmark.

Another challenge for some nonprofits is that some are just present in rural areas but not in urban.

“The other big lesson that nonprofits can take away is kind of the power of collaboration. We’re used to thinking about universities doing one thing, and national and local nonprofits doing another,” said Osili.

She said this is an example of how you can actually bring together different sectors together. Nonprofits don’t always have the expertise in-house.

“So it’s thinking about all of our resources whether it’s our own data as an asset or community around us as far as the power of collaboration.”

“I think it would be great to also do something locally, so that our local nonprofits here can better understand,” said Osili.

[/content_box]

Natural disasters, like Hurricane Katrina, were another example. It wasn’t just the communities where the disaster occurred that needed assistance, but extended well beyond Louisiana, into Texas and Arkansas. With its boots on the ground, the Salvation Army was able to provide a detailed picture of needs, and expand the geographical need beyond the disaster.

Osili  agreed that we tend to look at poverty based on income. But that changed when Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel Prize-winning economist, noted that to understand poverty, it needed to also be looked at through a consumption lens.
“Basically that is, what are people having trouble with, where are families struggling, what kinds of areas are they needing assistance,” said Osili. “Because the HNI views things more through a vulnerability lens, you can actually see how households struggle to meet energy needs, get assistance in health care or access to clothing. Those are things that are general poverty and statistics aren’t really going to tell us.”

The tool can be useful both at the local, state and national levels to help determine if poverty is improving and how needs and access to services are changing.

Locally, Susan Solomon, the Salvation Army’s divisional social services director,  believes the index helps to give a broad picture of what is happening.

“There may be some things that we may miss in a given community, and then when we look at it collectively and have discussion, it raises awareness.”

Solomon said the Salvation Army, founded in 1865 in London, is a large old organization, and it is easy to continue to offer services because of tradition. With the reality of fewer dollars available, reviewing the data challenges the nonprofit to look at particular services to determine if they are still needed or perhaps duplicated by another agency. The result, hopefully, is to collectively meet more needs, she said.

“Has it had a fairly radical effect on the services we offer? I cannot say that’s happened, but it does raise our awareness of what do we do and do well and where needs are not being met as we plan and move forward,” said Solomon.

Spearheaded and funded by dollars raised by the Salvation Army USA’s board, the initial cost was designing and creating the infrastructure, and the annual upkeep is not as expensive. After each territory applies its checks and balances, the Lilly School receives quarterly data, releasing the HNI once a year.

Osili said while it would be easier to only report if the needs went up or down, the project teams decided to investigate more deeply to include what specifically was different in each wave of the data collection and to ask new questions. For this year’s index, they posed: What were the vulnerabilities that rural households were facing and how did the solution differ?

This year’s HNI has illustrated persistent pockets of poverty in rural America that might not have been apparent from traditional government measures like unemployment data, SNAP usage and the U.S. Census Bureau’s Poverty Report. Osili said things like Indiana’s low unemployment or what economists call full employment can mask poverty. For example, the state’s opioid epidemic has contributed and changed the levels of assistance and needs.

“How does that show up in the Salvation Army data? What we see is that even though other measures like unemployment are showing declining patterns, we also see that they’re starting to show up in health care needs. People are coming to Salvation Army for assistance with substance abuse and drug treatment facilities. What you can actually unpack is the particular challenges that households are facing,” she said.

Osili believes the HNI has been a bit of an inspiration for many organizations, leading many nonprofits wondering if they could do something similar. And while many nonprofits are starting to collect this type of data, not many have the comprehensive, historical and geographical reach of the Salvation Army USA, said Osili. Two — Catholic Charities and Feeding America — are starting to look at their own data footprint.

“I think there are a lot of lessons to learn. The first one is that nonprofits are often consumers of data and use data in making decisions, but they can also be part of the leadership on what data is collected and how we share that information. Data can be really powerful in helping to shape decision-making and then for policy makers, too, to better understand very complex issues facing a given community.

“The second take away is that nonprofits can be part of shaping how society understands the problem. You know just beyond the service delivery side, you can also be part of the generating new insight and knowledge,” she said.

Oct 16

Finding adequate shelter for families can be challenging

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

A little over a year ago, Mike Chapuran’s first day at Family Promise in the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood didn’t go quite as planned.

Trying to get a sense of his new position, he started his first day answering the nonprofit’s phones. The first caller was a family, which he had to turn away because the shelter was full. Then came another call, and by 9:40 a.m., he had turned away five families seeking shelter.

Twelve minutes later, he suggested the caller call 211 or one of the other two family shelters – Dayspring or Holy Family.

“The mom told me, ‘I’ve already called all of them, I’ve been calling them for weeks. I’m staying in an attic and it’s 80 degrees and my infant won’t stop crying. Do you know how hot it gets in an attic?’ I felt powerless, but imagine her powerlessness. I’m just in a job. She’s has a kid. My point is on the day I arrived here, I was like ‘I didn’t know this was a problem in Indianapolis.’”

Unfortunately, Chapuran’s first day was not unusual. Every day, about 10 families are turned away. Other family shelters in Central Indiana – Dayspring and Holy Family — have similar experiences.  According to Coalition for Homelessness Intervention & Prevention (CHIP), 6,000 school-aged children will experience housing instability. Dayspring, Holy Family and Family Promise will take dads, but Salvation Army and Wheeler only take mothers and children.

For over 24 years, Family Promise of Greater Indianapolis, initially called the Interfaith Hospitality Network, has been part of the network supporting homeless families. It began with a talk given at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church by the founder of a Hospitality Network program in New Jersey. Dr. Dean Lindsey was at the talk, researched the program and problem, and then formed a local outreach group to connect with congregations. Working as volunteers, they persuaded eight congregations to split the effort that first year, each hosting four families for a week.

Since 1994, volunteers and congregations have helped over 750 families with children. Today, two different congregations offer hospitality every week, serving a total of eight families. The network now includes 36 churches, and another 18 that support the effort of a church close to them.

Congregations provide overnight lodging and meals for up to four families. Families daily arrive daily at the church at 6 p.m. and stay until 7 the next morning. On Sundays, volunteers wash sheets, and then transport the rollaway beds to the next congregation.

“If a parent has a job and works until 6, we don’t want to be an obstacle to employment so we have the Uber and Lyft fund. We will have volunteers go pick them up for the week.  We don’t let our model get in the way of what actually matters, which is working,” said Chapuran.

Host congregations serve dinner and breakfast and plan activities for the children. Members of the congregation spend the night at the shelter, and then each morning transport families to the Family Promise Day Center. Children go to school or daycare.

The Day Center, located behind St. Rita’s Church on Indy’s Eastside, provides support for adults who either cannot work or are seeking work. They meet with a case manager to build skills such as budgeting, while applying for housing or employment. Adults can use the computer lab to prepare resumes, research jobs and apply for jobs online.

“We have success stories. We have the mom who comes back seven years later, and we don’t know she stayed in the program. She’s wearing nursing scrubs, and she donates food to us and says, ‘Seven years ago this program saved my life.’ She then talks about the volunteers and how they doted on her children and how she got a job as a CNA at $15 an hour and the program helped her get that. And that now she’s has an apartment.

“We have another mom who says after she puts her kids to bed and turns off the lights, she loves it because she has to get mad at her daughter for turning on the lights and reading a book at 9 o’clock at night,” he said.

When a family leaves, support continues. Four years ago, the program added an AfterCare home-based case manager who continues to work with families. The belief is that INH helps people find housing and AfterCare helps them keep it. The nonprofit’s name was changed when it added the program, and is now part of an affiliate network of over 200 Family Promise branches.

The case manager visits families at their houses or apartments, and currently serves 32 families.

“That’s scary because that’s a lot. So she has to prioritize those most in need. Families will do a monthly budget with her one meeting, and then next month when she’s back, revisit it. There may be a meeting in between to work on things like providing a connection for a school uniform resource. But it’s really budgeting on the first of the month, and then coming back the next month to try to help create long-term goals as motivation,” said the executive director.

And it is making a difference. Two years after leaving the IHN shelter program and working with AfterCare case manager, 82 percent of families have retained housing.

In the past year, the case manager has connected six families to the Boner Center IDA program. The family starts an account and saves a minimum of $25 a month. When they hit $3,000, it’s matched and can be used for school, entrepreneurship or buying a home, according to Chapuran.

“So we’re hoping that through that program we’ll have some homeowners here in a few years,” he said. “Housing is the key. There’s no panacea. Right? But housing affects employment, affects school, affects every thing.”

Most families, according to Family Promise, stay about 60 days to save up the first month’s rent and security deposit.  The nonprofit now has a donor to provide a family’s security deposit, which according to studies, reduces the average family stay.

“We just gave a fighting chance to the family. The family did the work. It’s not a homeless person, it’s a mom who has three kids. One of them was diagnosed on the autism spectrum, she had to do appointments, lost her job and then it snowballed from there. It could happen to anybody,” said Chapuran. “We can stabilize those parents so that the kids’ lives hopefully are stable and in school. So we’ve got to take the long view.

Family Promise of Greater Indianapolis phone tally for two months.

Permanent housing for families, particularly with multiple bedrooms, is rare to find.

“Your family of five with dad, mom and three kids is shot. They wait. We’ve had a family that’s come back here twice despite our best efforts and getting social security and some other supports, and despite a part-time job has come back here twice. The mom has significant disabilities, retaining a job is hard. She’s half blind to be honest, and a permanent support-housing unit is necessary for her and her twins. But she’s been waiting nine months now.”

Besides family permanent housing, Family Promise is working to fill a 17-week gap from December to February. At that time, one rotation serving four families at a time closes. The nonprofit continues to recruit congregations.

Chapuran is hopeful that he will find new congregations and maximize the nonprofit’s existing resources.

But most importantly, he knows that volunteers getting to learn a family’s story can realize that it’s all shared experiences.

“Read the stories, but even more important than serving a meal at Dayspring, is talking to a family at Dayspring, learning a story. Learn that’s a mom, who went through 24-hour childbirth just like you, who then was worried about getting the baby to latch. It’s all shared experiences. “

Oct 16

Battling homelessness relies on dedication, collaboration

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

The thought process in itself is pretty elementary. Identify a problem, and then get smart heads get together to find a solution. On paper, it sounds good, but real life can be another story.

The problem of homelessness is an issue that has vexed politicians and social service agencies for a long time. It’s complicated because it is so multifaceted.

In previous nonprofit positions at the Damien Center in Indianapolis and the Orange County AIDS Services Foundation in California, Alan Witchey has worked with marginalized populations and saw how their plights can spiral into homelessness. Since 2015, he has been the executive director of the Indianapolis-based Coalition For Homelessness Intervention & Prevention (CHIP), and housing has become his primary job focus.

One thing he has come to believe is that solving the problem of homelessness has to be a group effort.

“Coming to CHIP was a great opportunity to think about how to solve homelessness from a collective perspective. An agency cannot solve a community problem alone. It can help people, and do good work, but it takes people working together, especially on a large issue like homelessness. One of the things, I think, has been very exciting is that I have really seen evolution and change in philosophy in Indianapolis among the homeless providers,” said Witchey, a 1990 graduate of Indiana University.

And what are some of the changes?

One is agreement to use a coordinated entry system. Together with providers, CHIP is launching a common housing application and vulnerability assessment.

According to Mike Chapuran, executive director of Family Promise, a nonprofit family shelter on the city’s Eastside, local shelters have verbally agreed to the updated system. Before now, a family seeking shelter would have to call each shelter to find one with a vacancy. Now, those seeking housing will complete an application, and CHIP will manage the list and prioritize the need.

And while it won’t immediately solve the capacity problem in the city for homeless families and individuals, it will prioritize housing, and add data to better understand the extent of the problem.  “That’s an enormous change for our community,” said Witchey.

CHIP realizes that the actual homeless numbers aren’t always easy to quantify. Every January, volunteers go to shelters, transitional housing and encampments to gain an annual Point-in-Time (PIT) count. This year’s results found the amount of people homeless in the city increased by 10 percent – giving Indianapolis the highest homeless count since 2014. Currently, 1,787 people are without homes, according to CHIP.

“We don’t ever think that we get to everybody, but we think we’re pretty good at counting, getting to a lot of people, not everybody,” Witchey said.

For example, the Hispanic homeless population is well hidden in Indianapolis and across the state. And Witchey believes there are other populations that are missed from the count.  The LGBTQ population, as well as some other youth populations, frequently double up or sleep on somebody’s couch and would be missed.

In July, CHIP teamed up with Outreach, which has been working with homeless youth for over 20 years, and the Indiana University Public Policy Institute (PPI) to conduct the first Youth Count Indy of ages 18 to 24. The data will help build a case for federal funding, expand advocacy efforts and educate the public. Outreach, a faith-based nonprofit, opened a new program facility on the city’s Eastside in April and hopes to serve more than 400 to 425 annually.

CHIP is not a direct service provider, but is helping to lead the way and change systems.

“I think we’re going in the right direction, and we still have a ways to go. There are some communities that are way ahead of us, and we haven’t been acting this way for a long time.

“You cannot expect a homeless service provider to be thinking systemically because they are dealing with the immediate crisis. People are walking in the door homeless every day, and they’re trying solve having no place to live,” said Witchey.

Chapuran agrees that his staff is constantly responding to a family’s crisis. When a mom needs a ride to work, it’s difficult say “no” because a collaborative meeting takes precedence. But he also understands it is important work for changes to happen.

Collaborative work can be challenging. While an agency receiving HUD funding has a requirement to participate in developing collaborative solutions, many of Indianapolis’ providers are privately funded. Witchey believes it’s CHIP’s job to build a compelling case to work together.

One of those changes has been the work of street workers. In August, CHIP hired Tom Tuttle, a social worker with 10 years experience, to manage the Street Reach Indy program. While a similar program to give money to organizations rather than panhandlers started in 2014, this one has a full-time position dedicated to outreach Downtown and work with businesses.

There was a time when every agency did its own street operation, sometimes reaching the same person in the same day. But that has changed in the past five years. Now, Professional Blended Street Outreach (PBSO) combines 22 different agencies and has standards for the way services are provided.

These teams provide first-response services to the city’s homeless and are made up of organizations that include local law-enforcement, nonprofits, health providers and mental health entities. Horizon House does the on-the-ground coordination.

CHIP has begun hosting quarterly provider meetings and creating common outcomes.  At these sessions, providers talk about how individual programs and agencies are doing based on those agreed-upon metrics.

Chapuran believes that Witchey is bringing providers the best practices from HUD and randomized studies that help support all of their work. Statistics show that 93 percent of the homeless who are rehoused remain housed one year later, and 94 percent of those who receive homeless prevention do not fall into homelessness over the coming year.

And while providers have made changes, Indianapolis’ housing resources have lagged. In his annual State of the City address, Mayor Hogsett committed to provide 400 additional spots for homeless residents.

According to CHIP, last year the city had 1,059 shelter beds, and 26 beds in two shelters dedicated to youth. While the city’s homeless population is smaller than other large cities, a study concluded that faith-based groups provide 77 percent of beds for Indianapolis’ homeless. So the city’s involvement is key.

Hogsett directive was simple. “We need this challenge as a community to push ourselves. And this community can rise to help solve it,” he said.

As part of the solution, CHIP, together with United Way of Central Indiana and Eskenzi Health, created and funded a new position called the Senior Strategy Director for Homelessness. Since August, Rodney Stockment has been on the job. He is responsible for helping to align the city’s efforts around homelessness and to address the challenge of finding the 400 additional beds.

“He really is mapping it out and going through all the different affordable housing projects and programs. He is finding out where there are empty units, where there are upcoming units and identifying those, so we can actually place people in them. And then, we’re working with different funders to help fund either temporary rental subsides or ongoing subsides to help people as they move into those units. So it really is a collaborative effort, but it’s great that we were able to create this position at the city,” said Witchey.

The funders envisioned a two-to-three year position focused on how to identify potential units and connecting homeless people to those units. By the end of September, Stockment had identified 168 units of the 400.

For additional assistance, CHIP brought members of the Cleveland Mediation Center to Indianapolis for a two-day divergent training on how to mediate crisis situations.

Chapuran said the training can help with immediate needs.

“We’re excited about beginning the conversation to see how we can with modest financial support and in-home case management potentially keep a family that needs housing in the home where they’re staying and help manage a conflict. While doubling up is not a perfect solution, if there’s no shelter space, it’s better than the street,” said Chapuran.

CHIP has also developed program standards and strategies for outreach, transitional housing and permanent housing.

And it has piloted new models. Over the last year and a half, Indianapolis has invested in a Housing-First model and tracked its progress. Called Penn Place, the 38 furnished one-bedroom apartments opened last winter. Residents are surrounded by support services. Witchey said an evaluation of the facility was just completed.

“A lot of those pieces have existed for many years here, but there wasn’t a sort of consistent effort to bring it here and have fidelity to that model. So we did that when we opened Penn Place about a year and a half ago, which was a collaborative between BWI Developers, Insight Development Corporation, Indianapolis Housing Authority, Eskenazi, Midtown Mental Health and Horizon House.

Are we close to solving the homeless problem?

According to Chapuran, “Other cities have demonstrated what’s possible. Utah, especially Salt Lake City has addressed and “solved” the problem of homeless veterans.

“We know that individuals are going to be without homes. There will be family that kicks them out, there will be evictions, but can we make sure that they have a roof over their heads on the day that they become homeless. There are cities that have done that.

“So in that sense, we know the solutions are out there. But in Indy right now, we are working towards them. Thanks to CHIP in the last year, especially, we are finally implementing and having the working groups create policies and procedures around what other cities are doing, and so that gives me a lot of hope,” he said.

Sep 18

Nonprofits recognizing the value the diversity

By Feature, Leadership

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Historically, the United States has not always been inclusive, and workplaces have been no exception. But in today’s political, economic and global business environment, diversity has become increasingly important. It now impacts brand, corporate purpose and performance.

And while the business environment recognizes the value of inclusion, nonprofits seemingly have been slower to come to the table. Some state nonprofit associations, however, do collect data, and two years ago, GuideStar initiated an optional national survey, but all told, reliable statistics on the topic are difficult to find.

One fact appears to be clear: At the start of the decade, the vast majority of nonprofit non-executive positions were dominated by women. That’s according to the 2010 National Nonprofit Employment Trends Survey, a survey of over 500 nonprofits from around the country by Washington, D.C.-based Nonprofit HR Solutions and the Caster Family Center for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Research.

Women are less represented among senior executives, where, according to the Nonprofit Times list of Top 50 leaders in 2010, 66 percent of those named were men.

Locally, however, Jeremy York, a Synergy human resources field representative, and Nancy Ahlrichs, United Way of Central Indiana’s chief talent officer, have begun to see a change.

York said part of it is a broadening of diversity’s definition, and a recognition that there is significant value in having diverse perspectives.

“I think people are finally starting to understand the value of having different perspectives on their team. In the past, diversity has been focused mainly on physical traits, whether it’s been ethnicity or color of your skin,” said York.

“We understand that people’s experiences, their upbringing, where they worked, their backgrounds, education, different people they work with, all help shape their perspectives, and we can utilize those perspectives and experiences,” he said.

Ahlrichs believes that a cross section of perspectives makes a nonprofit more effective.

“It’s impossible for an organization to have group think because they’re automatically bringing different ideas to the table. There are just simply things that with my particular background I couldn’t have insight into. I need a variety of people in order to get things done because I don’t know what I don’t know,” she said.

But also important to this change is that the U.S. continues to be more of a melting pot, affecting nonprofits’ current and future pools of volunteers and donors. The younger population is more and more diverse.

“It’s also a need on our side. If we’re going to have sustainability, we have to be more diverse. We have to learn how to be more inclusive,” Ahlrichs said. “If you serve people, you’re always going to have to strive to make sure that you have a good representation.” United Way of Central Indiana emphasizes diversity as part of the agency evaluation process.

Add to this need, according to York, is that studies have shown that for-profit companies that have diverse work teams outperform other organizations by 25 percent. He said this same school of thought applies to a nonprofit’s services, quality of the delivery of those services, and ultimately its mission.

“Part of the reason that companies are outperforming is because they’re more in tune with each other and because they respect each other for their differences of opinion,” said York.

And while nonprofits recognize that they need to embrace diversity, Ahlrichs said sometimes they look for assistance to begin or how to incorporate such policies. She has been approached by other nonprofits seeking help, and she advises them to examine their methods of attracting people who would be an asset to the organization.

“There are things that they can do that are not costly, that will make a difference in the ability to attract job candidates. I mean you cannot hire people if they don’t apply. How can you reach out to say ‘All are welcome?’ How do you get someone to think about coming to work for you or to think about being a volunteer if basically, in the nonprofit sector, the majority of employees are white females. The diversity that you may be pursuing is men, in fact I’m sure it is, men, as well as racial, ethnic, sexual orientation and other diversity,” Ahlrichs said.

According to Ahlrichs, while there are some simple ways to start, the key is to develop a diversity-and-inclusion policy and a plan.

“You have to have a plan. Without a plan, you aren’t going to get anywhere,” she said.

While York sees boards being cognizant of reflecting the people that the organization serves, they don’t necessarily see the need for a written plan.

“Some of my nonprofit clients don’t have a diversity initiative that they are specifically working toward,” said York. “They may consider themselves to be an inclusive environment, but a lot of the smaller ones don’t have a plan. It’s not because they don’t think it’s important, it’s just from a resource standpoint.”

Which local nonprofits are walking the walk? YMCA, Big Brothers Big Sisters were mentioned York and Ahlrichs and Kim Donahue, United Way’s director of agency services, lists the Children’s Bureau as being proactive. It has an internal group of employees who meet regularly, and they have been very purposeful in recruiting for their board with diversity in mind, Donahue said.

“United Way of Central Indiana is made richer by the array of diversity that we have. We have absolutely top-notch employees, and they come from all different backgrounds. And it just wouldn’t be the same without them. I think that more agencies are going to find it’s a level of quality that they increase in terms of their ability to serve the community that they serve by having diversity,” said Ahlrichs.

Ways to get started

Ahlrichs offers several actions that United Way has implemented that can help nonprofits get started, specifically to attract talent.

Website awareness — “United Way posts its diversity statement on the website,” she said. “I think it’s important that anyone who goes to our website, especially someone interested in a new position, knows that we have a policy.”

She said a nonprofit’s website tells a story to potential employees, volunteers and donors and that it’s important to consider what the website looks like.

Who is in the pictures? Does the site show a range of diversity?

“I want someone who goes to our website to feel like they have a sense of our culture. Whether it’s age, race, gender, we wanted to show as much diversity as we could, and you get to hear their real words. You know what is it like to work here,” said Ahlrichs.

Job postings — Nonprofits need to think about where they post job openings and ask themselves a simple question: “Can we expand where we send the posts so there is an opportunity to have qualified diverse candidate even apply?”

“You really can’t be complacent. You cannot say, ‘We’re just going to post a job on our own website and that’s good enough’ and have anything change,” Ahlrichs said.

Networking — Ahlrichs suggests reaching out and creating mini-relationships with diverse organizations. Perhaps an introductory phone call, or a coffee meeting.

“It would be nice if they actually knew more about your agency and could speak in a positive way about what you’re trying to do,” she said.

DIVERSITY RESOURCES

After the release of the 2004 study by University of Chicago professors that found Lakishas and Jamals were far less likely to get job interviews than Emilys and Gregs, some organizations tried masking names on resumes. It didn’t catch on as a trend, but Ahlrichs said she personally knows someone who struggled with her job search, in spite of the fact that she had two master’s degrees in human resources.

Her name was difficult to pronounce and potential employers were embarrassed to try. After using initials for her first name, and dropping the part of her hyphenated surname that was difficult to pronounce, she got job interviews.

Below are resources that Ahlrichs and York suggested can provide insight to trends.

Diversity Inc.

“Diversity Inc.” magazine is in print as well as online. It compiles a tremendous amount of information and articles from around the country, things going on that have to do with diversity trends, as well as, strategy trends.

  • http://magazine.diversityinc.com/i/686571-win-2016

There is a competition annually in the magazine called the Diversity 50. This year, Eli Lilly and Company was included for “conducting extensive research this year on the career progression of its female employees. With this knowledge, Lilly plans to solidify its best practices around talent management for women. The company also plans to conduct similar studies for its Black, Hispanic and Latino employees. Lilly is also planning to roll out a conscious-inclusion training.

  • http://www.diversityinc.com/diversityinc-top-50-survey-faqs/
Society for Diversity

Indianapolis is home to the Society for Diversity, a virtual professional association for workplace diversity and inclusion efforts. Leah Smiley is the founder and CEO. It certifies diversity consultants and provides education and resources to help professionals and organizations.

International Center

The International Center is willing to work with nonprofits to learn more about incoming populations. They bring a cultural representative.

“We had Muslim woman who wears a hijab, who came to speak to us, and she made a deal with us in the beginning, she said, “I want to have you ask me any question. I don’t want you to go away, saying, ‘I wish I had asked or I didn’t courage enough to ask.’ She said, ‘I want you to know me as a person and to understand whatever it is that you’re wondering about when it comes to the Muslim religion.’

“We brought in someone who is from the country of Columbia and she was so educational. She said, ‘So tell me the first three things you think of when you think of Columbia?’ People said, ‘Killing, drugs.’ It was all the negatives. She said, ‘The things that I think about are an enormous flower industry, high fashion and coffee.’ And she said, ‘It just depends on where your information is coming from and what has your experience been,’ and so we talked about stereotypes.”

The Human Rights campaign

The HRC Diversity and Quality Index is about diversity inclusion.

  • https://www.hrc.org/campaigns/corporate-equality-index
Aug 15

Ball Brothers Foundation: Emphasizing family and community

By Feature

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Efficient, flexible and patient.

These three adjectives guide the funding decisions of the Muncie-based Ball Brothers Foundation, according to Program Officer Jenna Wachtmann.

Both Wachtmann and Senior Program Officer Rich Spisak, who came to the foundation just over a decade ago as its first full-time officer, took time recently to share the vision, innovations and unique focuses of the foundation, which at age 90, is among the earliest established foundations in the country.

“Part of the role of this foundation is it is able to provide efficient, flexible and patient capital. I think patient capital is a really good term for the work that we do. We can be patient and see things through,” Wachtmann said.

Patience shows up in current projects, such as improving the area around Kitselman Trail Head, which has been part of the foundation’s vision for 20 years.

“We have just been slowly chipping away at projects in that geographic area,” said Wachtmann, who joined the foundation three years ago. She said key to committing to a project for the long run is that the foundation’s endowment is set up as a perpetual, not sunset foundation.

In the U.S., there are over 42,000 family foundations with assets of more than $400 billion, according to Foundation Source, a service provider that helps families become more efficient philanthropists. In the past, family foundations rarely thought about an end to family’s giving, assuming they would exist in perpetuity from generation to generation. One reason some foundations sunset is concern that over time there might be a shift from the original donors’ intent. There are other reasons, too, like children not having an interest in the foundation or assets dwindling.

That, however, is not the case for the Ball Brothers Foundation. The foundation’s first strategic plan was developed a little over a decade ago. During those strategic planning sessions, lengthy discussions led to the decision that the family would continue to be involved in leadership roles. As a result, it became a high priority to cultivate that next generation of leaders.

Family member Michael Justin (Jud) Fisher is the foundation’s president. He is a Michigan native, a graduate of the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, and joined the Ball Brothers Foundation in 2003 after a banking career. The board is currently made up of third and fourth generation family members. Of the 13 board members, only four are not family members. Spread across the country are well over 200 descendants.

The foundation’s associate directors’ program helps educate the next generation of leaders. While the program was started before both full-time program officers joined the staff, they have helped formalize it. Currently six family members who live outside of the state take part.

The six come to Muncie three times a year at their own expense to learn about the community and the foundation’s grantees. Site visits have become part of their experience.

“They’re seeing exactly where our grants are going. The last time they were here, we took a bus tour. We put our board members, associate directors, and several community leaders on a bus and drove for two and a half hours around the city, pointing out all the various projects that we’ve talked about for a long time. They hadn’t always seen the previously funded projects or how they connect to one another. Those are valuable learning opportunities. So that gets to the heart of the innovation — as new proposals come to light, our board can make great decisions because they’ve seen in person what is being talked about,” Wachtmann said.

Not only have family members become aware of how a foundation operates prior to possible service, but they also have become ambassadors to the rest of the family and their communities. While not guaranteed a spot on the board, associate directors are guaranteed the opportunity to learn how the foundation operates.

“They’re learning skills that they’re taking back to Denver or to New York City, so they’re involved philanthropically in their own community in ways that benefit them, too,” said Wachtmann.

Donor intent is vitally important and talked about regularly. The perpetual mission — to continue to improve quality of life — has always been at the forefront, according to both program officers.

“The board honors that because these were the family members who came before them. They’ve made the choice to continue to honor that donor intent out of respect for the legacy, but also because the need is clearly still here. We are set up so that we can always serve the needs of the community,” said Wachtmann.

One thing that has changed in recent years is the foundation’s visibility in the community.

“We’re much more transparent than we ever have been,” said Spisak. In the last 10 to 15 years, interactions with nonprofits and ways of doing business have changed. During this period, the foundation began to produce annual reports, and has held annual receptions for foundation grantees.

Wachtmann believes that not having a regular annual report was rooted in the family not wanting to draw a lot of attention to its giving. “But I think that there was a realization that the foundation could have a greater impact by telling its own story, and by telling the stories of its grantees. This, coupled with studies that showed that people just didn’t understand what foundations did, resulted in more of a drive to tell BBF’s story.” Ball family members, too, receive the annual report whether or not they are directly involved.

The decision to have some board members be community leaders who know the area was also intentional. The Ball brothers lived, worked and made their lives in Muncie, and they were dedicated to improving the quality of life here. Those board members who live locally can help guide the conversations to priority community needs.

“Our charter restricts us to give only in the state of Indiana. Over time, it has always been that the majority of money has stayed in this local community and that has been the underlying belief of the family throughout the years,” said Spisak. He said typically, 90 percent of the foundation’s money stays in Muncie/Delaware County with only a small percentage given statewide.

Another program to increase transparency was started over a decade ago. An annual fellow’s program is designed to help local nonprofits understand from the inside, how the foundation works.

Two nonprofit directors are selected to participate for nine months. Often they are from very different organizations. At the onset, each receives $7,500, and later in their tenures, another $7,500 to work on individual projects. In addition, fellows receive money to attend a conference of their choice.

Together with foundation staff, they read and discuss several books and articles about foundations and management, like Jim Collin’s book, “Good to Great,” and Joel Fleishman’s book, “The Foundation: A Great American Secret: How Private Wealth is Changing the World.” In the summer, they visit the Foellinger Foundation to see how another foundation functions.

Spisak said they have gotten great feedback about the program. The program was born out of conversations with the Fort-Wayne-based Foellinger Foundation that included questions such as: How do we make sure that nonprofit organizations understand what a foundation is? How do we make nonprofits more comfortable with foundations? And at the same time, how do we learn more about what’s it really like to be in the shoes of a nonprofit executive?

To date, more than 20 local nonprofit leaders have completed fellowships. These fellows have also served as focus groups for the foundation staff helping simplify the grant process and offering input on the best format for the foundation’s annual report. The relationships have provided staff with candid insights.

According to Wachtmann, nonprofit ownership is critical. In recent years, the foundation has made proactive grants, inviting nonprofits to address a problem in the community and come up with a proposal. The foundation is not prescriptive with these RFPs, instead relying on its grantees to be the experts on knowing what’s best for their nonprofits and their communities.

Annually the Ball Brothers Foundation provides 40 to 50 Rapid Grants capped at $5,000. The beauty is the response time — nonprofits receive approval or denial of funding in seven to 10 days. Both said the innovation has been incredible and that people can take $5,000 and “make magic happen.”

With their roles in the community, for example, program officers often pick up on area trends and issues. The opioid epidemic is one of growing concern. Another is that manufacturing sector employment is down. And while manufacturing output is still extraordinarily high, there have been population losses.

So questions the foundation continues to ask is: What do we do to make our community as attractive as possible? How does our community attract families and businesses to move there? How do we ensure that professionals want to stay here and raise their families? “That theme is kind of at the forefront of all of our work,” said Wachtmann.

According to Spisak, workforce development is key because poverty is such an issue.

“Poverty just affects everything. Quality of life. Economic development. Population growth. Employers coming in. We’re doing so much more with workforce development, economic development, working with our Chamber to try to tie things together,” he said.

Muncie has always been grounded in entrepreneurship. In fact, the foundation exists because the Ball Brothers were inventors and makers. Among the programs that BBF has supported include STEM education and robotics for schools and after-school programs. Recent grants to maker spaces in Anderson and Muncie provide opportunities for these efforts.

“It ties back to ‘What is the community talking about?’ We faced devastating population losses. We have to be a community that can attract people here and business to locate here. We’ve got to capture that entrepreneurial spirit back. And so part of our job is to continue to find ways to drive to find good projects that drive the quality of life,” said Wachtmann.

Both officers believe another role that the foundation plays is a convener, asking, What are the problems? What are the challenges? What are your needs?

In the past year, summits organized by the foundation included opportunities for early childhood and environmental grantees to share innovative programming and potentially make collaborative connections. The environmental summit included grantees from Northern Michigan’s Leelanau area, which are supported by another Ball family philanthropy, the Muncie-based Edmund F. and Virginia B. Ball Foundation.

As Ball Brothers Foundation moves forward, it also looks back. Some of its earliest projects were visionary, including its early grant to build a hospital. With past strong support for medical efforts, and with the IU School of Medicine housing the second largest program in the state in Muncie, the foundation’s president began to look at what to do to continue to strengthen the medical portion of the economic community engine. The other major economic driver in the community is Ball State University.

Hospital and IU School of Medicine-Muncie personnel approached Fisher to begin a dialogue about the future direction of medicine in Muncie. The outcome was concept called Optimus Primary and is designed to strengthen the medical education sector in Muncie, giving it more of a niche.

“We know based on research that where a doctor trains, he/she often stays within a certain 100 miles radius of that area. And so the more doctors that train in our community, and the better doctors that train in our community, hopefully, we can retain some of those in our city. So that’s good for our region, and it’s good for our state,” said Wachtmann. Delaware County is 87th out of 92 counties in community health rankings, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation county health rankings report, so good medical care is imperative.

What they learned from doctors in training in Muncie was that they wanted better housing options and specialized training opportunities.

“Then we’re able to issue a request for a proposal that says, ‘We’ve heard that these are themes that you have in common, and we’re ready to respond to that. You tell us what you want to do. We’re not going to tell you, we don’t know, what your future doctors need training-wise, but you tell us what you need to be innovative, and we’ll take a look at it,” said Wachtmann.

“So we made a series of grants of about half a million dollars in response to what were those identified community needs. Our funding is targeted to pilot several initiatives to make medical training in our community stand out,” she said.

One of those initiatives involves joint training programs where EMS personnel will be training right beside doctors in combined scenarios. This and other collaborations include Ball State University, Meridian Health Services and additional partners who will help develop program and curriculum that help strengthen Muncie’s physician-training programs and make them stand out.

There is some risk with innovation. Wachtmann said Purdue University’s President Mitch Daniels talks about measuring the risk of inaction against the benefit of proactive.

“We can sit and wait and think, ‘Oh, it seems kind of dicey’ or we can jump in and say, ‘We’re going to put a bit of money into it and we’ll see what happens.”

 

[content_box box_type=”normal”]

AN UPCOMING NONPROFIT OPPORTUNITY

Indiana Youth Institute, in partnership with the Ball Brothers Foundation, intends to help improve the organizational effectiveness of youth-serving nonprofit organizations in East Central Indiana.

With funding provided by the Ball Brothers Foundation, IYI invites community and faith-based youth-serving nonprofit organizations to apply for assistance to improve their current effectiveness and their capacity to serve in the future.

Grantees are limited to organizations within Delaware, Randolph, Henry, Jay, Madison, Grant, and Blackford counties.

Request for applications can be found here.

Applications are due to IYI by 9:00 a.m. (EDT) on Aug. 28.

Two grants will be awarded. Collaborative applications from two or more agencies for one grant award are encouraged. Each grant recipient will receive the following:

  • 80 to 120 hours of coaching and technical assistance focused on one or more of the following (see page 6 for more details):
    • Strategic planning
    • Fundraising and sustainability planning
    • Board development
    • Evaluation plans and processes
    • Financial management policies and processes
    • Human Resources management policies and processes
    • Executive Coaching
    • Another area that would increase the effectiveness of the organization
  • Registration and hotel expenses for 2 persons to attend IYI’s Because Kids Count Conference in Indianapolis – November 28 & 29, 2017.
  • Registration of $750 for 1 person to attend a professional development training or conference in spring 2018. The Fund Raising School at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy is one option for consideration.
  • The opportunity (based on successful completion of other activities) to apply for a sub-award of $5000 to $10,000 to be used only for approved organizational effectiveness/capacity-building purposes.
[/content_box]

 

Jul 31

Domestic Violence Network: 20 years of fighting domestic violence

By Feature, Leadership

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Nonprofit networks vary in shape, size and mission. Some are satellites of national organizations and others establish connections and facilitate collaboration.

Ask Tracey Horth Krueger or Kelly McBride about the Domestic Violence Network (DVN) in Indianapolis, and they’ll tell you that after 20 years, it is still vibrant and relevant. That is in large part because of its ability to adapt and respond to community needs, according to Horth Krueger, the network’s first executive director, and McBride who has been in the position for the past 3½ years.

In reality, the network has been around since the 1980s, first as a grassroots movement. Regular monthly meetings were informal conversations that provided opportunities to collaborate and make connections. At those gatherings, direct service providers would discuss what they needed to support their work, but would then leave and return to clients and caseloads. There wasn’t an entity or staff support that would advance those initiatives between meetings.

“In 1997, the decision was made to try to secure funding to get a staff to really build the domestic violence network,” said Horth Krueger, who is now CEO of the Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault. “In my opinion, everything that is DVN now is built on what preceded it for the 10 years or 15 years prior to that. It is an extension of the work that that committed group of advocates has been doing in this city for years.”

DVN started with three employees and now brings numerous nonprofits to the table, including at least a half dozen area domestic violence shelters. One initial obstacle was overcoming nonprofits’ fear that such an entity, while worthwhile, would add to the competition for existing funding dollars. Organizations wanted to be set apart and be attractive to funders on their own.

“It was Mayor Peterson, a strong advocate for this work, who was able to say, ‘We’re a team, let’s keep our eye on the ball, we do much better when we’re working together.’ And then backed it up with having his deputy mayors in the meetings and involved. It was a great opportunity for DVN to really grow because we had support,” said Horth Krueger.

“What we were saying was, ‘Let’s come at this from a position of power. We’re going to be way more powerful if we’re working together than if we’re continuing to have the walls up,’” said Horth Krueger. “We were really shifting the conversation and saying that is an issue that cannot operate in isolation. We really need each other.”

While DVN’s mission has remained consistent – engage the community to end domestic violence through advocacy, education and collaboration – its delivery has not. Education and training have adapted to what’s happening in the community. DVN has always served in a coordination role.

“As we’re learning what national best practices are, we’re bringing those here, but at the same time we’re learning about what our city is doing. We’re merging those together, so that they fit everyone’s needs,” said McBride, who is a trained social worker.

While Horth Krueger is no longer involved in the day-to-day, she thinks the network also works because it focuses on the broader issues. As a former reporter/anchor at WRTV-6, she worked to bring visibility to the issue. First with the Safe Haven Campaign, which was designed to raise funds for additional transitional housing for victims of domestic violence. That campaign resulted in the opening of Coburn Place, a transitional housing and support service for domestic violence victims. The campaign, which is ongoing, was also designed to raise awareness about domestic abuse.

“That campaign did a phenomenal job at breaking through perception. It was just telling the stories of people that you might watch and think, ‘Whoa, it attacks all of us and our preconceived notions about others.’ So it’s really opening up all of us to be thinking about, ‘God, this really could be happening in my own family.’ And that’s powerful,” said Horth Krueger.

Staying focused on trends and identifying gaps in services gives the network the ability to look more strategically and more comprehensively at community needs and ultimately prevent domestic violence.

“DVN is not serving the needs of victims day in and day out, which is precious important work and needs to be the focus of nonprofit organizations. A community needs that other piece where an entity can be stepping back and looking more broadly,” said Horth Krueger.

That’s a role DVN has embraced since its beginning. In 2000, Peterson’s first year as mayor, he led more than 100 citizens in a roundtable discussion that prompted a call for a community action plan to end domestic violence. DVN took the lead, and the Family Violence Community-Wide Plan was issued in 2001.

Four years later, a second mayor’s roundtable identified new priorities for addressing domestic violence, including public awareness and education, economic justice, health and legal issues, prevention and targeted outreach to Hispanic populations. The second formal communitywide plan, Peace in our Homes: A Call to End Domestic Abuse in Central Indiana, was released in 2009. It was a catalyst to establish a coordinated community response.

In 2013, the Community-Wide Plan to End Domestic Violence 3.0 was released by DVN and used the Results Accountability framework. There was a focus on making a measureable improvement in the quality of life for entire communities.

Plans varied in duration from three to five years.

McBride said putting Band-Aids on things is not enough.

“We provide funds for emergency transportation, we have these great shelters to help victims, but how can we stop it in the first place. Domestic violence does not exist in a silo. Our domestic violence victims are coming in with mental health issues, addictions issues and everything else,” said McBride.

The newest community plan is focused on intersections and how poverty and domestic violence are intertwined and how crime and domestic violence are interconnected. It is designed to dive into the root causes of domestic violence, and change the issue in six months. The first — economics – resulted in a study of housing for domestic violence victims. Behind the scenes, a committee will continue the work for the duration of the plan.

“That is such an important conversation because it is all tied together. And if you can solve one or make headway on addressing one of these societal ills, it will have a positive impact on the rest. I see that as the very critical role that they are filling now and are leading it,” said Horth Krueger.

Marion County and the doughnut counties are the focus for the network, and participation is free. It represents people in the Greater Indianapolis area who serve domestic violence victims, and includes not only the shelters and the advocacy programs, but also law enforcement, the legal community and work in hospitals.

“It’s the full continuum and what needs to be in place to address the needs of victims and hold perpetrators accountable and prevent abuse. It’s the repository of all of this information about who’s doing what in the community and how,” said Horth Krueger.

DVN publishes two reports a year – “The State of Domestic Violence in Central Indiana,” a compilation self-reported by the nonprofits that serve the population and which provides a snapshot of the number of clients served. It’s designed to present an update on the state of domestic violence in Central Indiana based on similar reports compiled in 2014, 2013, 2011 and 2008.

The second report connects data from the IMPD, Julian Center and the Marion County prosecutors’ office to get a better understanding of what domestic violence looks like in the criminal justice system. The report hasn’t had consistent funding, but currently has government funding, and will put out preliminary statistics in the fall .

“That’s more of the arrests and the convictions. What does recidivism look like? Are we seeing domestic violence reported to the police in more spots within Marion County? That doesn’t mean it is happening more, it’s just reported more there. So then we’ve taken that data, and we share with our network and our partners and then we can help identify better prevention strategies or intervention strategies,” said McBride.

Most funding is local, but DVN holds a national grant in partnership with IMPD, the city, Julian Center and the prosecutors’ office. Called the Baker One Initiative, it is an IMPD-led policing initiative to identify high-risk offenders early in order to prevent homicide or serious assault. The original project, started in Mecklenberg County (Charlotte area), North Carolina, in 2002, has proven successful in preventing lesser crimes from escalating to seriously violent or fatal acts.

“Baker One Initiative’s initial data shows that it is working,” said McBride. “We’ve applied for several other federal grants in partnership with those folks as well, and we should find out about those in the next couple of months.”

While funding ebbs and flows, McBride said it is important that programs remain consistent. Recognizing that a service provider could lose funding for a program, for example, DVN assumed the responsibility for youth and employer education.

“There were people doing that, but their grants would ebb and flow. So if they lost a youth-prevention grant, then they would lose that program. So it wasn’t sustainable within the community,” said McBride.

“We’re not only educating our advocates but our community members. And we also educate high school and middle school students on how to identify and respond to teen-dating violence, what a healthy relationship looks like and what consent looks like,” said McBride. It’s been in place for three years this fall, and it has branched out to include a youth network once a month to engage peers in healthy relationships.

While the advocates’ network still meets the first Tuesday of the month, there are now trainings to provide ongoing support. In addition, DVN offers best practice trainings nine months of the year, and there is a monthly wait list. The remaining months DVN hosts a commemoration and holiday party, and a retreat to focus on self-care for direct service providers.

What’s next? In an ideal world, Horth Krueger sees the network working to make domestic violence unacceptable like Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

“The perpetrator is the one making them leave home, and so why are we putting it on the victim to relocate to a part of town they’ve never lived in, not that they have anything against that part of town, but they don’t know where the grocery is, they don’t know where the drugstore is, they don’t know the schools. So the movement has had to be aware of that and try to make those accommodations so they don’t feel completely removed from all they know.

“The housing issue is huge, but I think we need to think differently about the housing issue and maybe we don’t bring everybody to one building. We have scattered sites. We need to be out in these communities, we need to have partnerships with different organizations.”

[content_box box_type=”normal”]

Lessons learned

McBride and Horth Krueger have been immersed in the issue of domestic violence. And over the 20 years Domestic Violence Network in Central Indiana, they’ve learned a thing or two about how networks function.

They were willing to share some practical tips for nonprofit networks in order to stay relevant.

  1. Don’t become stagnant. Be flexible and adaptable and continue to pay attention to trends, issues and the needs of the community. The work is not black and white and has to be ever evolving.
  2. Relationships are key. Keep building and recognize that they can be ever changing.
  3. Do your homework. Find the influencers. Talk to people who’ve established networks or continuity. You’re never done. Talk to people who have been in your shoes.
  4. Don’t tie your efforts to a specific politician. If you tie the issue to an elected official, then you’re not thinking about sustainability. You want that support, and you want to be a priority to them, but you cannot become an office of because them.
  5. Listening is very, very important. It helps to have that skill set so that when you have multiple voices around a table, you can come to a consensus, and help people come to a consensus. You have to have the ability to listen and make sure that people feel heard and are heard. There are awesome ideas everywhere, and it’s important to elevate people’s ideas.
  6. Recognize that domestic violence intersects with almost every other social problem. With domestic violence affecting 1 in 3 women, and 1 in 7 men, you know someone who’s been touched by domestic violence. Keep asking: How can we pull together the community.
  7. Continue to work better and continue to communicate.
[/content_box]
Jul 17

Homeless resources in Indianapolis

By Feature, Programming

This week, Indianapolis Star reporter, Maureen Gilmer, wrote a story about seeking help for a homeless mom. The story referenced the Street Outreach Rapid Response Team, and other nonprofits that acted immediately to secure a spot for this family. To learn more about Indianapolis’ services, read her article.

Just like that, within three hours, a desperate young mom and her kids were rescued from an uncertain future. I was astounded at how quickly this family got the help they desperately needed, but at the same time, I know there are others who aren’t as lucky as Brown and her family.

These kinds of street rescues are what Street Outreach Rapid Response Team and Professional Blended Street Outreach are built to do. The rapid response team is actually a network of 67 people representing 22 organizations in the city — shelters, hospitals, mental health agencies, veterans’ groups, even animal welfare advocates.

“We’ve identified gaps in services available on the streets for people, and we’ve brought those folks together to help those most vulnerable,” said team coordinator Melissa Burgess.

When an email goes out to the group, “everybody jumps up and is ready to help if they’re able to,” she said.

Button Text
Jun 19

Urban youth find power in the Constitution

By Feature

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Robert Walls is a problem solver. If you tell him you have tried everything and nothing seems to work, Walls sees it as a challenge to find something that will.

In 2006, Walls was asked to judge the national “We the People” competition in Washington, D.C. What surprised this Indianapolis resident and retired public school administrator was that among the 1,500 teens participating in the event, less than a half dozen were African-American.

Convinced that he could add diversity to the competition, his first step was to speak with Robert Leming, the director of the national Center for Civic Education, the organization that runs the competition.

During their conversation, Leming told Walls that the center had tried every idea it could think of to get urban school systems to adopt the Constitution-focused curriculum, and he was frustrated, too. But he welcomed new ideas and invited Walls to attend the group’s national state coordinators’ meeting.

Walls found the meeting disheartening, and that might have been discouraging for most people, but not in his case. While he learned that students couldn’t take part in the national event unless their school district had adopted the curriculum and a district teacher taught the course work, he thought that wasn’t an insurmountable hurdle.

[content_box box_type=”normal”]Since 1987, the national finals for the Center for Civic Education’s program have involved over 31,000 students. Each spring, upper elementary and secondary students participate in simulated congressional hearings with students testifying as the constitutional experts before panels of judges.[/content_box]

“In my opinion, the national competition was where the meat of the program really was. You got a chance to hear a whole lot of different opinions from all of the other states, and you got a chance to exchange ideas with teachers and administrators. I was frustrated that (urban kids) quite frankly had not been involved. There were some schools that adopted the program, but very few were teaching it to the point where they could get involved in the competition,” he said, citing the cost and the focus in urban schools on simply teaching the basics.

Undeterred, he forged ahead, and with the Center for Civic Education’s blessing, crafted a plan.

Walls began with his connection to Frontiers International, an African-American service organization founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1936. His goal was to recruit schools to adopt the program, but he knew what could work immediately was to teach the program after school.

“But I said to the state coordinators, ‘If nothing else works, let us have our own competition,’” Walls said.

If you cannot join them, adapt.

At Walls’ recommendation, Frontiers International, which spreads its clubs into nine regions around the country, sponsored the first training. The Center for Civic Education agreed to the plan and pulled together a group of scholars to be trainers. In 2010, with 37 teachers from around Walls’ primarily Midwest region, the effort was begun. Educators spent five days at IUPUI, and upon completion, received a set of 30 books and teachers’ curriculum.

After that training, teachers could recruit from any school in their areas and teach the program after school. Later in 2010, the effort culminated with invitations to five (of 26) states — the top 110 students from around the country –to compete in the first Frontiers national competition in Birmingham, Ala, with the Center for Civic Education’s encouragement.

“Part of the reason we went to Birmingham is because it was recommended by Robert Leming, Wall said. “We could combine the study of the Constitution with the cultural experience of Birmingham. That’s our theme now. We try to combine the Constitution history and cultural history and see how they connect.”

In 2013, seeing the local potential, Darrin Orr, an Indianapolis businessman, helped Walls co-found a nonprofit organization, Winning Experiences. Orr is also the United Northeast Community Development Corporation president, which serves the Meadows area on the east side of Indianapolis.

One part of what launched locally is now the Northeast Corridor (NEC) We the People after-school team. As a nonprofit, it has expanded its offerings beyond the youth program to adults and has offered a Constitution 101 course in the Northeast Corridor and Fishers. It also has an ongoing book discussion group, an online civics program and offers kids scholarship accounts, service projects and advice on financial literacy.

Tinley Accelerated School freshman Desmond Mathews, 15, signed up in seventh grade for the We the People team and has stayed with the program for three years.

He would encourage others to join to learn things that the average person doesn’t know.

“Something I learned through this program is that there are laws that are unconstitutional. I used to think that every law was constitutional,” he said.

Nylicia King, 16, a sophomore at Broad Ripple High School, Mekiyah Boyd, 14, a freshman at Providence Cristo Rey, and Tinley Accelerated students Haylee Smith, 15, Dajour Finley, 15, Jamari Pollard, 15, and Bryce Orr, 16, joined Mathews on a Saturday at the Avondale Meadows YMCA to talk about what they’ve gained from the project.

“I’m just more informed about what’s happening because if I didn’t know about any of this, I would just be making assumptions on what’s happening, throwing guesses out to the wind and hoping that’s actually what the situation is. Now that I actually know what it is, I can gather my thoughts, and I’m able to back it up,” said Jamari, who also serves as the national Junior Frontiers representative. Before Jamari joined, he knew the Constitution was a thing, but he didn’t know anything about it.

“One thing that I found surprising is that when you get stopped by a policeman, you have the right to say, ‘Am I being detained or am I free to go?’ I didn’t know you could do that,” said Haylee.

Each of them talked with ease about the Constitution’s role in today’s headlines. Most high schools don’t offer a government course until junior year, but these kids have a head start.

“Before I started the group, I really didn’t too much care about politics and what was going on. But now, I’m more aware of what’s going on,” said DaJour.

And while studies have shown that programs focused on the Constitution improve students’ grades, Nylicia has seen it first hand.

“When I started, my grades weren’t bad, but they were like kind of slipping. I got my first D ever. And that was in social studies, and I didn’t ever imagine that I get a D in social studies because I love social studies. But since I’ve been in the program, it’s boosted me,” said the Broad Ripple High School sophomore.

For these students, it’s not just learning about the Constitution, but during their time in the program they are encouraged to graduate and consider post-secondary school.

Tasha Phelps, a Winning Experiences board member and marketing coordinator, frames it this way.

“Perhaps another way to think about our goal is the program that we have is civic education, but the return on student investment of time is college prep,” Phelps said.

In February, the team traveled to Virginia to a Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) festival.

It opened Haylee’s eyes to the possibilities.

“This program has provided me with a lot of college opportunities that I never would have had before. Like in February we went to a college fair in Virginia, there were 70 colleges there. They were giving out scholarships and accepting scholars on the spot. So when I become a senior, that could possibly be me getting accepted to a college,” he said.

It changed DaJour’s outlook.

“The program changed my perspective on college. I thought it was just another type of place to go, just to go to school, but it’s changed my perspective, and I can see that it’s way more than that. I didn’t know what an HBCU was, and now I know what that is,” he said.

In March, the team visited five HBCU schools: in the Midwest including Fisk, Meharry Medical College and Tennessee State in Tennessee, Central State in Ohio and Kentucky State.

Nylicia wants to be the first person in her family to graduate from college, and she knows she will need help along the way.

“The last college tour was Kentucky State, and they said if you wanted a better way to get college tuition paid for, there’s a representative from your state, and they can help you get that scholarship. I didn’t know, I thought you just went, I thought it was like a college scout that just came, I didn’t know there was a representative,” she said.

Right now the group is preparing for its competition in Philadelphia. Along with that experience in July, the students will stop in Washington to see the Smithsonian’s African American Museum, and after Philadelphia, travel to see the Statue of Liberty in New York.

Desmond, who is also a Winning Experiences youth board member, thinks more urban students should know about the opportunities.

“Something I want other people to know, I think this program should be way bigger than what it is now. It’s a great program that offers great opportunities that all teenagers, really anybody, should be exposed to.

“It’s not all work. People like my friends, I tell them about this program, they think, it’s all work, like we’re always studying the Constitution and we got to memorize the whole thing. We’re doing work, but it’s balanced,” he said.

Winning Experiences has a working board and volunteers who run the programs.

As a board member who enrolled in the adult program, Phelps realizes that the group is only a few years old, and its work is not typical, but she is buoyed by its power.

Phelps believes in this organization that began as an adaptation of an existing model and shows the power of teaching urban students and adults about the Constitution. And with a strong board now in place, she believes, like Desmond, that the organization will only gain momentum and increase its visibility around the country.

May 30

Pulliam Trust hones its environmental giving

By Feature, Foundation Giving

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

It’s no secret that Nina Mason Pulliam was passionate about animals and nature. As a community leader, and a newspaper publisher in Arizona and Indiana, she supported those causes, and others, in multiple ways.

Now, nearly 20 years after her death with the establishment of a 50-year-limited legacy Trust that bears her name, those two passions are still championed. What has changed recently are the defined priorities for environmental giving.

When Harriet Ivey, the Trust’s first leader, retired three years ago, Gene D’Adamo was hired to continue its legacy. Ivey had been at the helm as president and CEO during the Trust’s first 15 years, and laid a strong foundation.

“As with any foundation, as it gains experience and community knowledge, its focus narrows,” said D’Adamo. “We could only do what we’re doing now, because of what Harriet had laid. She took an organization from nothing, and established the Trust.”

D’Adamo was charged with determining if the Trust’s giving needed fine-tuning.

While the communities the Trust serves are different — Indianapolis has deeper philanthropic roots, while Phoenix is more transient – the issues they are wrestling with are similar.

With the board’s blessing, D’Adamo and his team, both in Indiana and Arizona, spent two years reviewing its giving areas, talking with grantees and experts and looking at support categories to determine how they might be more impactful. Whatever they did, they wanted it to be scientifically based and its outcomes measureable.

Indiana Program Director David Hillman, who has been with the Trust since 2000, said that environmental grantmaking was one area of concentration.

“We knew it was something that was very unique to us, and it also was very unique in what Mrs. Pulliam’s interests were. I would describe that early dive we did more as a needs assessment than it really was setting priorities,” said Hillman.

Based on research, D’Adamo said the environmental projects have gained traction. It has been a funded area, but has not been as intentional and strategic like it is moving forward.

“We are driven by Mrs. Pulliam’s wishes, so whether or not this was a hot topic like it is now, we would still be doing this because that is what she loved, and she wanted to focus her resources on,” said Hillman.

One project approved by the Pulliam Trustees in 2016 was designed to develop Indiana water governance recommendations that could complement the Indiana Chamber’s 2014 report on the state’s water management.

“We need to pay attention to how we manage our water in Indiana for economic reasons, as well as the needs of our communities. There was a bit of environmental focus in that report, but not a great deal, so the Trustees approved a grant that went to the Conservation Law Center for a report addendum about the environmental impacts, why it’s important and how the environment plays a role,” said Hillman.

“That report came out at the end of last year, and then we have now provided additional funding to the Conservation Law Center to roll this report out, as well as work at the legislative level to see about getting a water management plan for the State of Indiana,” said D’Adamo.

And while the Trust had education programs in its grantee portfolio, it hadn’t intentionally combined its history and roots with its giving. No matter what the field – foster care, childhood literacy, animal welfare or the environment – the consistent grantee message was that they needed help in educating the public.

“They said, ‘Your dollars are great, but you have an ability to speak with a very impartial voice and you can really magnify the messaging,’” said D’Adamo, who was at the Arizona newspaper for 33 years, most recently as vice president of community relations for Republic Media.

“Nina and Gene (Pulliam) used that incredible voice to make their community better and to fight for things in the community,” said D’Adamo.

Newspapers, though, have changed dramatically since the Pulliams were the publishers, and print in particular has struggled. So working with the Indianapolis Star and the Arizona Republic, the Trust formulated a plan to amplify the newspapers’ environmental coverage, and return to the Trust’s roots.

For the next three years, both states’ newspapers will have an environmental team, supported with Trust funds. The grant was awarded earlier this year. Arizona already has a team in place, and Indianapolis is scheduled to begin its effort later this year. Each team includes a reporter, social media person and data analyst.

While providing grants for news coverage has become somewhat of a trend, according to D’Adamo the Trust has a different approach. Most foundations have supported nonprofit journalism, like ProPublica or the Marshall Project, the Trust is somewhat unique in its support for-profit journalism.

In Indiana, Hillman will oversee that effort. The Trust will not influence editorial content, and the team is free to report on topics that haven’t necessarily been a priority of Trust, like climate change or air quality.

“All we know is their reporting focus areas will be land, air and water. That’s pretty general. We won’t see anything in advance. We will read about it in the paper, the same day that everyone else does,” said D’Adamo.

Both newspapers are part of the Gannett chain and the USA Today network, and the hope is that some of the stories will run nationally.

Metrics, like page views, and retweets will be tracked quarterly, but the Trust is most interested in moving people to action. Before the reporting project started, it hired Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy to poll 800 registered voters in Arizona and Indiana to learn about their environmental perceptions and what’s important to them. Each year a similar poll will be conducted to determine if the reporting has moved citizens to do something with the information they have.

Another Trust funded project is related to environmental reporting designed to recognize outstanding efforts with a national journalism award. The Society of Professional Journalists is partnering with the Society for Environmental Journalists to select the winners.

Along with a substantial cash prize, there is an all-expenses paid stipend for the reporter to attend the national conference of Environmental Journalists. The Trust will also sponsor a local reporting award presented by the Hoosier State Press Association, and in Arizona by the Press Club. That winner will receive a similar stipend for the national conference.

While the reporting and educating the public is a priority project, so is water. In Indianapolis that focus is on the White River, and in Arizona, the Verde River. While the needs are different, the concept of water is equally important in both states. Arizona has a water management issue based on drought. In Indianapolis, the focus is on water for future growth, conservation, raising awareness and engagement and accessibility.

The White River project has three goals: make the river cleaner, help people gain access to the watershed, and help people understand and appreciate the waterway’s importance and value, according to Hillman.

The White River provides 60 percent of the drinking water for the area, coming from the White River or from one of its watersheds – Eagle Creek Reservoir or Geist Reservoir.

One of the primary focuses is to maintain that source as useable water, but there is another shift that’s happening in the way people think about the river.

According to Hillman, the White River wasn’t navigable, and the city wasn’t built around the river. There is a real interest in the White River, including from northern suburbs as far north as Muncie.

“In our city we turned our back to the river and we’d just dump our waste there and didn’t really think about it. But people are changing and want their waterways to be an amenity to the city. Now we’re facing toward that waterway and saying, ‘OK, how can we build our community around it, and turn it into something that people can actually go on and recreate with or go on a hike, actually build a community around it,’” said Hillman.

Hillman believes the Trust is doing this at the right time. Early on environmental groups didn’t collaborate as easily, but now they’ve matured, and had some positive experiences working together. One example is the White River Festival, which has included arts organizations.

“The underpinning is certainly water quality. Clean is the first priority, and we realize that, people will save and protect something that they love and appreciate. The first step in a lot of ways is getting them to understand what the river is and then they’re much more likely to go out and advocate for it. Definitely goes hand in hand,” said D’Adamo.

“And what we’ve learned along the way as any funder, you can start off something that sounds great, and the agencies report back to us, “Well, that’s not really going to happen.” Or that leads to this, so we realize this will be a very fluid process. Our nonprofits are definitely our partners in this,” he said.