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Jun 29

Nonprofit start-ups give former inmates new options

By Feature, Programming, Uncategorized

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Last year, nearly 10,500 adults were released from Indiana Department of Correction’s custody. In Marion County alone, 2,485 adults, of which 203 were females, rejoined the community.

While some find programs that help with their re-entry, other former inmates struggle. According to research, however, adults who find immediate, comprehensive support that focuses on transitioning ex-offenders back into society, have dramatic reduced rates of recidivism.

In Marion County, the Re-entry Coalition run by Community Solutions provides a connection and network for county re-entry programs. Lena Hackett, president and founder of Community Solutions, a community development consulting firm, has worked with well-established nonprofits that do this type of work, but has seen start-ups get in the game in the past several years. The coalition convenes monthly working groups and a two-part, large-group quarterly meeting that opens with work groups sharing results, and then sharing information and providing education.

“I know that there are people who have different beliefs or different values, but we’re still all working, using our resources, our networks, to say, ‘How do we make this change?’ It’s pretty exciting,” said Elizabeth (Liz) Wallin, founder of Project Lia, which supports women exiting the correctional system.

Wallin is one of several founders of start-up efforts. Ericka Sanders works with dads inside Putnamville Correctional Facility and founded YouYesYou! to keep dads and daughters connected. Nick Greven is interim director of FOCUS Initiatives, which began as a correspondence project in Bloomington and is just getting started in Indianapolis. His group, which is not yet a part of the Marion County Re-entry Coalition, will provide former inmates with a range of services and eventually will be run by the four inmates instrumental in getting the program off the ground.
All believe in the importance of building trust.

Project Lia

Wallin, who grew up in Queens, New York, came to Indianapolis in 2016 for an internship at Mundell and Associates. Her quest was to learn about the Irvington company’s profit-sharing model. As a member of the Economy of Communion network, the environmental company divides its profits in thirds, a portion going to the community, a portion back into the business and the remainder to a general global fund. During her time in Indianapolis, she also volunteered with a group involved in a mosquito netting project at the Indiana Women’s Prison.

As a result of that connection, she started doing research into the root causes of female incarceration. She also started mapping the re-entry programs available in Indianapolis for women.

“I was very much looking at it like an analysis and trying to dig for data (to determine) would that be a sustainable project to take outside of the prison walls, so that when individuals return to the community, they would have that skill set and could plug right in as they gained some sort of stability. I was looking at it purely in a data-driven way.”

And that’s when the idea of Project Lia developed, said Wallin, founder and executive director. When her internship finished, Wallin stayed in the city, and with some of Economy of Communion funding, jumpstarted the program which is named for an Argentinian woman who dedicated her life to building bridges between races, cultures and religions.

Just under 10 percent of America’s prisoners are women. While men and women returning face some common challenges, some other barriers vary by gender. Women are statistically more likely to be expected to care for children or other family members. The basic premise is to help women rebuild their lives after incarceration.

The program’s length is designed to be six months to a year. As advancements are made through technical skills and the life skills program, job titles and pay can also advance. The goal is to make a successful transition to a long-term career opportunity. Along the way, program participants receive instruction in financial literacy, communication, business ethics, and health and wellness, and receive support for a future job search. As part of the process of rebuilding their lives, the women reuse discarded materials to design and build furniture and other items that contribute to the nonprofit’s revenues.

Word of the program is shared at the Women’s Prison, and last fall, “New America” produced a piece for the Atlantic that shared its mission and plans for scaling.

“It’s a pretty exciting moment. I think it also helps us in building our credibility as an organization and the work that we do. Because many times, it’s a hard sell — that very emotional, relational work that happens in community organizing and community development,” said Wallin.

Atlantic: Rebuilding after incarceration by James Fallow.
(Oct. 7, 2019)

“We’re creating taxpaying individuals, productive individuals, but that work only is sustained through relationships. It only really changes a long-term impact if you build those relationships and invest in the other. And that story’s hard to sell because it can be expensive and it’s messy. It doesn’t look like what you want it to look like, it looks like what it looks like.”

Besides funding from Economy of Communion, the nonprofit has received funding from the Plus Program, and is working with the Department of Correction to determine if a grant is feasible. Revenue from products and projects has been another source of income.

Just before the shelter-in-place order, Timesia Keys was hired as the full-time operations manager. During the pandemic, Wallin said it has not added any participants to the program, but applied for and received assistance from the Paycheck Protection Program through LISC and its landlord has provided some rent relief.

Some of the ways Wallin said the program measures success is to look at savings and checking accounts and financial management before and after the program.

“The career pathway we take is on a very individual basis. It’s like: ‘Where do you want to go? What do you want to be doing?’ and then we work on that,” Wallin said. Wallin also tries to connect women to community resources.

Joyce (using only her first name here) has been in the program for about six months and found it through PACE. Besides upholstering, she’s learned to fix windows, since a revenue generator for Project Lia is repairing all the transom windows in the Circle City Industrial Complex where the program is housed. But at her core, Joyce is a true leader. She is hungry for knowledge about the administrative side of a nonprofit, because she wants to start a transitional home for former women inmates.

Wallin said the program’s first employee is now a manager at a Bloomington beauty salon and has just purchased her first house.

“It’s exciting to be part of her life. She was at that point in the program helping us, more than we were helping her, it felt like. Love her story.”

But at the core, Wallin, who has grown up with people investing in her development, believes it is about social justice.

“I believe strongly in our ability to create a united world and peaceful communities. In loving the other, it is hard and simple at the same time — simple concept, radical implementation. So that’s sort of what’s my guiding post and how do we fight for equity for all,” she said.

Project Lia

WHO SERVED: Women over 18 who have been incarcerated.

WHAT: Social enterprise, started in 2017, working to address economic barriers to re-entry success. Participants develop workforce skills by repurposing discarded material into furnishings and accessories. Participants are paid $10 an hour to start, and after a three-month evaluation, earn $11, and eventually top at $12, and get help opening savings and checking accounts. The John Boner Neighborhood Center offers participants financial literacy and management support.

PROGRAM GOAL: Help women become self-sufficient, build a resume and. According to Project Lia’s mission statement: “We exemplify an inclusive local economy and ultimately help our participants become self-sufficient and valued members of society. We aim to create a space of understanding and mutual respect – a space where transforming material, transforms lives. Using excess materials growing the business and organization step-by-step.”

LOCATION: 1125 Brookside Avenue, Suite C1, Indianapolis, IN 46202.

Before Covid-19, purchasing items designed and made by the women were available in a small shop onsite during the week, and at area farmers’ markets and festivals. In the interim, online shopping is available.

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: Volunteers have shared skills, like woodworking and sewing, donated building materials like lumber, tools and fabric and glass jars.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://www.projectlia.org/

YouYesYou!

Every year, Ericka Sanders and her husband start their year setting goals. But 2014 was different. That year, she decided this would be her year to “to do something.”

A friend read a story about a father-daughter dance at a Virginia prison. That project idea didn’t go away. Sanders had grown up without her father actively in her life and was driven by a desire to help daughters have an experience that she didn’t have. She decided that a father-daughter dance could be her “do something.” According to a 2017 Incarceration to Reentry study in Indiana, 70 percent of people coming out of prison are parents, and the collateral consequences are often intergenerational.

By November, she had pulled together a first event at the Indianapolis Re-Entry Educational Facility on the Near Eastside. At that dance, 26 estranged fathers got the chance to reconnect with 37 daughters, as young as 2 and as old as 29.

By 2016, Sanders established a nonprofit, YouYesYou!, and began building relationships between incarcerated fathers and their daughters, which now includes programming inside prison facilities. A former Indianapolis Recorder reporter, now working full time for Simon Property Group, she has found the time to grow the program beyond the dance.

Besides the father-daughter annual dance, there are Halloween parties for families and their dads, monthly book clubs and workshops designed for the incarcerated fathers that introduce them to organizations focused on re-entry, rehabilitation and other activities. Additionally, on the outside, families build relationships by attending events like basketball games.

Those monthly Saturday book clubs allow time for the dads to talk and learn to build relationships with each other. She arrives with three or four questions about the book and inspirations that can be drawn from the text and asks if the inmates see themselves in the book’s characters.

“A lot of the times, the stories that we read are stories of triumph. Stories of people who have been dealt the most terrible hand but somehow, some way, they made it through. We talk a lot about the future and about dreaming. They don’t like to think much about that. But I kind of force them to do that because it’s important,” Sanders said.

But mostly she said, they just talk and learn a lot about each other.

“They’re pretty vulnerable at this point. By the time they’re in book club, they know me and they trust me. We know what each other is going through, so when we’re reading these books, we’re drawing from all of those different things.”

Sanders also encourages participants to thank whoever is taking care of their kids while the participants are incarcerated and to advocate for each other. Many guys, she said, are so much closer and are friends who hold each other accountable to stay out of trouble.

“The fathers in my program have made terrible, terrible decisions, multiple, multiple times. But they are human beings, and they are people, and sometimes if you just sit and you listen to their stories and you listen to their life and the brokenness that they come from and the things that they’ve had to deal with, you can kind of understand why they made some of the terrible decisions that they made.

“I really think that connecting them with their kids is the push that they need to be on good behavior and the push that they need that when they’re released, they will not come back. That is the basis of what we do.”

“A YouYesYou! father who getting out of prison has confidence, they believe in themselves. They’ve healed some relationships. They’re just different people. I hear that all the time. Basically, it’s just believing in them. It is so important that I get across that what we do is that we just believe in them,” Sanders said.

Earlier this year, she received a $50,000 United Way’s Innovation Award and is using part of the funds to hire a consultant to strengthen and grow her board. Plans are also underway to grow the program with the addition of the program at Plainfield, but the Department of Correction requires programs to be similar. So Sanders started her year honing the activity specifics, re-entry organizations’ workshops and the book club. Christamore House has plans to add a re-entry program, and YouYesYou! will collaborate and handle the family-engagement workshops to keep families of incarcerated engaged and connected.

She is still in communication with the Plainfield facility and Christamore House, but with the pandemic, expansion plans are on hold. The time has afforded her the opportunity to recruit a three-member working board which is scouting for additional members, and fine-tuning the program’s syllabus.

“Families of incarceration are often forgotten about. I think often people don’t realize the impact that incarceration has on families. What I’ve found, just the communication that the kids have with their dads, it helps the family all the way around,” Sanders said.

In five years, she sees the program expanding to more facilities and doing more family engagement activities in community centers.

“(The key is) to be able to just keep those families connected,” Sanders said. “The easy part is being in jail, if you want to be real about it. You know some guys are terrified to come out of prison. I would love to be able to share my blueprint with other individuals in Indiana and with other prison facilities and other states. It doesn’t have to be me running this program, it can be done anywhere, everywhere.”

She doesn’t want anything in return, she just wants them to be great dads. “Because by being a great dad, you’re not only helping yourself and your kids, but you’re helping their future.”

YouYesYou!

WHO SERVED: Fathers at Putnamville Correctional Facility, a medium security correctional facility. First father-daughter dance in 2014. Started at Putnamville in 2018 with 20 dads and ended up with 10; in 2019, 23 dads in the program, ended up with 21; and in 2020, the prison had 225 applications and selected 30. Those 30 are still involved. To date, eight have been released from prison and have not returned.

WHAT: Two-year project. Features workshops provided by re-entry organizations, like PACE, Recycle Force, EmployIndy, Goodwill’s New Beginnings and CareSource, which provide connections on the outside to employment and services. Fun activities with kids – father-daughter dance, Halloween party for daughters and sons and a family back-to-school event in August to maintain connections to family. A monthly book club that begins in November. When the program wraps up, the majority of dads are either out or on their way out when the program wraps up.

PROGRAM GOAL: To support the relationships between incarcerated fathers and their children by offering fun and engaging programs inside prison walls.

LOCATION: Putnamville Correctional Facility, 1946 W. U.S. Hwy 40, Greencastle, IN

FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://www.facebook.com/youyesyouproject/
http://youyesyouproject.com/?fbclid=IwAR1IMdkbcb-1RKcVNu3hupiF9kk9Z8pgoVEDzQK1ymMEX7KwOAPL6qugAno

FOCUS Initiatives

Nick Greven has had firsthand experience with prisoners who struggle outside prison walls. His involvement started five years ago when he helped start IDOC-Watch. It’s a watchdog group that corresponds with inmates, particularly those who have been incarcerated for lengthy periods of time. While IDOC-Watch started in Bloomington, it now has about 50 people involved in chapters in Indianapolis, Gary, South Bend, Evansville and Fort Wayne.

Through contact, the group came to a greater understanding of incarcerated life and potential need for increased support. And what it also learned was that for individuals who have been incarcerated for decades, there are enormous challenges to reacclimate to life outside prison walls. Often, they have lost contact with their prior support systems, particularly if they were incarcerated at a young age. For those with little experience outside of prison, navigating the world is new and finding stable housing and employment are among their significant hurdles.

The urgency of creating FOCUS Initiatives became clear when Faheem Shabazz (formerly Jerry Smith), incarcerated as a teen, was released from prison in 2018, and efforts were made to help him navigate the hardships of re-entry. He had been corresponding with IDOC-Watch.

“I was trying to help him get on his feet,” Greven said. “He was locked up in adult prisons when he was 14, and been in prison for 20 years, actually growing up in prison. He was ill.

“It was just really hard for him to get on his feet. Impossible to find a place to rent and was really hard to find a job. Unable to find consistent work, he was staying with his mom, and it wasn’t going well. He just didn’t really know how to exist in the world.”

What he needed, the group realized, was sustainable support until he got to a position where he could take care of himself. This experience to help Shabazz resulted in FOCUS Initiatives that was designed by a team of current and former incarcerated individuals in collaboration with community allies. Not created in isolation, it drew on models like San Francisco-based Planting Justice and a Los Angles program for women, A New Way of Life. FOCUS Initiatives launched in 2019, and stands for Forever on Course United in Solidarity.

Shabazz is currently incarcerated on a technical parole violation at Westville Correction Facility in Westville, Indiana. Greven’s hope was that he would be more involved if he was released in March, but parole was denied.

“He’s been involved to the extent that he’s able to while incarcerated, but it’s pretty difficult. Anything that is time sensitive or detailed is pretty challenging,” said Greven, who is serving as interim director until the men are released from DOC custody.

“I’m the interim director until people are ready to take it over fiscally. We have people who are planning on doing that and get on their feet. Four people who are close collaborators on the project are getting out (of prison) between now and June,” said Greven.

“They have like some time to adjust, get their feet under themselves. A period of months to get used to be in a world outside of prison before there’s any financial pressures. The first step is getting people what they need to survive without having to be under a lot of stress when they first get out. And then also having a supportive community, especially of people who have been or had similar experiences around them to where they can consult with each other about what they are going through. There’s all kinds of PTSD and prison has all kinds of psychological effects. People who have not been in prison cannot understand how it affects someone,” said Greven.

The first phase is to buy a house that will be available for two to five former inmates. The house will have a group counseling space with a re-entry circle. It can also host formerly incarcerated or family members for get-togethers. It will be a place for several to live and work to organize the rest of the program. The group has been looking at the Eastside, east of Rural Street, to find affordable property that meets the program needs. The group has plans to start a business in the second phase.

“They’re going to establish a prototype or test run for the project to see what we need. It’s long term, and we’re trying to do it in a way so that we’re not dependent on big grants, so it’s an independent organization,” said Greven.

FOCUS Initiatives

WHO SERVED: Individuals returning to Marion County/Indianapolis from prison.

WHAT: Four-phase project that takes into account the underlying or “root” causes of mass incarceration.

PROGRAM GOAL: Launched in 2018 by a group of community allies and incarcerated individuals to build a Marion County community for former inmates. Plan is to include counseling services, a business, a legal clinic and medical services.

LOCATION: Seeking to purchase a house for two to five former inmates on the Eastside of Indianapolis.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
https://www.focusreentry.com/about

Jun 08

Pandemic helps nonprofit see new path

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

By sheer numbers, very little good has come as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. In the U.S., there have been more than 2 million cases, more than 110,000 lives lost, nearly 40 million people unemployed and no clear signs that better times are close.

But for two Indiana nonprofits — Carey Services and Second Harvest Food Bank of East Indiana — the pandemic has forced them to rethink their operations. For the leaders of both organizations, resilience is a key word in their vocabularies.

And maybe … just maybe, they will be stronger when life resumes as normal.

Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana

Muncie-based Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana is a hunger-relief organization started in 1983 that provides food through a network of 96 agencies and 35 schools in eight counties.

Tim Kean has been its CEO/president since 2012. During the pandemic, he said the agency is finding new ways to reach people.

“I think when circumstances present themselves, you can push back and try to resist,” said Kean. “But if you have the perspective of leaning into the circumstance and using that force that you’re feeling in your favor, then I think you can leverage a lot of benefit (for) the people that you’re trying to serve.

“(Second Harvest) has moved to the place where we are leaning into this and looking at it on some level as being transformational.”

So, what has changed and how has the organization adapted?

Its food supply has been interrupted. Consequently, with donations not coming from its traditional sources, it has had to find alternative ways to procure food said Kean. As a Feeding America network member, it has leveraged national food opportunities, but the bottom line is it has had to purchase food in the marketplace to give it away.

With the high demand, food banks have been forced to quickly ramp up their efforts. In Indiana, news reports have depicted long car lines waiting for mobile food distributions. And while Second Harvest has used this delivery method for over 20 years, what is new is the volume. Nearly double, for each distribution it now uses two loaded semis and serves 2,000 to 3,000 families, up from 800 to 1,000 a year ago. During June, 32 mobile distributions are scheduled.

Volunteers have been a mainstay for the nonprofit, and in a typical year, it relies on 4,300 volunteers to assist with food distribution. But in March, the organization sought to eliminate risk and curtailed access to the warehouse and headquarters, forcing it to find alternative ways to distribute food.

Local organizations have helped fill the gap. Now, rented cargo vans loaded with food are picked up by community groups and driven to underserved areas for pop-up pantries. In the first six weeks of the pandemic, 15,000 pounds of food helped 750 families. In addition to food, diapers, an often-overlooked item, are part of this weekly distribution.

Activated citizen soldiers have been part of its new crew. When the governor activated the National Guard, Second Harvest Food Bank was assigned 30 men and women from a Brigade Support Battalion (BSB). Kean said they are assigned only until June 24 if funding is not approved to extend deployment. If not, Plan B is in place – to hire temporary workers to continue the activity at the current level.

“Quite honestly, I don’t anticipate the need diminishing during that time period. So, we’ve got to figure out how to get that done,” said Kean. “

“We’re not doing it, the community’s doing it. We’re finding that there are new opportunities. So, it’s that kind of thing that I think lends itself toward stepping into the change and embracing it and figuring out how you can become something bigger and stronger than you were in the past and more effective. It’s not just about being bigger, but it’s about being more effective,” said Kean.

Kean noted that there are internal changes as well.

“We are transforming our organization internally in our staff structure, in areas of emphasis. We’ve been hiring people, and we’re going to continue to hire people. We’ve been acquiring new equipment because we’re in a different place.

“I don’t see us looking in the rear-view mirror saying, ‘I hope we can get back to where we were some point soon.’ That is over. We’re at a new place and we’re embracing that, and we’re looking at ways we continue to facilitate growth.”

“I am not at all driven down by the circumstance, if anything I’m energized because this has given us an opportunity to go and find some diamonds. You have to push a lot of things out of the way to get those diamonds, and we’re willing to do that.”

Carey Services

Marion-based Carey Services has served people with disabilities since 1954 with the mission of helping people “turn abilities and barriers into opportunities.” Since 2013, Jim Allbaugh has been its CEO/president. During the pandemic, he said he’s been constantly reminded that the answers to challenges were close.

“It’s almost always members of our team, our staff, our families and the people who we serve who are the ones that have the right answers. So (it’s important to) listen, understand and get perspectives,” he said.

“As we came into the pandemic, there was a clear recognition, and it became more evident during this pandemic that we are individually focused on the people that we serve, and on our employees. So what we realized more and more each day was that need to be aware of what each individual that we serve and each employee would require of us during this pandemic,” said Allbaugh.

Among the agency’s services are group homes, an early Head Start program, workforce development and day services. Over the past five years, the agency has worked to integrate its clients into the community.

Roughly, 61 million Americans are living with a disability of some kind, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). While the vast numbers are able to live at home, some live in residential placement. That is the case for 90 adults who live in Carey’s group homes that provide 24-hour supervision for six to eight people.

Allbaugh credits staff creativity for helping clients continue to make positive progress during the pandemic. Residents have struggled with understanding why their routines were being disrupted, and why going out in the community was curtailed, and why people are wearing masks.

“If you can imagine, people with intellectual development disabilities sometimes struggle to even say, ‘Why are you wearing this mask? I cannot see your lips, it just doesn’t make sense to me why you’re doing that,’” he said.

As they readied to reopen the main campus, one question drove their efforts: “How can we get back to whatever the new normal is to continue to maximize that level of independence for the folks that we serve? That’s kind of been the path or really the journey, if you will.”

On June 1, the facility reopened some of its services, and Allbaugh said his staff was pleased with the outcome.

“It is so great to see people engaging and turning abilities into opportunities back at our main campus. We look forward to next steps with our Phase II and Phase III, and in July, our Early Head Start classroom reopening,” he said.

During the pandemic employees in different departments advocated for alternative ways to deliver services to continue progress. When the agency furloughed the Employment Services team, Allbaugh said an employee challenged that decision. He presented a case for reinstating the team, using Zoom and other technologies to engage participants.

Allbaugh said his employee made a persuasive argument. “‘He said, ‘Jim, we’ve made too much progress with these high school-aged special needs kids who need to keep the momentum moving on their career goals. You need to let us come back and get back to work and do these things from a technology base.’

“The positive results from that effort are great. They’ve kept in contact, kept engaged, kept learning and growing,”Allbaugh said.

And while, staff were already investigating these methods, the pandemic jump started them. And Indiana officials have been open to learning what kind of alternative-service delivery is possible.

“One of our goals is figuring out how to tell the story to those that fund us in such a way to say, ‘You know we cannot go back. Here’s the success and certainly the data is proof.’ We’ve got to be able to figure out how to be allowed to continue to provide this kind of support,” Allbaugh said.

The internet has also helped in other ways. In 2016, the nonprofit started an arts program, Creative Hearts Art Studio. Besides individual expression and discovery, the project was also about integrating clients into the community. During the pandemic, however, that effort was thwarted, limiting the community’s access to the shop. So, plans to open an online store became a priority.

“Knowing that everybody was now on their computers and living virtual lives, our team got together and said ‘Now is the time. We’ve got to push this out because people are on their computers right now.’ This is another opportunity to tell our story in a world where folks are living in that online environment,” said Allbaugh.

Allbaugh said from the beginning of shelter-in-place, rather than wallowing in the challenges of the daily stresses, staff began planning for the “new normal.”

“Our team has not permitted that kind of culture to be here.”

A funder commented on the agency’s forward thinking, sharing feedback on an agency proposal that asked for dollars for plexiglass, duct tape and portal hand-sanitizing machines.

“On the surface those things are all kind of simplistic, but the thing the funder appreciated about those three simple tools is the sustainable nature of those items. Those are things that our team thought about that will be something that we may be using for years.

“We need to realize that we’re still in a situation where we still have the same virus, with the same risk, and what this last period has allowed us to do is build and learn and put together a toolbox of safe and health practices and build a sustainable behavior of our employees and the people that we serve,” said Allbaugh.

Mar 09

Combatting early childhood education deserts

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weber has seen other changes, too.

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

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

Jan 13

Nonprofits added depth to mission of outgoing drug czar

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are some highlights of the state’s efforts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aug 26

Horizon House offers more than a roof

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors
{see also: City has high hopes for housing-first strategy}

When it comes to fighting homelessness in Indianapolis, there’s a new mindset in town. And since early 2018, Lillian Herbers-Kelly and Horizon House have been on the front lines.

This intensive approach at Horizon House, for which there was no blueprint, involves a team assembled by Herbers-Kelly from the ground up.

“With Housing Trust Fund money, we have literally built it from scratch, which was kind of amazing to do,” said Herbers-Kelly, a trained social worker.

As supervisor, she leads a team of two housing navigators and six caseworkers. Each day, she and her team support chronically homeless individuals and families as they navigate the various issues that may seem trivial to the general public, but can be potential minefields for those more used to living in shelters or on the streets. It’s an example of the city’s housing-first strategy, and is one of three such programs in Indianapolis designed not only to find housing for people but to ensure that they are able to keep the roof over their heads. 

The approach actually begins when potential candidates for permanent housing complete a coordinated entry application. Before this coordinated system, there was a housing application, but each provider kept its own waiting list. Herbers-Kelly said it wasn’t efficient or fair and certainly not effective.

Candidates are helped with their applications by one of over 100 housing navigators at multiple agencies trained by the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention & Prevention (CHIP). These navigators’ work is different from those at Horizon House. Completing the application is complicated, so CHIP regularly trains and meets with these agency workers.

“If you’re doing those things in a system where you’re requiring a vulnerable resident to go find their own housing, fill out the application on their own and come back to you, that is not something that we can require our most vulnerable residents to do,” said Indianapolis Deputy Mayor Jeff Bennett.

After someone completes the application process and is deemed eligible for a rental assistance voucher, that’s when Horizon House gets involved.

Today, Horizon House works with 108 households, which include 155 people of which 20 percent are families. In the first year, the program worked with 60 people. Herbers-Kelly is proud of the fact that since the beginning, only one person has left the program.

Rodney Stockment, the city’s strategy director for the homeless, said it is a phenomenal success and cites national rates at more like 80 percent. Over time, the Indiana Housing Authority (IHA) has become more and more flexible, but he said just providing Housing Choice vouchers alone wouldn’t solve everything, the cultures had to mesh.

“Previously, IHA was about screening people out, and we managed to create a culture under Lillian’s leadership where the two cultures are learning to work together, and that’s why the vouchers have been so powerful,” he said.

“It’s just incredible to see that we now have a partnership with dedicated vouchers for people experiencing homelessness. It’s a beast to learn, and after a year and a half, we are still learning it,” said Herbers-Kelly. 

The housing navigators at Horizon House, according to Bennett, help cut through the bureaucratic red tape.

Alycia Broda and Danielle Washington serve as intermediaries at Horizon House for those approved for permanent housing. With the applicant, they help gather a long list of documents and complete voucher paperwork for an interview with the IHA. They hang on to the voucher until it is needed for a landlord.

Broda is Housing Quality Standard certified (HQS) and can also conduct housing inspections as a third party for IHA, which helps because the agency is overloaded with inspections.

Together with applicants, Horizon House navigators conduct placement searches and visit potential rentals. They help sign leases and do rental checklist walk-throughs and stay in regular communication with the IHA and landlords. They also spend time educating folks about leases, so they understand their rights, what they are agreeing to and understand IHA rules. This process takes anywhere from 30 to 90 days, with the goal of 30 days or less. All data is tracked on a CHIP dashboard to have ongoing data.

Another thing that Herbers-Kelly is proud of is that housing navigators do regular landlord check-ins.

“Landlords and property managers know we’re here, we’re not waiting for them to reach out to us if there’s a problem,” she said.

Horizon House communicates routinely with potential landlords about working in tandem with Horizon House’s services and benefits. In the past eight months, Horizon House has secured eight new landlords and property managers, which Herbers-Kelly said given the population’s previous eviction record is good.

“We try our best to develop new relationships so that people have more of a pool of options to choose from,” she said.

Over the two years, one thing that’s been learned, according to Chelsea Haring-Cozzi, CHIP’s executive director, is there isn’t a prescriptive model. When you are focused on the most vulnerable and chronic population, there has to be flexibility.

To that end, Horizon House doesn’t leave its clients. Along with permanent housing comes one of six case managers who ensure applicants are connected to service providers as needed.

It’s hard work and success is incremental. Herbers-Kelly shared an example of one client, a gentleman who has struggled with addiction. He is well-known in homeless circles and has worked with five or six agencies. His Horizon House team found him housing in a 55-and-up apartment complex. Initially, they struggled a bit with his placement because it removed him from the center of the city, but agreed that eliminating his external influences was a positive. Recently, he relapsed. But his case manager who was in touch regularly got him help and worked with the landlord to keep him housed.

After treatment, he returned to his apartment. “I know some people might not see that as a positive because he relapsed, but he has struggled with alcoholism so long. The fact that he didn’t lose his housing over the relapse is just a beautiful example of housing-first,” said Herbers-Kelly.

Another example was a female client who struggles with mental health issues and also lives with a special needs child. The family was staying with Family Promise, but couldn’t remain in the shelter because the child’s behaviors would put others at risk. Family Promise worked to temporarily house the family outside of the shelter. At her previous agency, this was one of Herbers-Kelly’s clients.

“It took a while to get her housed because she has several evictions, but I was in constant communication with Family Promise’s executive director explaining that we were close. She got housed, she’s done exceptionally well, and her child is engaged in services. We’ve had no complaints from the landlord.”

Horizon House has had the benefit of ongoing technical assistance from Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH), a national organization that provides housing-first training. Locally, the agency has access to an online training center, attended a summit and conference and received assistance to develop additional documents needed for the program. CSH also conducted an assessment to determine caseload maximums.

Herbers-Kelly said because of varying levels of need, intense criminal histories and landlords with strict rules, caseloads are capped at 20 in order to provide quality case management and ensure that people are kept housed.

“That’s the ratio we need. I think we’ve shown over the year and a half that that’s working, so I feel strongly to not budge on that. You have to have to have the combination of housing with supports, and I don’t mean required services, I mean like someone that’s going to just walk alongside you and offer support, however that looks. It really matters to have someone in your corner.”

Aug 26

City has high hopes for housing-first strategy

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors  
{see also: Horizon House offers more than a roof}

Around the country, homelessness continues to be a chronic, complicated problem. Despite their best intentions, cities and agencies have struggled to find solutions to an issue for which there are no easy answers.

Rodney Stockment is well aware of the difficulty.

Since 1981, Stockment has immersed himself in federal housing rules and regulations. He has worked for nonprofits and government agencies at both the city and state levels. In Indiana,he’s helped craft five plans to reduce homelessness, all with varying degrees of success. Nationally, he has seen the community mental health system promised by the Kennedy administration never be adequately funded. He’s seen a sharp slowdown in the building of public housing.

So why now is Stockment excited?

For the past two years, he’s been the senior strategy director for homelessness for the city of Indianapolis. And despite a few starts and stops, he believes Indianapolis has a five-year plan that just might work.

Indianapolis’ Community Plan to End Homelessness, which was announced in 2017 and covers the period from 2018 to 2023, provides a checklist and demands action, Stockment said. If he has one frustration, it’s that it is a slow-moving process.

Indianapolis’ Community Plan to End Homelessness

The plan evolved as the result of a local funding crisis in 2016 that served as a wakeup call.

Since 1995, communities seeking homeless assistance grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) do so through a single application. In Indianapolis, the application is submitted by Continuum of Care (CoC), a regional or local planning body that coordinates housing and services funding for homeless families and individuals.

It was CoC’s 2015 submission that caused Indianapolis problems. In recent years, HUD has altered its priorities and requirements for how its grant money should be used. HUD’s priorities and requirements have evolved, but Indianapolis’ had not. As a result, the city’s homeless funding was cut by approximately 15 percent.

“It seems like that was probably due to the application just not measuring up to standards that the federal government had set. So the federal government (HUD) had been evolving in its funding priorities for years, and it seems like maybe our community was not responding to that evolution fast enough,” said Indianapolis Deputy Mayor Jeff Bennett.

Job number one that year was to work to get that funding back, said Bennett. First tasks were to dig into the application, the scoring criteria and the metrics that HUD uses. Then with support and funds from the Coalition of Homelessness Intervention and Prevention (CHIP), the city hired a grant writer with federal expertise who understood HUD’s requirements.  

“We just tried to put all the right people around the table over a period of months to turn in the best application we possibly could in that funding cycle. And that succeeded. We got a little bump, and the money back that we lost. And funding has increased steadily in each round since. It’s up 27 percent now over the last three years,” said Bennett, the deputy mayor of community development under Mayor Joe Hogsett. It also helped the CoC realize it had to diversify funding.

Chelsea Haring-Cozzi, who was named CHIP’s executive director last November, agreed.

“I think the reduction of funds did a lot of things, but one of the things is it helped us realize we cannot put all of our eggs in one basket. We cannot look to the federal government and HUD to be our sole funding source. We really have to build on our own local capacity and start to leverage local funding. I think that has helped kind of push collaboration and partnerships in new directions,” said Haring-Cozzi.

The bottom line, said Haring-Cozzi, is not just increasing the funding, but decreasing homelessness. One of HUD’s measurements is whether you are serving and housing more people.  

Strategic shift

Armed with a restoration of funding, the city has also made a strategic shift, said Bennett. By shifting to a housing-first strategy, and introducing technology to support data-informed decision-making and establishing a coordinated entry system, pieces are falling in place to get as many people housed permanently as quickly as possible. The goal is to get people off the streets and out of shelters. Housing-first is a coordinated-care approach that works to address the root causes of homelessness.

“We have never fully embraced housing-first as a community. But if you think about homelessness as a housing issue, then you can solve it with three pieces – housing, rental assistance and supportive services,” Bennett said.

Early in 2017, the mayor challenged the city to locate 400 additional housing units. Stockment, who was hired in June of that year, was assigned to help identify them.

What this did was to create a housing pipeline, and now the city requires developers who want the city’s support on applications for housing tax credits from the state or to use vouchers in affordable-housing developments to have a permanent supportive component.

“Not 100 percent of the units, but if you’re developing 100 units, can we get 10, 15, 20 of the 100? When we do that we can fulfill the pipeline and the commitments that we need for the five-year community plan. It’s roughly 200 units a year that we need to either continue to identify or to develop through new construction,” said Bennett.

In addition, there was a need to identify sources of long-term sustainable sources of rental assistance. In 2017, Alan Witchey, CHIP’s then executive director, worked with the Indianapolis Housing Agency (IHA) to identify ways to provide rental assistance not from HUD’s CoC grants, but mainly through housing vouchers that IHA oversees and deploys, Bennett said.

That led to the third part of the housing-first equation – with added housing, there was a significant lack of service-provider capacity. It was imperative to provide services for the hundreds more residents who had acute needs in order to stay housed.

Earlier this year, the Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF) announced that it would raise funds to provide supportive services for former homeless residents. Called the Housing to Recovery Fund, local service providers will receive funds in 2020 for outreach, housing navigation, help in getting benefits, negotiating with landlords and learning daily living skills.

“It’s $5.5 million over four years, and that’s going to enable us to create a flexible pool of service money where we’re doing a pay for success model where you don’t grant for activities, you pay for outcomes. And I think this money is going to allow service providers to have flexible money to do whatever it takes to keep people housed. It’s the most exciting thing that has happened to me in my career,” said Stockment. “We’ve got the bricks and sticks, the operating money from IHA for the first time in history, and now we’re getting the services lined up.”

Stockment said an RFP was issued for this pool in mid-July, with service provider responses due by the end of July. Right now these responses are being reviewed, and then service providers will be brought together to create a network.

“We will ask them, ‘Are you OK with us funding this network as opposed to you as individual agency?’ We will have this network of service providers that we can invest in. I’m really excited about this, it’s going to radically change the way we do work here. It’s going to really mix it up,” said Stockment.

“We’ve gotten largely out of the mindset of ‘This is my space, you cannot come into my space because this is what I do,’” said Bennett. “I think we have service providers who are now thinking differently about how they might partner with the housing provider or how the housing provider might now be willing to accept vouchers because there is a service provider attached to that residents. We were not as a community, forcing those connections,” said Bennett. 

In February, the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation announced a $74,900 grant to CHIP to fund the Street Reach Indy program. The grant will help nearly 150 people overcome the financial and health care barriers that often prevent them from finding permanent housing and provide financial assistance for security deposits, mental health or substance abuse treatment and other costs that are barriers that prevent individuals from obtaining permanent housing.

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department has also played a role with its homeless unit, sometimes called FLEX. Four officers are based out of the downtown district.

“They’ve been huge in particularly in terms of street outreach. They meet people where they are and really try to understand the complexities of the issues people are dealing with and work in true partnership with our homeless service provider community,” said Haring-Cozzi. When there have been problems with panhandling or increased homelessness downtown, they’ve been a pretty great resource.”

Embracing housing-first also meant that in 2017, the city launched a coordinated entry system with the goal to quickly move people from emergency shelters and match them with permanent housing. Two years in, CHIP is working to evaluate and then refine the process to shorten the time from when people first come into the system to get them connected with appropriate housing interventions.

In the last two years, there has been a reduction in the Point in Time (PIT) count number, which Haring-Cozzi said is the first barometer of success. Before the last count in January, based on what other cities were reporting, the city fully expected an increase. It’s actually has reached a five-year low, dipping below 1,600 with a 7 percent decrease from the previous year.  

“It was really eye-opening for us to see that what we’re doing is working. It’s been really encouraging because we can point to some real systemic changes in the last 18 months that we can attribute this to,” she said.

Bennett said the city is at a unique moment. The conversation has moved beyond scarcity of resources, and he believes it’s building trust with its follow-through and willingness to pivot when something hasn’t worked as planned.

“We have resources now. Now, it’s a challenge to deploy resources in as fast a time as we can. Let’s use everything that we’ve put on the menu over the last 30 years, and get more people housed permanently, as quickly as possible with high-quality services attached. Let’s just get better at the stuff that we’ve worked on in earnest over the last two to three years,” he said.

Aug 05

What’s covered in the Undoing Racism workshop

By Programming

The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond was founded in 1980 by longtime community organizers Ronald Chisom of New Orleans, and Dr. Jim Dunn of Yellow Springs, Ohio. It is located in New Orleans.

Undoing Racism® is its signature workshop and is designed to understand the foundation of race and racism and the barriers they create. According to its website, through dialogue, reflection, role-playing, strategic planning and presentations, the two-day session challenges participants to analyze the structures of power and privilege that hinder social equity.

In Indianapolis in 2010, Child Advocates began a partnership with The People’s Institute to begin to address the disproportionate percentage of African American children in the Marion County Juvenile Court system.

Using the goals of the workshop, here’s Cindy Booth, CEO of Child Advocates, Jill English, co-director of Child Advocates, and Judge Geoffrey Gaither responding to the trainings they attended.

Goal: Develop a common definition of racism and an understanding of its different forms: individual, institutional, linguistic, and cultural.

GAITHER: You have to cleanse yourself of pre-existing notions of race and racial attitudes before you can really have a meaningful discussion about what is the full impact. You have to have working definitions of topics that make sense.

Goal: Develop a common language and analysis for examining racism in the United States.

BOOTH: They do an exercise where everybody talks about their definition of race and racism and there are so many, they just keep listing them and listing them. And then they say, “Ok, so how can we talk about it, if we each have a different definition.” So, let’s have this definition and then we’ll go from there.

Goal: Understand the historical context for how racial classifications in the United States came to be and how and why they are maintained.

GAITHER: There are things that you just should know, and it’s always amazing to me what people don’t know and they should know. Even the concept of black history, it’s not really black history, it’s American history. But it’s history that’s not talked about in schools, it’s not written so much in textbooks, but it’s still history.

ENGLISH: One area that attendees find impactful is the deconstruction of history. Before arriving at a common definition of race, there is a history lesson. Oftentimes, participants’ reaction is surprise to learn all the history that was left out. So that’s usually pretty powerful as to how the country was constructed, and then the next day when we check in with people and see how they’re doing, we usually get something like “I’m pissed, I’m hurt, this is ridiculous.”

Goal: Understand why people are poor and the role of institutions in exacerbating institutional racism, particularly for people and communities of color.

GAITHER: I was recently in Denver for a restorative justice conference and there was a Juneteenth celebration going on in a section called Five Points. Five Points is predominately where African Americans settled in the Denver area. And I was with a group that was going to go, and there were many people in the group that didn’t know what Juneteenth was and had never heard the term. I just gave them a five-minute talk and a couple of them apologized for not knowing.

Goal: Understand how all of us, including white people, are adversely impacted by racism every day, everywhere.

BOOTH: I remember sitting in a certain exercise. It was, “What do you like about being white or what do you like about being black?” I couldn’t think of a thing. The person next to me was about my age and a judicial officer. We both wanted to be good students, and we both couldn’t think of a thing. And then when we went around the circle and there was a black caseworker who said, “I think about race every day. At work, and then I have a teenage son and daughter and have to talk to them every day.” And I thought, “I don’t”, and that was my aha moment. The gratefulness that people have that they may not have understood something whether they’re white or black and just having that space to be able to express that or understand that. It’s pretty powerful.

Goal: Gain knowledge about how to be more effective in the work you do with your constituencies, your organizations, your communities, your families.

GAITHER: There are many challenges that remain. It’s one thing to talk about race in a pristine institutional way. The real challenge is what happens when you go home. Do you talk about race when you go home? Do you talk about race in your places of worship or your places of recreation? In your fraternal, civic organizations? What do you say about that when there are no black people around? What do you say about race when your brother-in-law or cousin or somebody makes a joke about race? Do you stand up or silently shake your head? Silence is complicity.

Additional goals:

  • Understand one’s own connection to institutional racism and its impact on his/her work.
  • Address surface assumptions about how your work is (or is not) affected by racism.
  • Develop awareness and understanding about ways to begin understanding race and how to undo racism.
  • Understand the role of community organizing and building effective multiracial coalitions as a means for understanding race and undoing racism.   
  • Understand the historical context for how U.S. institutions came to be and whom they have been designed to serve.
Aug 05

Workshop offers fresh look at issues of race

By Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

A decade ago, Marilyn A. Moores, then a presiding judge of the Marion County Juvenile Court, was concerned about the disproportionate number of children of color coming before her.

She wasn’t the only one. Cindy Booth, the chief executive officer of Child Advocates, felt the same way. She recognized that the percentage of African American children served by her agency was nearly double to that of the overall African American population in Marion County.

At the time, the same concerns were being expressed on the state and national levels. In Indiana, a disproportionality summit was commissioned by General Assembly, and nationally, the Annie E. Casey Foundation was championing court-based training, research and reform initiatives to combat the problem.

At the direction of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court judges, Moores opted to go a step further and formed the Courts Catalyzing Change Committee, and charged it with a simple agenda – to do something. She appointed Geoffrey Gaither, a magistrate in the Marion County Juvenile Court system, and Jennifer Hubartt, then the director/regional manager for Department of Child Services-Marion County, to chair the 31-person group.

One member of the group, Andrea Manning-Dudley, worked for Child Advocates as the guardian ad litem supervisor and attended a training given by People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. Emboldened by what she learned, she told Booth that this powerful training might be perfect for DCS staff. By coincidence, Booth and Gregg Ellis, the Child Advocates chief program officer, attended a national CASA conference and an overview of the same workshop that Manning-Dudley was talking about.

Suddenly, pieces were beginning to fall into place.

Booth decided Child Advocates could take the lead and serve as the catalyst for change, and so she approached Moores.

“I went to Judge Moores, and I said, ‘You want to do something with the courts to catalyze change. I’ve just been introduced to this workshop. If you let me raise the money, will you tell people they have to come to this? If I tell them, they’ll just go ‘thank you, but no.’ But if you tell them as a judge, they’ll come.’”

“This was like a godsend because as a committee we were struggling about how to institute change,” said Gaither, who has presided in Marion County Juvenile Court since 1995 and was introduced to disproportionality in an article that Judge James Payne shared on the topic in the late 1990s.

That first workshop was offered 10 years ago and would be one of four convened that first year.

What’s covered in the
Undoing Racism Workshop

Gaither’s reaction to the training was similar.  

“I used to consider myself an expert on being a black man, but I was blown away by what I did not know and what I learned on those two days. I thought the information was explosive, powerful and life-changing. At the end of the two days, once your eyes are open they can never be closed again, at least in theory,” said Gaither, who speaks at the beginning of most workshops.

Now, nearly 65 Undoing Racism trainings later, the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond has trained over 2,800 Indiana DCS employees, judges, police, teachers and others. Officials considered the differences in treatment of blacks, whites and Latinos so serious that Booth said they’ve invested roughly $600,000 in grants and donations to train people who work in those systems.

The New Orleans-based national organization’s two-day training analyzes the history and effects of the  racial divide in the U.S. in order to share how those translate into the disparities that exist today.

Last year as demand increased, Child Advocates upped its offerings, conducting 14 Undoing Racism workshops. While much of the training has remained the same, many of the attendees have changed. Now, Child Advocates service providers, as well as other nonprofit organizations, are among the participants. Last year, the entire staff of the Central Indiana Community Foundation invested time to attend. Based on its experience and with increased demand beyond the initial DCS audience, CICF offered a $100,000 grant to expand the program.

Child Advocates has continued to lead and added Jill English as the initiative’s co-director along with Diana Dunn. Dunn, the widow of the co-founder of the People’s Institute and a core trainer and organizer of the institute from its beginning in 1980, moved to Indianapolis last year to work with English.

“What we’ve seen happen is it’s branched out now to more service providers that touch the children that we serve. It can be the mentors, the therapists, it can be those doing the visitations for children, home-based counselors. The effect trickles down to the children we serve,” said English. “We also have been very surprised, we have been getting a lot of nonprofits in the community that have come through and continue, including organizations like the Indianapolis Symphony and multiple school districts.”

Last year as a refresher, DCS invited English and Dunn to present 90-minute intro sessions for DCS cohorts. And while DCS has been a constant supporter, the agency has considerable attrition, so those individuals trained 10 years ago may not still be employees. Typically, 10 DCS folks attend the 40-person trainings on a complimentary basis.

Along with other enhancements, Dunn and English are developing a cadre of 10 local trainers and working to revamp the local workshops based on feedback from participants, making it more interactive and the history more Indiana-centric.

By the end of the year, they plan to add Indiana history. “What was the history of the Klan in Indiana? When we talk about red-lining, we ask: What was happening in Indiana? We just had a case come down recently where somebody was still red-lining. What we are learning from our local community group advising us is that we really need to include a lot more Indiana history,” said Booth.

Child Advocates sees this work as core to its mission to better support the children it serves.  

Back in 2009, English said the staff at her agency was concerned about the number of children of color who were being removed from their homes or that Children in Need of Services (CHINS) filings were not in proportion to the African American population. Initially, she said the idea was to inform people how race affects the children that Child Advocates serves. Today, for example, she said while Marion County is about 28 percent African American, the percentage of children Child Advocates serves is about 48 percent African American.

“The organization hoped it would make a difference by creating awareness of their treatment in education, the courts and other agencies. I don’t think we knew as the ball started rolling that it would become so massive in terms of people understanding how race impacts the families in our community, which boils down to how it’s impacting our children,” said English.

“There are no studies that show that people because they’re male or female or because they’re Buddhist or Catholic abuse their children more. There are no studies that show that people of color abuse their children more, so why is this?

“If we’re the voice for children in this county, and we’re ignoring it, then we’re not doing our jobs. Our population of abused and neglected children that are represented by DCS in this county should represent our population, and race allows us not to see that.

“We are leaving white children in very dangerous situations because of race. And until we see it from all sides, then we’re going to continue to leave children in dangerous situations. That is what race has allowed us to do. Sometimes I refer to the Turpin case that was in the news last year. I say, ‘What African American family could have lived in middle America, multiple states and abused and neglected those children for decades and nobody EVER had alarm bells go off?’ That’s what race does.

“But I ask participants, do you ever do the flip and think that these are all of our children. We know that almost 70 percent of our county is white. Are you asking, where are those white children?”

With Dunn coming on board, the agency is able to offer debriefings and follow-ups for participants. She has helped them process the workshop information and share what companies and institutions have done in the past with her in-depth understanding of the organization’s roots and history.

Child Advocates also recognizes that many different fields send employees to training. One goal is to connect people in the similar fields, like health care providers, so the trainings can be more concise for, say RNs or epidemiologists, in order to be as productive as possible.

Adding more workshops for young people is another goal. This past spring break, Booth said that young people attended a session that included adults and youth, with some from group homes.

“It was wonderful and powerful. Youth held the adults accountable. I think it’s a natural extension of what we do to reach out to youth and have them participate,” she said. In a debriefing with the young attendees, their comments included: “We’ve never been listened to and given a platform to talk about this the way we were able to and adults actually listened.”

English said that one of People’s core trainers has worked with youth all over the country, and led the one over spring break. He’s kept in touch with several of the young people from the session.

The effect

Marion County Juvenile Court Judge Gaither said anecdotally, he’s seen improvement in the attitudes and understanding of officials. He attributes that to the training.

“I recall a couple of years ago, a case in front of another magistrate. The magistrate came to me and said there was a recommendation made for a child and the magistrate openly wondered if the child were another race, would that recommendation have been made. This was after we started doing the Undoing Racism. And I marked that as a ‘wow moment’ because I don’t believe that magistrate would have had that conversation five years ago or 10 years ago. These are issues that we openly talk about now, but we never talked about in court back in the 1990s. 

“So, there’s been change in how we look at what we do. The first rung of action is awareness. It’s not a problem to you until first there’s some awareness and then there’s acknowledgement. Then there’s responsibility, then there’s action. So, I think we are at the awareness and acknowledgement phase on this continuum. And I think this is systemwide,” said Gaither. “Participating in this workshop is step one. It will disavow you of all your previous thoughts and feelings about this issue.”

During the two-day workshop, there are regular check-ins to assess the climate. English recalls this summer when several participants said, “I looked at the debate last night completely differently. I never would have looked at it that way before. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.”

English, who worked for DCS in the late 1990s, said that she has also heard case workers say they can now read a report and before getting to the part that explains the family’s race, they can identify the child’s race by the language and words used to describe the family.

According to Booth, it achieved some things that she didn’t realize were going to happen, but it also changed her agency and helped staff be more vocal about race and racism.

For example, it has helped them question when they see two cases and the only difference is the color of the child’s skin to ask why one family is getting this service and the other not.

“Has it changed the work we do? We did a study of 550 some children,” Booth said. “We looked at when their advocate, whether it was a volunteer or staff person, had the race equity training and then looked at factors in the child’s permanency: Did they go back home? Were they adopted? Did they move less? Did they get placed with siblings? What we saw was that after the advocate had training, outcomes for all children improved, but particularly for African American children.

“I think that’s because those people were more aware of all issues surrounding the child,” said Booth.

“It also fit into my view that our organization should reflect the children whom we serve, not only in the staff that we have but also in the principles by which we do our work. So that really helps for accountability.”

Booth is encouraged by the effort and the change that has happened with over 100 organizations having taken the training.

“Whether it’s been somebody who’s been sent or volunteered to go from their organization, either nonprofit or for-profit, they are intrigued to learn more about race and racism. But I think what happens is they’re there for work, and then they realize they need to share this with somebody.”

The highest compliment she’s heard is “I’m going to tell my family about this. I cannot wait to go home and talk to my kids about this.”

For more information about Undoing Racism, contact Jill English at Child Advocates at jill@childadvocates.net.

Address: 8200 Haverstick Rd #240, Indianapolis, IN 46240
Phone: (317) 205-3055

Jul 15

Effective volunteer programs take effort, pay dividends

By Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Every day Chris Morehead and Sharon Holyoak have a common need: a dedicated corps of volunteers to help make their organizations successful. And both use terms like “delightful, devoted, extraordinary, passionate, fun and engaged,” to describe the folks who have taken on that role.  

For the past four and a half years, Morehead has been Newfields’ assistant director of volunteerism and community engagement, and for eight years, Holyoak has been Carmel’s Center for the Performing Arts volunteer coordinator. So, what have they learned that might assist a nonprofit looking to start a volunteer program?

Volunteerism has long been embedded in the Indianapolis Art Museum’s DNA but after the rebranding of the museum and its entire surroundings as Newfields, volunteers now support all assets of the 152-acre campus, not just the museum galleries.

“In our most recent history, we’ve really looked at expanding our volunteer programs to embrace all aspects of what we do here,” said Morehead. When Charles L. Venable took the helm in 2012 as director and CEO of Newfields, he was interested in growing the program.

“Our constellation of assets takes volunteers at the highest levels, across the entire spectrum to help support the institution in the way that we need. It’s a full team effort, and it really feels like we’ve got our little village pumping at full volume for the entire community at large,” said Morehead. “It’s been the joy of my life building this program, and having incredible volunteers and staff members to really cultivate what we’ve built together as a team. We couldn’t really do it without the volunteers that we engaged to help bring that experience for our guests.”

Image Courtesy of Newfields

Holyoak said the same is true at the Center for Performing Arts. With three venues on campus — the Palladium, a 1,600-seat concert hall; the Tarkington, a 500-seat proscenium theater; and the Studio Theater, a versatile black box locale with a seating capacity of 200 — there are scores of events each year.  A performance at the Palladium typically requires 40 volunteers on site.

“I don’t think we could put on a show without the volunteers. It would be very difficult,” Holyoak said. Since the Center opened in 2011, it has relied on these extra hands. When Holyoak took over the reins from Doug Tatum, who now is vice president of programming, the Center was new and people were clamoring to offer their services. As the event numbers have increased, she has formalized programs and initiatives, adding such things as mentoring and systemizing recruiting, scheduling and tracking time. This year, internally, she created a video to share at orientation. “It’s not really about what they can do for us, but what we can do for them.”

Both have different approaches to recruiting, which is ongoing.

“We really are trying to provide a diverse and inclusive experience for volunteers, as well as our guests at Newfields, and in order to do that, we really need to go out to the communities,” Morehead said. This includes going to community fairs and festivals and including information in community bulletins; all to spread the word about volunteerism and designed to ensure that people can find information and connect.

Holyoak’s program is still new and most recruiting is done by word of mouth.

Getting volunteers aligned with the organization’s mission is an important aspect of all volunteer programs. The Center’s mission statement recently changed and Holyoak shares it often with volunteers. Additionally, she reminds her team that the Center is a nonprofit, which she said often gets lost.

Similarly, Newfields has developed a mission for its program — to increase the capacity of the institution to serve its core mission –  and that provides volunteers with a goal.

Volunteering in America 2018, a study by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the federal agency that oversees AmeriCorps and Senior Corps, estimates that 77.3 million people volunteered in 2017. Although, volunteers’ time has value, individuals cannot claim a deduction or value of their personal services on personal income tax returns. Typically, volunteers are not provided remunerations, and according to Samantha Brickler, the marketing and communications manager at the Arts Council of Indianapolis, the council isn’t aware of any arts organizations that do pay volunteers.

Newfields currently has 760 active volunteers, who are regulars onsite at least once a month throughout the year. Their efforts are complemented by 900 individuals who help occasionally with events like Bulb-A-Palooza. Community teams, families and the FFA have helped with projects like planting and digging bulbs for the spring blooms display. Last year, the institution partnered with the FFA during its annual conference and will again this year. Morehead said, for example, it takes 18 volunteers daily for the eight weeks of Winterlights, the popular outdoor holiday display. For the fiscal year that ended June 30, total volunteer hours, including groups and individuals, exceeded 62,000 hours.

The Performing Arts Center has about 300 volunteers in its database, with applicants waiting in the wings for orientation.  Annually, there are four sessions and are timed to offer opportunities for applicants to sign up for events shortly after orientation. For its latest fiscal year, volunteers logged 19,154 hours and using the Independent Sector’s volunteer value rate of $25.43, this commitment equates to $487,086.22.

To manage their volunteer groups, both nonprofits use Volgistics, a management software. As Carmel’s program grew, Holyoak moved from a spreadsheet to cloud-based software. In her research, she learned was that many area venues use this option. Available since 2004, she said the software is pliable. It allows individual to submit applications, and then that information is automatically fed into the database. It allows scheduling, and has an easy interface for logging in and out. Analytics are easily accessible to managers.

“Because it’s cloud-based, our volunteers can sign up for events from home. It is easy for the volunteers who aren’t terribly computer savvy,” said Holyoak, who said the average volunteer for the Carmel-facility is in his or her 70s. Depending on an organization’s size, however, there are different platforms that may be a better match.

To ensure good fits for the organization and the volunteer, most nonprofits write position descriptions for each available area, helping volunteers know what they have signed up to accomplish. Both also provide handbooks that serve as reference material of policies and procedures.

Teams are large, and in Holyoak’s case, house managers in each venue help provide guidance for performances. At Newfields, Morehead has a team of 18 lead volunteers who help him manage, organize and provide direction.

“They help us design the protocols, which are the job descriptions, instructions for volunteers for what they’re going to do in any shift. They’re here strategically on the busy days, so Thursday through Sundays, we have someone here from the lead volunteer team; and then for things like Winterlights, we actually have two lead volunteers every single night of the entire event,” he said.

Morehead is in charge of building a holistic picture of volunteerism for the institution. He said it was never expected that he manage all 760 individuals.

“Building a program that could help support that and work with different departments to determine how they might be able to engage volunteers is absolutely part of my charge. So, for example, working with our librarian and figuring out what volunteers could help her with to increase her capacity to service guests is part of my job. We work together to define a plan, a job description and then help recruit the individuals for that.”

The Center’s needs are different and most of its aides serve as ushers for its events. There is a specialized role for two individuals who give tours every other Tuesday and on demand. After recently posting it on the website, that has started getting more traction.

With Newfields’ volunteers working on the entire campus, the needs are specific to the area, including serving as garden guides, docents in the galleries, tram drivers and guides, administrative office support, garden crews, frontline ambassadors and informational program guides. There are also affinity groups such as the fashion arts society, the horticultural society and contemporary arts. Its No. 1 volunteer with 2,000 hours helps the conservation science team. Morehead said if there’s an interest, they’ll find a fit.

Image Courtesy of Newfields

“That’s one thing that we’ve always embraced, especially in recent times. Why are we holding back volunteers in different areas, why not embrace these areas that these volunteers want to participate,” he said.

Finding ways to keep in touch is critical. Morehead sends a Monday newsletter, with an update of what’s going on around campus and within the program. Then every Thursday, he sends out a help wanted for pressing or immediate needs. While Holyoak doesn’t yet have a regular communication network, she keeps in touch by email and would spotlight individuals either on the Center’s website or another communication. 

Most nonprofits view volunteers as ambassadors, and Morehead said providing them with accurate information about programs and events is critical. Newfields provides talking points for just about everything it does, and particularly when it’s a new or unique program, and these are distributed to volunteers.

“Providing volunteers with the tools to be successful, not just here on campus, but we know that they’re going to carry that message forward to their community, their families, their friends beyond our walls, and that is incredibly important to us,” said Morehead.

Regularly celebrating the achievements and contributions of volunteers is paramount. Both have annual recognition programs.

“We have several volunteer appreciation events throughout the year, which all culminate in our annual volunteer appreciation and reception and awards event every February. We recognize volunteer contributions at receptions throughout the year. I think really any time we are launching a new big program, it is an opportunity we love to take to recognize volunteers’ efforts toward helping with the success metric,” he said.

The Center has an annual recognition program, which includes an award for the volunteer of the year. Ribbons that list an individual’s hours are distributed.

“That’s a fun thing because people say, ‘Oh, my gosh, you worked 2,000 hours? That’s crazy.’ They like that. Our CEO is wonderful; he thanks the volunteers from the stage at every major show we do. That’s been huge,” Holyoak said.  For every 60 hours a volunteer works, he or she receives a voucher. Currently she is working to refine this benefit to equalize it.

“Obviously the people who work the most hours get the most vouchers and get the prime shows and there’s limited seats depending on the show,” Holyoak said.

Both work continuously to refine their programs. Every fall, Newfields has an annual volunteer survey. Morehead said typically a third of the active volunteers respond. And he takes the responses seriously.

“It takes about 15 or 20 minutes depending on how much feedback they provide. We’ve been doing a survey even before I got here. We try to keep it as consistent as possible so we’re benchmarking ourselves from one year to the next.

“Then following every seasonal initiative, we launch what we call our three-question survey. The flash survey asks: How did you enjoy your experience? What would you do differently? What type of feedback do we need to hear that we’re missing. We do that after all seasonal initiatives, that was for Winterlights and Spring Bloom as well. We get around 75 to 100 responses.

“We like to say that this is a volunteer program that was built by volunteers for volunteers,” he said.

Some nonprofits have tried competition to motivate volunteers — most social media posts or likes on a Facebook page — but neither has tried this approach.

Combined, Holyoak and Morehead have worked over a dozen years with volunteers and have seen initiatives that worked and didn’t.

Morehead has one piece of advice.

“Make sure you know what you need help with. A lot of people don’t have well thought out plans. They don’t put time and thought into what to do and what do we really want to put out there that we need help with. I always challenge people to think: What is the volunteer’s function going to be? How are they going to get engaged in the space? Will they feel at the end of their shift like they had an impact? If not, that’s probably a sign.”

“Volunteers provide us with the ability to provide the exceptional experience that we hold ourselves to do for our guests. So as any nonprofit, I think in the world, we all tried to do as much as possible, while still being fiscally responsible with what we do. By engaging volunteerism in the way that we do, we expand our capacity to provide incredible experiences for our guests all year round,” he said.

Jun 03

One workforce strategy: EmployIndy’s community-based career navigators

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Visit WorkOne Indy’s new location and learn about its services.

Attend the family-friendly open house on June 15 from 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. to check out the new facility and learn more about EmployIndy services. Bring your resume because there is a job fair during the event.

The address is: 4410 N. Shadeland Ave. (the former Carpe Diem charter school).

When Delores Mockabee found herself without a job four years ago, her emotions ran high. At times she felt hopeless and helpless, after her job was eliminated. That is until she spent time at the WorkOne office on Indianapolis’ westside. Each time she visited the office, she was greeted by passionate, caring and supportive employees.

Fast forward. Now, she is on the other side of the table. After taking advantage of WorkOne’s services, she landed a job with ResCare, a subcontractor for EmployIndy. She now pays it forward as a career navigator.

“Depending on the level of job you had, it is hard because it is like, ‘What are people going to think,’” said Mockabee. “It is a passion for me to be able to give what I got when I came to WorkOne.” Indiana’s network of American Job Centers is branded WorkOne.

In her daily work, she is one of 11 navigators who splits time at 19 satellite locations in Indianapolis. This position is designed to help connect the agency with people where they live. The navigators’ home base is WorkOne Indy, a full-service center that opened in January. Each has established a schedule to provide satellite personnel and clients with consistency. Mockabee’s sites are the Garfield Park, East Washington and Central libraries. While there, she works in the computer area and uses a large portable sign to identify the agency and its services.

“It’s been enlightening for me. Every library has a different culture. You have to figure out how you fit in, how you support and how you encourage. A lot of people who come here would not go to the eastside. Here, we’re able to offer services, and people are starting to know that we’re here and we’re available. I had a lady who came three times when I was here to help with her resume because she was computer illiterate.” Mockabee has also supported a pharmacist and a chemist, helping them develop individualized plans and utilize available resources.

Her first client created dental molds, but she was replaced with a machine. Mockabee said, she began with an Indiana Career Explorer assessment to identify her client’s strengthens, which is particularly helpful if people don’t know what to do next.

A navigator’s responsibilities don’t end after a client secures a job. There is a regular check in with the client for 90 days. Once the individual reaches that milestone, the case is transferred to another WorkOne staff person who continues the connection for a year.

Mockabee shared a story about one young man who completed the Commercial Driver Training, CDL certification. After a short time in the new job, he called her to say that he didn’t know if he could continue the travel to small towns. After reassuring him that they could find him another job, two days later he wrote: ‘I love my job, I make more money in one week than I make in a month.’ So, it really changed his life.

“We do support and help people. First thing is to get a job, then get a better job and then ultimately a career. Most exciting for me is working with people who end up in a career. This starts their future all over,” she said. And hers, too.

Besides partnering with libraries, EmployIndy has added sites at adult education centers sites in Warren, Washington and Wayne townships. CAFÉ on the city’s far eastside and Ivy Tech are other partner sites.

“These are potential clients. We want to be right there to catch them and help them with whatever else they need or help move them on to the next step of a career,” said Joe Backe, EmployIndy’s communication manager.

According to Backe, working in libraries has allowed the agency to not only expand its footprint, but removed some barriers. At the Shadeland WorkOne full-service center, for example, no one under the age of 16 is permitted in the building. That precludes people from bringing their children. But at a library, children can look at books, while mom or dad connects to services. At the WorkOne center, people can also be pointed toward a satellite location, which might be more convenient.

Those services can range from career development, to job searches, to skills development.

Although EmployIndy has been around since the 1960s in some form, and the Indianapolis mayor is responsible for appointing the members of the board. The board — with input from community stakeholders, residents, and EmployIndy partners, including the mayor’s office — is responsible for the strategic direction of EmployIndy. As part of the mayor’s initiative, the agency is working to be more neighborhood focused and target specific areas where unemployment, crime and poverty are higher, and residents may have given up hope of entering or re-entering the workforce.

Chief Operations Officer Marie Mackintosh joined EmployIndy three years ago, and was part of the team that designed the strategic plan to support the mayor’s initiative. She views the agency’s role as ensuring that residents are ready for the jobs and careers that employers bring into the community. One of the plan’s tactics was creation of the career navigator positions.

“People are not widgets, they are complex human beings. When you think about the fact that we’re asking our navigators to help those complex human beings who have so many different assets and strengths, but also potential barriers. Think about how much finessing that requires and the complexity of that,” she said.

Mackintosh said that another strategy was to consolidate the three centers located around the city into one full-service center. Housed in the former Carpe Diem charter school building on the eastside, the building can accommodate a weekly job fair for up to 20 companies, offer workshops and training and provide multiple services. An open house on June 15 will showcase the center’s services. It’s a family-friendly event, so kids under 16 may attend.  

Since the full-service center opened at the beginning of the year, another benefit has been an uptick in the number of people coming to the office monthly, which averages around 2,500 people.

Mockabee believes that bringing everyone under one roof has been good, and is a more efficient way to work. Part of a navigator’s job is to keep abreast of community resources that can be shared with clients. To facilitate that EmployIndy regularly communicates with other workforce development partners.

“We have monthly eco-system enrichment meetings where we bring together WorkOne staff and a growing number of neighborhood partner staff who are doing this coaching work on the frontlines. We talk about things like Gateway to Work, which is the new program coming out of the Family Social Services Administration in July. Individuals will be required to do more work-search requirements in order to keep Medicaid benefits. We want to make sure that we as a community don’t let anyone who is on Medicaid, drop off just because they didn’t work with a partner organization like ours to stay on,” said Mackintosh.  

EmployIndy’s graphic is a visual representation of organizations involved in the Marion County Workforce Ecosystem.

With unemployment low, one of the challenges for EmployIndy is that state and federal governments have been reduced. This year, the agency will face an 11 percent cut, however, what hasn’t changed is the need to retrain and develop skills of workers for this century.

“I try really hard to advocate for smarter, more efficient ways that we can try to help people that maybe don’t cost as much, but that are cool ways that we can connect individuals to ways to up skills,” said Mackintosh.

“What we’re trying to do is figure out how we work within the existing landscape of neighborhood organizations and offer our additional resources where it makes sense and isn’t duplicitous. So Delores might go to a library because Mary Rigg Neighborhood Center or Boner Center is down the street and they already do similar types of services through their Center for Working Families model.

“While they offer basic employment services, they may not offer a particular workshop. So, we would bring that workshop to the neighborhood or to other neighborhoods that maybe aren’t as aware of the things we do. We’re really trying to build that system and be hyper aware of the other organizations that exist in a particular neighborhood that we might be able to have some sort of a relationship. The question we ask is: How do we augment and work in a symbiotic way rather than a competitive way?” Mackintosh said.

One way is through workshops offered in tandem with partners. Rick Hightower, a career facilitator for ResCare, recently offered a 90-minute session at Fathers and Families Center for WorkOne. Males in the program are exposed to between 20 and 25 hours of workforce development workshops. That day the five males were exposed to the importance of networking, resume building and a variety of websites to look for jobs. Hightower’s rapid-based session provided the participants web-based sources of free tools. One, a job-scan website, matched a resume to a company’s job description. WorkOne also publishes a monthly learning events calendar, which lists as many as nine different trainings or meet-ups daily.

With Indiana investment in workforce development through its Workforce Ready Grants, career navigators can direct clients to some of the state’s most in-demand professions. Educating the community about Next Level Jobs Workforce Ready Grants, specifically that people in their targeted neighborhoods, is part of their work.

Mackintosh credits Gov. Holcomb’s administration for its pillar of workforce education and the governor’s workforce cabinet.

“It combines the efforts of the Commission for Higher Education, the Department of Workforce Development, business people and others to discuss some of these tough issues you’re talking about.

“In the last legislative session, they increased the funding for Workforce Ready Grants, which are state training dollars for people who don’t have a college degree to be able to reskill and the state will pay for it. It could be short-term certifications. They have to be in higher demand industries, so it’s advanced manufacturing, transportation and logistics, IT and business, health and life sciences and building and construction.”

“People are on this whole continuum of readiness for employment today. The plant workers who have been dislocated over the last couple of years, whether at Carrier or someplace else, what they have going for them is an incredible work history and ethic. I personally have great faith the average American worker could reskill and find better opportunities in this economy even today, if they can wrap their mind around that reality after they’ve grieved that the job they had for decades is lost.  But if we compare that to an individual who is maybe 19 years old, who comes from multi-generational poverty, who didn’t finish high school and doesn’t have the basic skills or role models to be able to hold down a job, that’s a very different sets of issues that we’re dealing with,” said Mackintosh.

One new opportunity allows career navigators to recommend individuals who they believe are ready for a better job.

“We have a team of business recruiters here on site at EmployIndy who receive all those referrals and look at the skill set of the individuals that are being referred and try to connect them to our employer partners. Whomever is serving in the capacity of that career navigator has the professional authority to say, ‘You know this person is really ready for an opportunity in logistics or an opportunity in technology or advanced manufacturing, here are the reasons why I think they’d be a great fit.’

“Every single person who is turned over to our recruiting team receives a phone interview, and then based on how that goes, we provide feedback to the navigators. We call all that work our referral portal, but it’s very clear what we’re trying to do, and I think that’s really special and still in its infancy.

Mackintosh said it’s modeled on a Goodwill of Central and Southern Indiana practice to talent source.

“What employers want the most is strategies for how to get their talent pipeline sorted. They appreciate the work of EmployIndy’s career navigators and they are looking for us to do even more,” she said.