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The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, the region's largest grantmaker and permanent charitable endowment, is seeking a qualified candidate for an entry level administrative assistant position in the Development, Stewardship, Donor Services and Communications (DSDSC) Department.   

Development Associate

Position Summary:
This position supports several development, donor service and communications processes, as well as other responsibilities as assigned. 

Core Responsibilities:

  • The DA will be part of, and support, a team of DSDSC professionals in the execution of department goals

  • The DA will provide service to multiple audiences of The Community Foundation and communicate through various methods, including phone, email and written communications

  • The DA will support internal and external meetings and events, including scheduling, attending, providing logistics, managing reservations and recording, as required

  • The DA will use state of the art technologies, including data entry into The Community Foundation’s relational database, FIMS

  • The DA will be called upon for collaboration with all Foundation staff members

  • The DA will support the reception area accountabilities, as needed

  • The DA will be assigned special projects

  • The DA will provide administrative duties, as needed

The Ideal Candidate will have the following qualifications:

  • Demonstrated administrative and data entry skills and highly skilled in technology and office software including:  Microsoft Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel

  • College degree preferred

  • Some experience organizing and operating efficient office processes and procedures

  • Demonstrated experience working in a fast-paced environment, with high customer service expectations and with diverse populations

  • Individual should be self-directed and a team player

  • Attention to detail, ability to track schedules, organize meetings, generate reports and produce presentations

  • Demonstrated ability to direct and participate in teams

  • A commitment to an inclusive environment

  • Excellent written and oral communication skills

  • Superior organizational skills and eagerness to multitask

Please submit a letter of interest and résumé to Ms. Ellen Perrotti ateperrotti@cfgnh.org. No phone calls will be accepted.

Application deadline is October 23, 2015.  

The Community Foundation’s mission is to create positive and sustainable change in Greater New Haven by increasing the amount of and enhancing the impact of community philanthropy. 

The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven is an equal opportunity employer.

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While there is no specific reference to governance in the following Philadelphia Inquirer article, I pose that the article is very much about nonprofit governance.  The topic: what to do when your whole sector is flailing.  The sector: volunteer ambulance services.  The issues are nicely summed-up as follows:

    Volunteers have dwindled as training costs and requirements have risen. The pay for professionals     lags, while calls have surged and stations fight to recoup insurance reimbursements. Mergers are up -     25 in Pennsylvania between 2008 and 2014, and four more this year. In New Jersey, 120 volunteer     ambulance companies have folded since the mid-1990s.

    If new business models aren't found, supporters say, more services could disappear, straining the     remaining ones and leaving some communities at risk.

    "The entire system is just about to collapse," said Scott Phelps, professor of ambulance science at the     Emergency Management Academy in New York. "There is not enough money to run the system the way     it operates."

Of course this set of variables could describe a number of sub-sectors within the nonprofit sector and the big issue: what steps should the nonprofit board take?  Of course the first step: recognize and acknowledge the problem.  Next: review the options and not singularly the short-term options but the long-term, multi-year options.  A good board takes these steps on a regular basis, every three-five years such that it can limit the surprises and be pro-active about its future.  Yes, the surprises may still arise, but good planning can reduce the impact.  

The following article also offers some of the range of options the ambulance folks have considered.  Nicely done piece.

 

Emergency: Volunteer ambulance corps fight for lives

 
MARI A. SCHAEFER, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Sunday, October 4, 2015, 1:09 AM

 

 

Ruth von Minden's life revolves around family, church, and the Springfield Ambulance Corps.

At age 66, von Minden proudly shows off a "Dinosaur of EMS" T-shirt she wears under a comfortable blue long-sleeved overshirt. She started in the Delaware County community 41 years ago as a "swoop and scoop," when medics would grab the patient and rush to the hospital for any care, and through 4,000 runs, she's seen childbirths, deadly car crashes, heart attacks, and life-altering burns.

Now she's a veteran of the last all-volunteer ambulance company in Delaware County. Fewer stations than ever rely on volunteers such as von Minden.

For decades, volunteer ambulance companies were part of the fabric of community life. Generations of good Samaritans stepped up to donate their time, money, and skills to help their sick or injured neighbors. But the emergency-services landscape has changed, across the region and the country.

Volunteers have dwindled as training costs and requirements have risen. The pay for professionals lags, while calls have surged and stations fight to recoup insurance reimbursements. Mergers are up - 25 in Pennsylvania between 2008 and 2014, and four more this year. In New Jersey, 120 volunteer ambulance companies have folded since the mid-1990s.

If new business models aren't found, supporters say, more services could disappear, straining the remaining ones and leaving some communities at risk.

"The entire system is just about to collapse," said Scott Phelps, professor of ambulance science at the Emergency Management Academy in New York. "There is not enough money to run the system the way it operates."

In better times, the way it operated was simple: Often an outgrowth of local fire companies, ambulance corps relied largely on donations to train, equip and staff local paramedics and emergency medical techs. At any hour of the day or night, they dashed to reports of accidents, calamities, even heart attacks, to deliver immediate treatment or hospital transport.

Some were paid, but many - such as von Minden - were not.

These days, the data on volunteers is elusive; as the National Association of State EMS Officials points out, even the very definition of volunteerism is unclear.

But the signs of change are everywhere. On the outer edges of Chester County, two longtime corps merged. In Newtown Township, Delaware County, officials turned over their services to Riddle Hospital. On the Main Line, four fire and ambulance companies have allied with municipal officials to address money issues.

Eamon Brazunas, the Berwyn Fire Company chief, says that without a funding solution, the volunteer system will all but disappear in a decade.

"We can't just keep kicking the can down the road," he said.

Companies merging

The Elverson ambulance company had struggled financially. In 2009, it narrowly avoided bankruptcy. Twice in the last three years, it ran five-figure deficits.

So when another Chester County company - this one from Honey Brook Borough - approached it about a merger two years ago, Elverson jumped on board.

"It was the right thing to do," said Stephen Bobella, executive director of the Schuylkill Valley EMS and paramedic brought in to oversee the transition and manage the finances.

The new company will share about 60 paid and 10 volunteer members and cover 13 municipalities in Chester, Berks, and Lancaster Counties that pay $65,000 a year, combined.

Twenty years ago, 25 or so volunteers ran the ambulances. "It's been a gradual decline," said Joe Carmen, director of operations, echoing what's happened in other spots. Howard Meyer, president of the EMS Council of New Jersey, which represents about 80 percent of that state's volunteer squads, estimates it would take more than $500 million to replace the ones that have folded.

Pennsylvania officials have seen a decline in license applications for emergency medical responders and technicians, the lowest levels of medical workers in the field, according to the Department of Health.

One reason could be cost: The price tags - and total hours required for certifications or degrees - have increased dramatically since the days when only a basic first-aid class was required.

A 12-credit EMT certificate costs $3,000, and a 70-credit, six-semester associate of applied science degree to become a paramedic at Delaware County Community College, $7,500. Non-county residents pay more.

EMTs make between $16,000 and $19,000 a year; paramedics, who have higher certification, take in $25,000 to $33,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. To make ends meet at home, those incomes must be supplemented.

"Everyone works a part-time job," said Bill Downey, of the Marple Township Ambulance Corps.

Hospital alliance

Part of the funding quandary stems from a constant battle over insurance reimbursement, EMS supporters say. Often, insurance companies send payments directly to patients, who fail to pass them on to the ambulance crews that served them.

"Well over 30 percent" of the patients keep the funds, said State Rep. Bernie O'Neill (R., Bucks), who has sponsored a bill to force insurers to send reimbursements directly to ambulance companies.

Reimbursement was one of the issues that moved Newtown Township to take a second look at its emergency services this year. It had been budgeting $655,000 a year to maintain an ambulance and to contract with Riddle Hospital for staffing and a backup ambulance.

But given the cost, the reporting requirements, privacy regulations, and billing issues, township officials thought they might do better by getting out of the EMS business entirely.

"No one on staff is versed enough in the responsibilities of EMS," said Stephen Nease, the township manager.

So the township sought proposals in the winter, netting two bids. One, from the Volunteer Medical Service Corps in Narberth, offered to provide the service for $407,000. A second proposal, from Riddle Hospital, offered an ambulance and staff to take over billing and other services for the 12,300 residents in the 10-square-mile municipality.

It would cost the township about $50,000 - but the hospital sought to operate a resident-subscription service.

Nease had reservations about the idea of having residents - or anyone who needed an ambulance while in the township - pay a fee to a for-profit company to receive emergency services.

If they didn't subscribe, they could be billed by the hospital for the entire amount. An emergency-room trip could cost $1,500.

In the end, the supervisors voted to retain Riddle Hospital, which took over operations in August; however, a decision on subscription fees has been deferred, he said.

The township will still house the ambulance. The cost of the service is about $10,000 to cover fuel and housekeeping, Nease said.

"This is going to be a challenge for municipalities going forward," Nease said.

Narberth model

Amid the changes, some successful models have emerged. One is the 71-year-old Volunteer Medical Service Corps in Narberth, which has maintained a stream of paid staffers and volunteers.

The company now serves Lower Merion Township and Narberth, Conshohocken, and West Conshohocken Boroughs and responds to more than 6,000 calls a year.

With an annual budget of about $2.6 million, it employs a paid administrative staff of four that helps recoup more than $2 million in insurance claims. Fund-raising - including a subscription drive - and grants cover the rest of the expenses, along with $24,000 from Lower Merion, said Patrick Doyle, executive director.

"The success of this place, in a word, is the people," medical director Ben Usatch said. They "bleed maroon," the color of the corps, he said.

Usatch, who is also an emergency-room physician at Lankenau Hospital, is one of four doctors in the company who respond along with crews on certain calls. Narberth has about 92 active volunteers who work alongside 37 EMTs and paramedics.

A rigorous application and acceptance program ensures that new members are a good fit with the group, he said. Not everyone is accepted.

The equipment is state of the art, including seven ambulances, three command vehicles, and a large mobile bus and a smaller one for mass-casualty events. All have WiFi and act as mobile intensive-care units.

Inside the more than 10,000-square-foot, two-story station is a study room, pool table, full kitchen, workout rooms, and sleeping quarters for male and female volunteers and staff. In-house training is also a draw for members - many of whom go on to careers in the medical field, said Chief Christopher Flanagan.

"Training is absolutely a team effort," said Joe Sobol, 23, an EMT and nursing graduate of Villanova University, who during one recent session showed the crews how to properly deliver Narcan, an antidote used in heroin overdoses. "It is a great way to bring the squad together."

A last ride?

Von Minden knows the feeling. That closeness is what has kept her coming back to Springfield's volunteer crew for four decades, nearly all of them as a crew chief.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't have fun," she said.

When she started, the 50 or so men and women who volunteered all lived in the township and came from every walk of life; two-income households were the exception.

Volunteers would often congregate at one home with portable cribs and sleeping infants in tow, leaving behind a spouse to baby-sit as the others responded to calls.

Now they are dispatched from the same building that houses Springfield Fire Company 44 on Saxer Avenue.

The company has had its share of problems. In 2013, the township voiced concerns about whether volunteers could continue to maintain staffing levels needed and debated bringing in medics from Crozer Chester Medical Center during the day, said Kelly Sweeney, president. A big training push helped boost their numbers up to 92 volunteers, resulting in a new contract with the township, she said.

Over the years, von Minden has seen the transformations in the field - and in the volunteer community.

She remembers the tragic calls she'd prefer to forget, but smiles when she talks about the five babies she helped deliver and the time a former patient ran up to her in a parade and gave her a hug.

"It became a part of my life - every Saturday night was my night," von Minden said. "This place is a family."

A few years back, she renewed her EMT certification.

Probably, she said, for the last time.

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New Haven, CT –Join us as a Walker or Volunteers on  October 3, 2015 for the 5th Annual Walk Against Domestic Violence held at the East Rock Park Pavilion, New Haven,  CT.

Family Centered Services of CT will be hosting the 5th Annual Walk Against Domestic Violence in East Rock Park in New Haven, CT.  Join over 200 people as we walk to support victims of Domestic Violence.  Volunteers are needed for all areas of the walk from registration to route marshal.  Registration begins at 9:00 a.m. and opening ceremonies begin at 10:00 a.m. To volunteer contact: Family Centered Services of CT at 203-624-2600 or email info@familyct.org.

Family CT is committed to fostering hope and help to survivors of domestic abuse and empowering these individuals to heal and thrive.  Through the Walk, Family CT aims to raise awareness about domestic violence and to celebrate survivors.

For more information contact:  Susan D’Orvilliers at 203-624-2600 ext. 118.

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Nonprofit Board Fiduciary Duty of Care

The following Wall Street Journal article is about a lot of topics in the nonprofit governance world. I thought framing my own thoughts around a nonprofit board's fiduciary duty of care to be one area of focus but beyond this subject is a rarely displayed "what can happen" when there's a new chair "in town" and when there are questions of competency (re paid staff) and transparency (financial and program) and the board's own fulfillment of its duty to provide complete oversight. Certainly I'm not the one to predict how this will all shake out (new exec?; new board members; changes in policy and practices?) but I'm hoping the article's authors will be able to follow-up and let us all know.

At the very minimum, it's heartening to watch so much passion, by board members, in play.
Allegations by the music hall’s chairman, Ronald Perelman, have sparked a boardroom dispute

By
GREGORY ZUCKERMAN and JENNIFER SMITH
Updated Sept. 16, 2015 7:52 p.m. ET

NEW YORK—A simmering clash between leaders of New York’s Carnegie Hall boiled over on Wednesday as financier Ronald O. Perelman, who recently became chairman of the hall’s board of trustees, accused the prestigious music institution’s executive director of improprieties and said the hall has operated with poor oversight.

The allegations include operating the hall with limited transparency and entering into “related-party transactions.” In such transactions, the individuals involved have a relationship prior to the deal.

Mr. Perelman said his criticisms, which he sent in an emailed letter to members of the Carnegie Hall board on Wednesday, were raised earlier in the summer and led to the brief suspension of the director, Clive Gillinson.

The claims have embroiled Carnegie Hall’s board, which includes some of the most powerful players in New York’s financial and cultural worlds.

Through a Carnegie Hall spokeswoman, Mr. Gillinson said: “In serving Carnegie Hall for 10 years, I am very proud of everything we have achieved together. I love the hall and everything it stands for, and will continue to give it my all.”

Mr. Perelman, who built a fortune with corporate acquisitions and investments, is no stranger to high-profile battles. The billionaire has sued investment bank Morgan Stanley, art megadealer Larry Gagosian and a key former business partner, among others.
ENLARGE
Chairman Ronald O. Perelman PHOTO: SHAHAR AZRAN/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES

Mr. Perelman’s letter, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, serves notice that he may be prepared to bring the bare-knuckle tactics of a corporate raider into the genteel precinct of one of America’s most august cultural institutions. Such disputes generally are handled discreetly and kept out of public view, much as they usually are at orchestras, museums and other art organizations.

In the letter, Mr. Perelman, who succeeded philanthropist and former Citigroup Inc. leader Sanford I. Weill as chairman in February of this year, said he detected in the spring “a troubling lack of transparency and openness in the way Clive Gillinson was interacting with me and the Board.”

Mr. Weill couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Mr. Gillinson, a British cellist who joined the prestigious London Symphony Orchestra and rose up to become its managing director, has served as Carnegie Hall’s executive and artistic director for more than a decade.

“My concerns initially arose because of an inability to obtain a full picture of Carnegie Hall’s financial operations, especially as it related to profits and losses involving performances,” Mr. Perelman wrote. “I was told that such financial information was never shared with the Board or even the Chairman.”

Specifically, he continued, he was concerned about “the manner in which related-party transactions were being identified, vetted and approved.”

In the letter, Mr. Perelman said “issues arose” in Mr. Gillinson’s handling of the Warner Music Prize, something Mr. Perelman describes as a “related-party transaction.”

Established in 2014 to honor a promising young classical musician with a cash award of $100,000, the prize is presented in association with Carnegie Hall.

The prize was created with support from the family foundation of Len Blavatnik, the Warner Music Group owner who serves on hall’s board.

In Mr. Perelman’s letter, he said that “in light of various issues,” Mr. Gillinson was instructed to put the prize on hold. He went ahead and “executed a contract” for the prize, the letter said, “without the approval mandated by New York law.”

“These matters implicate Carnegie Hall’s obligations as a nonprofit organization and as a public trust,” according to Mr. Perelman’s letter.

Such lack of transparency, he said in the letter, fails to meet the standards of the New York State Nonprofit Revitalization Act, which mandates that board members take an active oversight role over staff action and, he wrote, “imposes greater restrictions and approvals in connection with related-party transactions.”

It wasn’t clear in the letter exactly what the related-party issue was.

On Aug. 18, Mr. Perelman and Edward Forst, the hall’s treasurer, suspended Mr. Gillinson, according to the letter, and called a meeting of Carnegie Hall’s executive committee. During the meeting, held the next day, Mr. Gillinson was reinstated by the executive committee, the letter said.

Emanuel Ax, a pianist who performs at Carnegie Hall and serves on its board, but not the executive committee, said the letter from Mr. Perelman was the first he had heard of the dispute.

“My contact with Clive has always been fantastic,” he said. “He’s a great guy. As far as I could tell, he was running everything wonderfully.”

Founded by Andrew Carnegie, the hall opened in 1891 and has since become a destination for top musicians and ensembles. Artists who have appeared there include Maria Callas, Jascha Heifetz and Gustav Mahler, as well as major orchestras and jazz musicians such asBillie Holiday and Miles Davis.

The hall was put up for sale in the mid-1950s and was saved from demolition when it was purchased by New York City in 1960 at the behest of the Committee to Save Carnegie Hall, led by violinist Isaac Stern, who later served as the venue’s president. Over the next few decades, its physical condition deteriorated to the point that “the bathrooms were leaking into the boxes,” Mr. Weill said earlier this year.

Mr. Perelman took the reins from Mr. Weill, who held the role of chairman of the hall since 1991. During Mr. Weill’s tenure, the famed music venue underwent a series of renovations and grew its endowment from $4 million in 1991 to $320 million. The hall also expanded its educational program and in 2003 opened Zankel Hall, a third auditorium that was previously used as a cinema.

The hall has embarked on a $125 million campaign to support its educational and performance offerings and develop digital initiatives.

—Pia Catton and Jennifer Maloney contributed to this article.

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National Voter Registration Day- #CelebrateNVRD

Today, September 22, is National Voter Registration Day, celebrated the 4th Tuesday of every September. Even if you are already registered yourself, you can still help your friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers exercise their most fundamental right our democracy by helping them register to vote. If you are part of a nonprofit, please make sure your clients and the populations you serve know about how easy it is to get registered in Connecticut: online voter registration (voterregistration.ct.gov) and same-day rgistration have made it easier than ever to register. Voter registration forms can be found in public libraries around New Haven, state offices (e.g. DSS), as well as at City Hall (165 Church Street) and the Hall of Records (200 Orange Street).Questions about voting? Visit www.newhavenvotes.org for more info. And please use #CelebrateNVRD for any voting-related social media postings!
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As a generation of nonprofit leaders approaches retirement and the economic climate continues to stress financial resources, organizations in the social sector should shift their approaches to planning, governance and investment, according to a new report presented Tuesday, September 15. 

The findings of the report, Leadership New England, Essential Shifts for a Thriving Nonprofit Sector, were presented to about 100 directors, Board members, and staff representing a wide range of organizations that deliver basic needs, youth, health, education, arts, and other social programs in the New Haven region. 

“You are the heart of Greater New Haven. Consider this to be a report from your cardiologist,” said William W. Ginsberg, President and CEO of The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, which funded the report along with Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, The Boston Foundation, Barr Foundation, and other foundations and charitable organizations in New England.

While nonprofits have proven to be resilient in the face of an economic downturn, many rely on operating models that are not sustainable, according to the report, based on surveys taken from 1200 nonprofit leaders and Board members throughout New England. 

The survey results show: leaders are overworked and stressed about cash flow; staff is underpaid and not given adequate professional development; and directors and Boards do not share an understanding of their roles and responsibilities.

A lack of planning for a new generation of leadership is one of the biggest issues facing the nonprofit sector, according to the report. Overall, more than half of the nonprofit leaders responding to the survey (53%) are 55 or older. In the New Haven region, 63% of the leaders are over 55.

Hez Norton, co-author of the report who presented its findings, said that executive directors don’t discuss succession planning because they are afraid of giving their Boards the false impression they want to leave. Likewise, Boards don’t raise the issue out of a fear of upsetting their directors.

“It’s a third rail conversation,” Norton said.

Norton proposed shifting the framework for the discussion away from succession planning, which focuses on an individual, and toward creating a sustainability plan that examines the vulnerabilities of the organization and its choices for the future. 

Other findings included shifting the vision of Board governance beyond short-term fundraising and investing in leadership development and high-quality staff. 

Shaye Roscoe, Executive Director of the Boys and Girls Club of the Lower Naugatuck Valley, said the findings resonated with her experience during a panel discussion following the presentation. Shortly after assuming her leadership role in 2013, Roscoe said she identified the need for a strategic plan and staff training and secured private funding to support the efforts. 

“That was a game changer for us,” Roscoe said. 

Andrew Eder, a philanthropist who has sat on many nonprofit Boards, said that better training is needed for Board members.

“Most Board members don’t know what their roles are. They don’t see staff as equals, which they are. It requires training,” Eder said.

The panel moderator, Shelly Saczynski, of United Illuminating Holdings and a Board member of The Community Foundation, concluded the event with The Foundation’s longstanding commitment to strengthening nonprofits in Greater New Haven.

“The Community Foundation believes in and will continue support capacity building, leadership training, and general operating funding for the important work of our local nonprofit organizations,” Saczynski said.

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On Saturday, October 3, 2015, Family Centered Services of CT will be hosting the 5th Annual Walk Against Domestic Violence in East Rock Park in New Haven, CT.  Family CT expects over 200 to participate in the walk.  October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  Family CT is committed to fostering hope and help to survivors of domestic abuse and empowering these individuals to heal and thrive.  Through the Walk, Family CT aims to raise awareness about domestic violence and to celebrate survivors. 

Opening Ceremonies will begin at 10:00 am at the Park’s Pavilion hosted by Jessica Carl, from WYBC-FM in New Haven.  Featured guest speaker will be Derek Poundstone, 3 time winner of the World’s Strongest Man competitions.  Poundstone, a police officer in the Naugatuck Police Department, will be speaking about the importance of engaging men and boys to break the cycle of domestic violence. 

Family CT’s mission is to work with families to ensure that they are safe and nurturing places where children can succeed.  At Family CT staff work to prevent abuse, neglect and victimization across the life span and to serve those affected by providing home visiting and outreach, parenting education, family strengthening activities, counseling, youth empowerment and advocacy to children and adults. Its goals are to strengthen and preserve vulnerable families and improve child health and developmental outcomes.  Since its inception over three decades ago, Family CT has helped thousands of women, children and families live safe, happy and violence-free lives.

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Nonprofit Governance and the Law

In one of those "render under Caesar" (check your New Testament for greater understanding) and what appears to be a NIMBY challenge, the Tampa officials are basically on-attack of a homeless shelter that by many standards, appears to be doing its job--providing shelter to the homeless of Tampa. But it's clear from the Tampa Tribune article, that not everyone is pleased with the job the Shelter is doing and for the moment, using the courts and law enforcement to solve their perception of the problem.

My takeaway from the article: what is the board's position on all this? I am of course presuming there is a board and that it plays some role like having at some point agreed to pursue a lawsuit. So if there is a board, how are they involved in supporting the work of the shelter? Have they established the policies that inform shelter related decisions (like standards for the physical space and the roles of volunteers)? Are they actively advocating/communicating with publicly elected officials over the issues? Are they communicating with the neighborhood folks who appear to be affected by the shelter activities. Re they offering or getting financial support?

There's a number of activities the board could be doing to address the shelter's challenges. These challenges should certainly not be on the lone shoulder of the founder/director.
Homeless charity to close by Tuesday

By Elizabeth Behrman | Tribune Staff
Published: September 3, 2015 | Updated: September 3, 2015 at 10:18 PM

TAMPA — A well-known homeless charity that filed a lawsuit resulting in the partial overturning of the city’s panhandling ban will be shut down by Tuesday, the charity’s founder and code enforcement officials said.

Code enforcement officials told Adolphus Parker, who founded Homeless Helping Homeless about seven years ago, that he has five days to clear out the homeless men and women from a makeshift shelter behind the non-profit’s headquarters at 106 E. Floribraska Ave.

“We’ve got to move everybody out of here, the office and everything has got to be shut down,” Parker said. “I don’t know how to pull this one off.”

Parker founded Homeless Helping Homeless in 2009. The non-profit organization offers beds to homeless people in multiple locations throughout the city and supplies showers, hygiene kits and about 3,000 meals each month. The charity’s homeless clients fill key staff positions.

Parker said code enforcement officials were called out to the Floribraska property while Tampa police were executing a search warrant there Wednesday morning.

According to the probable cause affidavit for the search warrant, investigators were looking for evidence that Parker and two of his employees were violating Florida statutes regarding towing and storing vehicles, scheming to defraud, failure to return leased vehicles and unlawful subleasing of motor vehicles.

While police were there, code enforcement officials determined the property is in violation of several zoning laws and that the makeshift homeless shelter behind the main building is “unfit for human habitation,” said city spokeswoman Christina Barker.

The city housing manager will work with the nonprofit to arrange assistance for the displaced occupants, she said. Including those in the main house, makeshift shelter and annex, 16 people will be without housing, Parker said.

Earlier this summer, the organization filed a federal lawsuit against the city arguing that its panhandling bans violate free speech rights and shut off a major source of revenue for the charity, which relies heavily on the private donations collected mostly through roadside solicitations. In June, the City Council voted to repeal part of the ordinance that banned solicitation on public roads.

The lawsuit is still pending.

Parker said he spoke with lawyers Thursday about filing a motion to suppress some of the evidence seized during the raid Wednesday because it relates to the ongoing lawsuit.

More than a dozen police cars were outside the charity’s headquarters Wednesday morning as investigators seized all electronics and tax and financial documents.

According to the search warrant, investigators were looking for evidence that Parker and two others were violating Florida statutes regarding towing, storing and leasing vehicles.

Parker said the only connection his title business and charity has to Cheap Towing is that the woman running the company is also one of his “heavily involved” volunteers.

“You can’t put that link together because there’s no connection other than she’s a volunteer,” he said.

The code enforcement violations just compounded his problems, Parker said.

The city said the storage units he had on the property were illegal, and he was also cited for operating a possible rooming house in a residential area.

Several months ago, zoning violations shut down the charity’s Bargain Center Thrift Store on Florida Avenue, which helped fund the emergency women’s shelter and transitional shelter, he said. He was forced to relocate beds to the Floribraska property, which he put in a temporary, covered structure behind the main building. He even built it on wheels to avoid further code violations, he said.

But that structure was deemed “unfit for human habitation,” the city said, prompting the order to vacate.

Jim McPike has been sleeping on one of the makeshift shelter’s 10 cots for a little more than two weeks.

“This place has helped me a lot; I feel bad about it being shut down,” said McPike, who is disabled. “I wasn’t really prepared for this.”

Staff Reporter Mark Wolfenbarger contributed to this report.

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Nonprofit Sustainability Strategies

For a growing nonprofit with a small board, those interested summer students are a crucial revenue stream. And getting the Academy’s studios ready by the first day of the program was imperative.

“We don’t have board members donating $100,000,” said board chair Andre Tchelistcheff, an architect who led the renovation. “The school is financially viable.”

These three sentences in a Wall Street Journal article on the Gelsey Kirlkland Academy's new space and future highlights that having a well-healed board need not be the end-all for a nonprofit. It certainly helps however that the nonprofit's director has her own connections (from what I can glean) and that what the nonprofit offers, "prestigious dance instruction" attracts a paying student.

But with the departure of the director and a board that is not that well-healed. Should not more work be put into developing a board, say from the student's parents, that can be equally passionate and raise money?

Nonprofit sustainability planning is not for the faint of heart nor for the immediate. What might work well now might not work well in the future. There are variables to be considered. One of those variables is what board composition will help ensure a future.

Of course future is a goal that needs be established by the current board. But maybe it really doesn't matter that there might not be a future? Capable qualified and talented students who love what they do may be enough

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A Season of Gargoyles

Cheers to All!!!

The Fall will soon be upon us. Now what about a great tour to add to the brilliance of the autumnal sparkle of the trees in New Haven.

My recommendation is Mat Duman and his wonderful tour on the Gargoyles of Yale. He is an expert to the meaning and carving of this wonderful creatures adorning the University.

So, without further ado:

An Education in the Grotesque: The Gargoyles of Yale University
by Mathew Duman

info@yalegargoyles.com
www.yalegargoyles.com  

This tour is really wonderful - not to be missed!

All the best,

Patricia Illingworth, Curator

203.389.5403

p.b.i.Newhaven@att.net

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Are you interested in serving a year with AmeriCorps as an AmeriCorps VISTA? Click here to apply to serve as an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteer in Service to America) Member with PAVE New Haven. Partnering to Advance Visions in Education (PAVE) is an AmeriCorps VISTA Project that aims to reduce the youth achievement gap in New Haven, CT. VISTA Members serve in 7 different non-profits, community organizations and the Mayor's Office to improve children's literacy outcomes, increase access to college-readiness programs and to strengthen wrap-around services available to our city's youth and their families. 

To learn more about AmeriCorps or PAVE, email awildes@aoascc.org 

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Calling all New Haven Non-profit Organizations!
Do you have a project you'd like pro-bono help with?

YANA Consulting is one of the newest and most exciting initiatives launched by the Yale Alumni Nonprofit Alliance (YANA) Fellows. Working in partnership with Yale Undergraduate Career Services, YANA Consulting connects nonprofits in various sectors with select Yale undergraduates, who provide pro-bono management consulting services. During a given semester, YANA consultants work on projects as diverse as talent identification and recruiting for a nonprofit board, outreach design for an environmental organization, development and fund-raising support for museums, and strategic planning for an educational institution. The roles student-consultants have taken on in their respective projects have been equally varied.


The YANA Undergraduate Fellows are now accepting applications for this year's Consulting Program. Please find attached the informational brochure and application for the YANA Consulting program for fall 2015 and spring 2016. 
If you are interested in working with a YANA consultant(s) on a project through your organization, please send a completed application to hannah.spears@yale.edu by SEPTEMBER 10, 2015.
Direct further questions to Hannah Spears (hannah.spears@yale.eduor Liana Epstein (liana.epstein@thecityatlas.org).
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Nonprofit CEO Compensation

Once again, nonprofit CEO salaries are in the news. This time the focus is not on the traditional nonprofits but the religious nonprofits and more specifically, pastors. And, as much as I must honestly grit my teeth to say this, given the focus, this salary "issues" is a subject the media loves to rattle about but if they want to point swords, they should be doing so at the boards who approve these salaries.

I remain a firm believer that the media would serve the taxpayer and donor best not by focusing on salaries (as insane as they may feel about "some" CEOs) and instead raise the questions about results. The question is not, is $800K an unfair salary, but, are the folks who support this salary, in the case of a faith practice, truly better off (using whatever measures apply)?

CEO salaries will for the most part never "feel" fair to the majority of folks who don't earn the level of pay nonprofit CEOs do. For many, these folks won't ever make this kind of money because that's the way the capitalistic system works. But CEOs, when they are great, can produce results and that's what the salaries pay for and that in turn is what we should be asking the media to tell us about.

Meanwhile, it's up to the boards to determine what's right for their institutions. And, it appears that for the ministers in the Graham category, $800K+ is what they feel is correct. Harrumph but so what!

So, from the Washington Post:

Why Franklin Graham’s salary raises eyebrows among Christian nonprofits

By Christine Wicker | Religion News Service August 18 at 5:42 PM

Franklin Graham’s annual compensation of $880,000, revealed in a Charlotte Observer story, has some worrying that too many top Christian nonprofit leaders as well as pastors are seeing themselves as CEOs instead of as God’s servants.

Graham, son of renowned evangelist Billy Graham, is head of Samaritan’s Purse, an international relief agency based in Boone, N.C.

“Basically they are saying if Satan pays well, God should pay better,” said Maria Dixon, a Southern Methodist University professor of corporate communications and public affairs. Dixon, a United Methodist Church deacon and a minister’s wife, specializes in studying and helping nonprofit religious organizations.

CEOs at the top 50 U.S. charities, including Samaritan’s Purse, earn in the $350,000 to $450,000 range, which makes Graham’s $622,000 salary from his aid organization alone about 40 percent to 50 percent higher than average, according to a Forbes story. He receives the rest of his $258,000 compensation as CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

A spokesman for Franklin Graham said his compensation was determined by independent commissions that compared similar organizations’ top salaries. Graham was not available to answer questions.

By contrast, pastor salaries at the nation’s biggest Christian churches are much lower for all but a select number. Only 3 percent of churches with more than 1,600 people in attendance pay senior pastors more than $300,000, said Warren Bird, research director at Leadership Network. At the other extreme, a recent study by the National Association of Church Business Administration found that the average American pastor with a congregation of 300 people earns a salary of less than $28,000 a year.

In a 2011 comparison of megachurch pastors’ salaries, two senior pastors made $1 million and $1.1 million. Others were a fourth to less than half of that.

Among the exceptions: Southern Baptist the Rev. Ed Young, senior pastor at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, pulled in well over $1 million, according to a 2012 Dallas television news report. And in 2013, his last year as pastor at Seattle’s Mars Hill Church, the Rev. Mark Driscoll was drawing a $607,000 package, with a $150,000 raise promised.

Click here for more information!
The word “CEO” is often used when speaking of megachurch pastors who oversee multimillion-dollar budgets, manage media empires and publish best-selling books. “He could have been a CEO in any corporation in America” is an oft-repeated phrase among proud church members.

Pastors make sure well-heeled businesspeople are on their boards, said Jim Henderson, co-author of “Question Mark,” a new book tracing the downfall of Mars Hill’s Driscoll.

“These guys make phenomenal amounts of money. So when it comes time to set the pastor’s salary, what seems like an ungodly amount of money to the rest of us, seems normal to them,” Henderson said.

A prosperous church with business executives on its board might ask “How embarrassed would we be to pay our pastor a lot less than I make?” said historian Joel Carpenter, director of the Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity at Calvin College.

But donors to Christian charities may think differently.

Grant Wacker, author of “America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation,” said he had just read the Observer story about Franklin Graham’s compensation when he received a solicitation for money from Samaritan’s Purse.

Compensation in the mid- to high-six figures “is on the generous side for anyone who is asking for other people’s money,” the professor emeritus at Duke Divinity School said a bit wryly. “It’s eyebrow-raising.”

Mainstream evangelicals generally expect money they give to be used frugally, Wacker said. Big salaries come with questions.

“Does he live ostentatiously or does he give it away?” asked Wacker.

Franklin Graham, who is 63, has said he wants to make enough money to be able to work for free when he turns 70.

By contrast, California megachurch pastor Rick Warren has been giving away 90 percent of his income for years, as part of a strategy he calls “reverse tithing.”

Such outside comparisons are considered good practice for nonprofits, but the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability asks for more.

“Compensation-setting practices should be consistent with generally accepted biblical truths and practices,” according to its guidelines.

“It’s a moral issue particularly for a man of faith,” Pablo Eisenberg, a senior fellow at the Georgetown University Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership, told the Observer. “And also you have to remember that (compensation is) partly paid for by the taxpayer. In a sense, we the taxpayers are subsidizing Frank Graham’s salary and his relatives who are paid.”

Nonprofits are governed by the federal nondistribution constraint, which specifies that in return for tax-exempt status, they will use donations for the good of clients and not distribute excessive amounts to those who oversee the organization, Dixon said.

“I don’t have a problem with people like Franklin making so much money as long as the janitor is making $60,000 to $80,000, a good living wage,” she said.

Not all of the big Christian charity CEOs are making huge salaries.

Lutheran Charities, a $21 billion organization, pays $181,858 to its highest-paid employee. At Cru, the college campus ministry, the highest salary is $150,787, according to Forbes magazine.

CEO Steve Stirling at MAP, a $349 million international Christian aid organization, made significantly more than his current $200,000 total compensation at other jobs, both for-profit and nonprofit.

“I did take a reduction in salary from my previous job,” he wrote from Ghana, where he is working this August.

Why? “Because MAP is a Christian organization, and I strongly believe in the mission.”

Copyright: For copyright information, please check with the distributor of this item, Religion News Service LLC

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Nonprofit Board Diversity Matters

In my experience, nonprofit board composition is pretty homogenous - that is to say that I find that nonprofit boards tend not to stray in composition from the folks who first organized the organization. This would lead one to suggest that nonprofit board diversity doesn't matter that much. Possibly.

HP' which is going to be splitting into two corporations (same CEO on both boards) has announced that its boards "will comprise leaders with some of the most diverse backgrounds and professional experiences I’ve seen in my career".

The article suggests that Operation Push has had something to do with this plan and that may well be but no corporation does anything without its own best interests in mind. So, my question, why does such diversity matter to HP. The article does not provide much additional insight into incentives but I'm certainly open to hearing other's thoughts on the topic.

At the same time I propose that while nonprofit boards may be gender diverse and in my opinion not all that connected with those they serve, there may well be a lesson to be learned from the HP shift.

HP will have the most diverse tech boards in the US, say activists

LYANNE ALFARO

Aug. 14, 2015, 11:45 AM
Hewlett-Packard is preparing to diverge into two companies this November, but it can also claim a new achievement for diversity in the national tech workspace.

HP now has the "most diverse" boards in the US, according to the nonprofit Rainbow PUSH.

The HP boards, announced earlier this week, will feature a blend of original members and new hires. Four women and two people of color will be placed on each board, reported Fortune.

Rainbow PUSH is an organization focused on social change and has been urging technology companies across the country to hire underrepresented minorities.

The nonprofit has especially ramped up its efforts in the past year, meeting with tech behemoths across the country, including Apple and Google, to discuss their diversity numbers. A survey conducted by the group last fall found only three blacks and one Hispanic among the 189 board members from 20 technology companies examined.

There were also "153 men and just 36 women. Eleven (over half) have all-white Boards," Reverend Jesse Jackson, who is spearheading Rainbow PUSH, said in a press release. He later added, "Certainly there is a long way to go."

Last March, the nonprofit met with HP at its shareholder meeting to talk about its numbers.

"We challenged them — and the tech industry — to confront the virtual exclusion of women and people of color in the tech industry," Rev. Jackson said. "HP committed to make demonstrable strides in expanding diversity and inclusion."

At HP Enterprise, Leslie A. Brun from Sarr Group, and Pamela Carter, former president Cummins Distribution, are both people of color who will be joining. The board has 13 members in total, according to an HP press release. Heading the team will be Pat Russo, who became a part of the HP board in 2011.

The board at HP Inc. will include Stacy Brown-Philpot, chief operating officer at TaskRabbit, and Stacey Mobley, former senior vice president at DuPont. Twelve people will help oversee HP Inc., which focuses on the printer and PC businesses.

HP CEO Meg Whitman will sit on both boards and serve as chairwoman for HP Inc.

“The post-separation Boards for both Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. comprise leaders with some of the most diverse backgrounds and professional experiences I’ve seen in my career,” Whitman said in HP's press release.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/hp-will-have-the-most-diverse-tech-boards-in-the-us-2015-8#ixzz3j4WN0Fqk

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Apply to PAVE New Haven to #ServeaYear as an#AmeriCorps #VISTA!

Citywide Youth Coalition, Inc.Common Ground High School, Urban Farm, and Environmental Education CenterHigher Heights Youth Empowerment Programs, Inc.Agency on Aging of South Central ConnecticutVolunteer and Training Dept. and Solar Youth, Inc are all excepting applications!

AmeriCorps VISTA - Volunteers In Service To America. Apply at http://bit.ly/ApplyPAVE13358891483?profile=original

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Starting in early September the City of New Haven will offer a nine-week course in city government, New Haven Democracy School. The purpose of Democracy School is to turn residents into more effective advocates for their neighborhoods and communities by giving them a holistic picture of how city government really functions. Students will meet department heads and public safety officials, look deeper into the city's budget, tour the Emergency Operations Center, and network with other engaged residents from all over the city.

This is an invaluable opportunity to develop new tools for becoming a more effective activist and organizer in your community.


Here's an article about a previous version of Democracy School.


Applications are due August 21. Eligibility is limited to New Haven residents 18 years and older, and only 25 students will be accepted. Classes will meet on Thursday evenings from 5:30-8:00pm beginning September 3 and going through November 5.

Click here for more information and click here for the application. 

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The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven has awarded $212,000 to 8 nonprofit organizations working with immigrants and $109,000 to 4 nonprofits serving formerly incarcerated individuals and their families. A total of 33 applications were received as part of a special grants process created by The Community Foundation this year; these grants are awarded in furtherance of The Foundation’s immigration and re-entry strategies which were adopted in 2014.

“Grant recipients were chosen based on how well they aligned with The Community Foundation’s immigration and re-entry strategic goals and intended outcomes," says Christina Ciociola, Senior Vice President for Grantmaking & Strategy. “Projects range in size and scope and we are very pleased with the range of issue areas covered by grant recipients from direct service to leadership development to advocacy. For the immigrant population, projects will create pathways to citizenship, promote literacy, education and employment, all leading to supporting immigrants to achieve greater civic and economic success. For the reentry strategy, projects will focus on leadership development, finding employment and housing, and providing collaborative services across multiple agencies.”


The 2015 grants by The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven complement strategic grants awarded in the previous year to three organizations that also provide services under The Foundation’s two strategic focus areas: Transitions Clinic Network $50,000 (Reentry), Connecticut Women’s Consortium $20,300 (Reentry) and Junta for Progressive Action $50,000 (Immigration Integration).

2015 Immigrant Integration Strategy Grants

Connecticut Students for a Dream ($12,000 single year total) to support replicating the work done with much success in other regions by creating a more institutionalized and sustainable presence in the Greater New Haven Region as a resource to undocumented youth, families and allies by training more mentors for our College Access Program, creating more safe spaces, hosting more CAP workshops, and implementing both a leadership and political education training curriculum for undocumented youth in the region.

New Haven Legal Assistance ($45,000 multi-year total; $15,000 each of three years) to support legal services for undocumented workers who have not been paid the wages they earned, or who have experienced other workplace violations.

Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut ($10,000 single year total) to support launching an anti- exploitation campaign regarding driver’s licenses.

Elm City Internationals ($15,000 single year total) to support a college preparatory reading and writing program with college follow-through services for Elm City Internationals students who are all ELL student athletes.

Springs Learning Center ($22,125 multi-year total; $7,375 each of three years) to support learners along with investments to help the center train and manage its growing cadre of volunteer tutors as well as to market itself to garner new investors and tutors.

Unidad Latina Accion ($75,000 multi-year total; $25,000 each of three years) to support immigrants who are exploited and abused at work, especially workers who are being paid below the minimum wage and those who labor long hours without the required overtime pay; empower immigrants who are facing discrimination in the immigration or criminal legal justice system; and empowering women and children to address the issues listed above.

Apostle Immigrant Services ($25,935 multi-year total; $13,345 first year, $12,590 second year) to support the "Victim to Victor" project and expand services for immigrant victims of violent crime seeking to obtain legal status through the U visa program;  a petition for U status is often the only available avenue for undocumented persons to achieve legal status for themselves and immediate family members.

Center for Children's Advocacy ($7,500 single year total) to support the work with the International Institute of Connecticut (IIConn) and Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA) to provide training and technical assistance to increase the number of pro bono attorneys able to represent undocumented New Haven youth who have been abandoned or abused, to help them secure Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) Status, which gives youth a legal status that allows them to stay in the United States; and to work with partners to identify systemic barriers to education and health care for new arrival youth in New Haven.

2015 Reentry Strategy Grants

Career Resources Inc. ($50,000 multi-year total; $25,000 each of two years) to support the New Haven Women Investing in Second Chances or (W.I.N.S.) program, an innovative program to serve formerly incarcerated women, by providing them with gender responsive programming, life skills and a supportive work opportunity.

Phoenix Association ($14,679 single year total) to support reducing recidivism rates by helping to transform prisons, with the Connecticut Department of Correction (CT DOC), into "communities that enable success" by changing prisons to become as fully humane, supportive, holistic and safe as possible, for both inmates and prison staff.

Liberty Community Services Inc. ($35,000 single year total) to assist people reentering the community from incarceration to secure housing by identifying and coordinating with landlords, matching apartment-mates, and utilizing flexible subsidies and funding to secure and stabilize permanent housing.

New Haven Legal Assistance ($10,000 single year total) to provide civil legal services to ex-offenders, prioritizing legal matters that seek to reduce barriers to housing, employment, health care and other basic needs.



The goal of The Community Foundation’s immigrant integration strategy is that: Immigrants, including undocumented immigrants in Greater New Haven achieve greater civic and economic participation and success thereby becoming more fully integrated members of a more welcoming community. The Community Foundation believes that immigrants are critical assets and is committed to the ongoing work of making Greater New Haven a welcoming community. Work that removes barriers to full social, economic, and civic participation of immigrants not only helps them reach their individual potentials, but also brings the benefits of economic growth and cultural diversity to the community as a whole. 

The goal of The Community Foundation’s reentry strategy is that: More formerly incarcerated individuals re-entering New Haven will be able to get the necessary services and support to be empowered to reintegrate positively, making them less likely to re-offend. The Community Foundation believes that the successful readjustment of formerly incarcerated individuals will also have positive effects on those impacted by their incarceration including their children, family and community. As such, The Foundation is particularly committed to supporting new and innovative programs among community-based organizations, faith-based organizations and re-entry providers that treat the whole person and address underlying problems that often go deeper than a single issue, be they related to physical or mental health, education, housing, family and/or employment.  

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Nonprofit Board Matters

This weekend I discovered a book that was published several years ago (April 2009) that strikes me as worth a brief mention here. The book, Owning Up...14 Questions Every Board Member Needs to Ask by Dr. Ram Charan..strikes me as worth a discussion because it poses some questions that could be helpful in framing the work of the nonprofit board.
I'm not actually that familiar with Dr. Ram Charan, a kind-of guru in the for-profit governance world but he appears to be well regarded in the business community. I know, well regarded in the for-profit sector does not instantly translate to well-regarded in the nonprofit sector but for the moment lets accept that there is some value in at least reviewing the 14 questions offered in "Owning Up".
I recommend paying particular attention to Questions 10, 6, 9, 11, 12, 1 and 13 in this order. As a matter practicality, I propose that if a board asks and answers these questions, it can go far in significantly improving board outcomes.
Here's the questions:
1. Is our Board composition right for the challenge?
2. Are we addressing the risks that could send our company over the cliff?
3. Are we prepared to do our job when crisis erupts?
4. Are we prepared to name our next CEO?
5. Does our Boar really own the company strategy?
6. How can we get the information we need to govern well?
7. How can our Board get CEO compensation right?
8. Why do we need a lead director anyway?
9. Is our governance committee best of breed?
10. How do we get the most value out of our limited time?
11. How can executive sessions help the Board own up?
12. How can our Board self-evaluation improve our functions & our output?
13. How do we stop from micromanaging?
14. How prepared are we to work with activist shareholders & their proxies?
Yes, there are other questions a nonprofit board can ask and answer but imagine just getting through at least the questions I highlighted.

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Originally published in: Migrant Clinicians Network: The Migrant Health News SourceStreamlineVolume 21, Issue 2 – Summer 2015 (pgs 4-5)Author: Claire Hutkins Seda, Writer, Migrant Clinicians Network, and Managing Editor, Streamline"Once we got the health center going, we started stocking food in the center pharmacy and distributing food — like drugs — to the people. A variety of officials got very nervous and said, ‘You can’t do that.’ We said, ‘Why not?’ They said, ‘It’s a health center pharmacy, and it’s supposed to carry drugs for the treatment of disease.’ And we said, ‘The last time we looked in the book, the specific therapy for malnutrition was food." - Geiger, Jack. The Unsteady March. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 48, 1-9.In 2009, Carmen Gomez* of New Haven, Connecticut was diagnosed with diabetes.But, because she was diagnosed at Fair Haven Community Health Center (FHCHC), what happened next was far from typical: Gomez was prescribed food — plus time on the farm for growing food and attending nutrition and cooking classes. She was contacted a week after her diagnosis by Rebecca Kline, then with FHCHC’s diabetes prevention program (DPP), who brought her out to New Haven Farms, an urban farm with educational components down the street from FHCHC. “I would water the plants, and do some weeding. I would work with cilantro, onions, kale, cherry tomatoes, big tomatoes... I would typically spend a couple of hours there,” several times a week, Gomez said. Six years later, she’s still an active participant. Every Monday, Gomez and others enrolled in the DPP receive cooking and nutrition education on the farm, after an hour or more of farming. The instruction includes seasonally-adjusted cooking strategies, and nutrition and lifestyle education. The patients’ entire families are invited. After the hour-long educational component, participants eat the meal they prepared together- er, and then bring home enough servings of vegetables and fruit from the farm for every member of their household for the week — meaning, lots of produce — plus, recipes for the harvest.“I feel that my life has changed in many ways. I am more active and have not increased in weight,” Gomez states. Not only is her diabetes stable, “it’s gone,” she exclaims. She also says she’s seen a huge difference in her family, who are also invited out to the farm, to work, learn, cook, and eat. “They have seen their mom stay active and eat better and be happy,” she said. She is eating more vegetables now, and she says, “I believe I am passing on a better diet to my family.”IT’S ACCESS PLUS EDUCATION…In 1965, Jack Geiger, the father of the health center movement, began “prescribing” food from a local cooperative farm in the Mississippi Delta to his patients suffering from malnutrition. Fifty years later, the approach still has advocates. Many of the health problems that plague the underserved population of the US – diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, some cancers – can be traced to a lack of availability of healthy foods and a dearth of nutrition and cooking education. And yet, FHCHC may be one of the country’s few health centers – perhaps the only health center – currently “prescribing” food by having direct, concrete links between the health center and a local farm.Now, new research signals that the approach may be more than just novel. Two new studies on food deserts – urban areas where it’s difficult to purchase healthy, fresh food – show that providing access to healthy foods like fresh fruits and vegetables did not significantly affect consumption of healthy foods, meaning, although a market in the community finally featured cucumbers and apples, the nearby residents didn’t end up buying more vegetables or fruit than they normally did. Their food buying habits stayed the same, in a New York Times article about the studies, Jessie Handbury, an author of one of the papers, concluded that “improving people’s diets will require both making food accessible and affordable and also changing people’s perceptions and habits about diet and health.”A HAVEN FOR HEALTHY FOOD…Over at New Haven Farms, in the Fair Haven neighborhood of New Haven, Connecticut, Rebecca Kline, who is now the Executive Director of the project, responded to the article with glee. “The article describes exactly why, at New Haven Farms, we provide both access to [healthy] foods, and [to] education,” she said. New Haven Farms’ main site is located in a food desert, but the program provides more than just access to produce, Kline contends. This is how it works: Practitioners at FHCHC prescribe time at the farm for a medical condition by filling gout a referral form within the electronic medical record of the patient. Patients are brought out to the farm to participate in food growing and harvesting, which is matched with nutrition and lifestyle education, to equip patients of FHCHC and their families to better their food behaviors. The two innovations – connection to the health center, and the inclusion of education – are the key difference between New Haven Farms and other community farm projects, says Kline. The resulting robust program is a model for community health centers looking for an alternative method to combat diet-related health issues like diabetes and high cholesterol.BEGINNINGS…New Haven Farms was born out of a partnership between FHCHC and Chabaso Bakery, a large East Coast bakery with a New Haven commercial bakery. The owner of Chabaso, Charles Negaro and his wife, Nancy Dennett turned an adjacent vacant lot on the bakery’s grounds into a community garden for employees about ten years ago — but it went underutilized. At the same time, FHCHC was launching a new DPP for their low-income, mostly Hispanic patient population. The program was translated from the National Institutes of Health’s Diabetes Prevention Program curriculum, after which FHCHC added innovative components like cooking classes and family-based interventions, said Kline.Just as FHCHC was developing their DPP, Negaro and Dennett approached FHCHC to see if they would like to utilize the garden, which by then was fully operational and ready to use with irrigation systems and compost- amended soil, for free. FHCHC agreed. They hired Kline to join their DPP team, and one of her tasks was to run the gardening component for the clinic’s patient population. The position became a staff person shared by both FHCHC and New Haven Farms. “I had never heard of urban farms or gardens existing to impact this particular population’s health and food security. It was at the time —and still is— a pretty unique mission,” Kline statesSoon after the collaboration began between FHCHC and New Haven Farms, the program became hugely popular with patients and their families, Kline said, and garnered national press including a New York Times article. Most importantly, it helped people connect the dots between their DPP education and their daily eating habits. “It filled a gap for people,” Kline explained. “At the DDP, they’re learning cooking and nutrition, [and] behavior change concepts, but people don’t necessarily have the tools to [implement] the things they’re learning – tools being access to fresh fruits and vegetables. This fills that gap.”Since then, New Haven Farms has expanded into its own 501(c)3 nonprofit, adding new community farms in other low- income areas of New Haven. They’re now planning to partner with other health centers beyond FHCHC, addressing food security and education for low-income patients with diabetes throughout New Haven.THE NITTY GRITTY: STAFF, IT, AND FUNDING…Kline says that the partnership wasn’t onerous to set up because of the timing: the farm was ready to be used, resulting in minimal start-up costs, and the health center was in the process of setting up their DPP, meaning there was flexibility to add a new component. FHCHC’s IT team easily set up the new referral form in the EMR.“The last simple thing was orienting the clinicians so they knew about the program and knew how to make the referral when they were in people’s charts — that’s why this shared staff member is so critical,” explained Kline. “That person not only knows the IT sys- tem but they know the clinicians.” As that staff person, Kline would provide orientation to new clinicians and assist current clinicians in navigating the program. “If we’re not hitting our targets for referrals,” says Kline, the staff person can knock on the clinicians’ doors to check in. Kline notes that there are few incentives for clinicians to refer their patients; clinicians make referrals simply “because they’re excited about the program,” she said.As they expand, New Haven Farms is shifting its funding strategy. As a nonprofit, New Haven Farms is now charging the medical centers who wish to partner with them. Their new partner, Cornell Scott Hill Health Center, found some of the needed funds in its current operating budget; they also wrote New Haven Farms in as a sub-grantee in a related grant. They’re additionally asking for employee donations to help subsidize the cost of their patients’ participation. In other words, health centers wishing to participate in the program must be willing to do the often hard work of finding the funding.RESULTS…Initial data from the program is encouraging but not jaw-dropping. In 2013, there was a 20 percent decrease in food insecurity among participants and a notable increase of one serving per day of fruits and vegetables. There were not significant changes in BMI or blood pressure. New Haven Farms is incorporating the new data into their strategy. “We didn’t focus a lot that year on decreasing consumption of junk food,” noted Kline, instead focusing on increasing healthy food; they plan to change that. They will also increase on-the- farm exercise education, beyond the physical element of farming itself. “We’ve moved more toward the behavior change model,” in an attempt to affect BMI numbers. “We’re not a weight loss program, but we know that BMI is... associated with diet and related chronic disease risks,” Kline said. “So, some change in BMI would be nice… But the big things are food security, and fruit and vegetable intake, and those are things we definitely know we’re impacting, and it’s what our program is specifically designed to impact.”RESOURCES…Learn more about New Haven Farms on their website, http://www.newhavenfarms.org.More on FHCHC’s DPP can be found at:http://www.fhchc.org/diabetes-prevention.1. Giving the Poor Easy Access to Healthy Food Doesn’t Mean They’ll Buy It. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/upshot/ giving-the-poor-easy-access-to-healthy-food-doesnt-mean-theyll-buy-it.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1&abt=0002&abg=1. Accessed June 2, 2015.* The patient’s name has been changed to protect her privacy.
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Matching Funds Program - Third Round of Funding Available

CIRCA: Nearly $100,000 to Support Climate Resilience Across Connecticut

The Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation (CIRCA) is pleased to announce its third round of funding through the exciting Matching Funds Program. CIRCA has made up to $100,000 available for matching funds for projects that will assist Connecticut towns and cities adapt to a changing climate and enhance the resilience of their infrastructure.

CIRCA will consider requests from Connecticut municipalities, institutions, universities, foundations, and other non-governmental organizations. To be funded, a successful Matching Funds request must have a commitment of primary funding within 6 months of the CIRCA award announcement, or have received a waiver from the CIRCA Executive Steering Committee. CIRCA Matching Funds will provide up to 25% of the primary funder's contribution other than municipal or State of Connecticut funds to enhance the likely success of project proposals that advance CIRCA research and implementation priorities. Requests are due to CIRCA by September 15, 2015.

Project proposals should develop knowledge and/or experience that is transferable to multiple locations in Connecticut and have well-defined and measurable goals. In evaluating proposals preference will be given to those that leverage independent funding awarded through a competitive process. Preference will also be given to those that involve collaboration with CIRCA to address at least one of the following priority areas:

• Improve scientific understanding of the changing climate system and its local and regional impacts on coastal and inland floodplain communities;
• Develop and deploy natural science, engineering, legal, financial, and policy best practices for climate resilience;
• Undertake or oversee pilot projects designed to improve resilience and sustainability of the natural and built environment along Connecticut's coast and inland waterways;
• Create a climate-literate public that understands its vulnerabilities to a changing climate and which uses that knowledge to make scientifically informed, environmentally sound decisions;
• Foster resilient actions and sustainable communities - particularly along the Connecticut coastline and inland waterways - that can adapt to the impacts and hazards of climate change; and
• Reduce the loss of life and property, natural system and ecological damage, and social disruption from high-impact events.

Those requesting Matching Funds should consult the CIRCA office via email at CIRCA_matchingfunds@uconn.edu with any questions. Matching Fund request forms can be found at http://circa.uconn.edu/funds.htm. All requesting funds must complete the form in its entirety on or before September 15, 2015. Matching Funds requests will be accepted on a rolling basis.

Notification of award: Requests will be acted upon every two months. The review will be held on September 15, 2015 and every two months thereafter.

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