"The Fate of State-Funded Nonprofit Organizations"

Sydney M. Williams

swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“The Fate of State-Funded Nonprofit Organizations”

August 14, 2017

“It is not the strongest or most intelligent who will survive, but those who can best manage change.”

                                                                                                Leon C. Megginson (1921-)

                                                                                                Author: Small Business Management

The need to adapt is universal. As a board member of the Mentoring Corps for Community Development (MCCD) in Old Lyme, CT, I have been witness to the effects of state budget cut-backs on nonprofit organizations that help those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“Attention must be paid,” said Linda Loman about her husband Willy. She was speaking to her sons about the despair of their father’s life, as it was nearing its end. Attention must also be paid to thousands of eleemosynary institutions around the country, as state budgets are being strained, principally from demands by public employee unions for wages and benefits. While I write about eastern Connecticut, the problem, is nationwide.

“Nonprofits throughout the state,” according to an article in the New Haven Register on July 4, 2017, “have been told to plan for budget cuts of 10% or more.” The State of Connecticut is not alone in fiscal mismanagement, but it has been more egregious than most. It is the nation’s wealthiest by per-capita income and by assets per resident, yet more than 12% of its population is on food stamps. Connecticut has the second highest state debt per capita and as a percent of GDP. Its deficit, estimated at $1.5 billion over the next three years, is among the highest relative to its budget and population. It is unfriendly to business. It is understandable why Connecticut is experiencing out-migration, especially among the wealthy.

The crisis for nonprofits, alluded to in the Register, should provoke a debate as to the purposes and priorities of spending by the State. Revenues are supposed to help pay for schools and support state universities and community colleges. They build roads, bridges and tunnels. They pay for state police and fund the national guard. They operate prisons and courts, and they supervise and maintain parks, harbors, wetlands and forests. But, when one looks at the budget, it is hard not to conclude that Connecticut’s spending is largely to pay for the approximately 50,000 employees, plus retirees. (The State ranks near the top of the list in terms of compensation per state employee and in number of state employees per 100,000 population.) Approximately 55% of Connecticut’s budget goes to pay employee salaries, benefits, and retiree health and pension programs.

Over the years, Connecticut’s budget has been squeezed, as the population declined[1] and as some businesses vacated the state, and as other responsibilities, including programs to help those with disabilities, were assumed. In the meantime, retirement benefits, along with entitlements – welfare, Medicaid, unemployment compensation, food stamps – kept expanding. Prudence is needed.

Forced by budget constraints, Connecticut has had to make tough choices, as the article in the New Haven Register explained. The unpleasant fact is that the governor and legislature have abetted the politically connected, and let the axe fall on those with less influence – including those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. However, it is not the purpose of this essay to find guilt, but to explain that the State’s spending constraints are a reality for those in the nonprofit world, and to offer possible solutions.

In the New Haven Register’s article cited above, Ken Dixon quotes Gian-Carl Casa, president and CEO of the Connecticut Community Nonprofit Alliance: “There are devastating funding cuts to community-based providers. We continue to believe that budget solutions should be long term and include conversion of state services to the community, where $300 million can be saved over the next five years and used to prevent damaging cuts.” Perhaps. Maybe communities can save the day, but many local governments are under pressure, especially those in poorer parts of the state, like southeastern Connecticut.

The question facing nonprofits is what to do given this dismal state of affairs? Each year the situation worsens – demand for services expands, while revenues shrink. Options, apart from reducing expenses, are limited – and much of the cost-cutting has already been done. In eastern Connecticut, approximately 10,000 residents suffer from intellectual and developmental disabilities. They are served by multiple nonprofits – ten or twelve large ones and a dozen or more smaller ones. Another (estimated) 5,000 individuals in need are either not served or underserved. Each organization has its own director and staff, along with an independent board of directors. Thus, one possibility is consolidation. While mergers would make many of these nonprofits more efficient by streamlining programs and reducing administrative costs, there are, understandably, advantages to being independent and “local.”

Other choices include becoming more aggressive writers of grants. As well, they might expand efforts to find individual donors, but that activity is crowded. (Though, it is my belief that generosity is deeply embedded in American culture.) It is possible there are funds within towns and cities that could be tapped, but most municipal budgets have little flexibility. It is even possible that funds from other state departments may be accessed, but I suspect those sources are pinched as well.

One path we at MCCD have pursued, in working with a few of these organizations, in helping set up up for-profit businesses – bakeries, the manufacture of soaps, lawn services, and the like – within the nonprofit organization. All profits, obviously, accrue to the nonprofit. Such actions reflect a “can-do,” entrepreneurial spirit on the part of the nonprofit, which brings the advantages of self-sufficiency and independence to their boards, staffs and clients. Many of the latter work in those businesses.

Change happens. We adapt or we die. In contravention of my earlier promise to keep this essay apolitical, allow me to vent: I am incensed by the unconscionable cynicism of politicians who have, because of profligacy and promises to unions, put their most challenged constituents at risk. And I am disheartened by voters who refuse to challenge them.

Attention must be paid; facts must be faced, and decisions will have to be made. In The Silver Chair (Chronicles of Narnia, book six), C.S. Lewis wrote, “Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you will have to decide what to do.”  Lewis’ book was written for youngsters, but his message is for all ages, especially politicians, the voters they represent and operators of state-funded nonprofits. If you cannot be all things for all people (and most of us cannot), needs must be prioritized, values must be considered and decisions must be made. The lesson as I see it – accept change, and distance your nonprofit organizations, wherever and whenever possible, from the enticing but entangling, amoral arms of government.

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[1] The Census Bureau reported last December that Connecticut’s population has declined three years in a row, at an accelerating rate.

"Mentoring"

Sydney M. Williams

Essay from Essex

“Mentoring”

June 14, 2017

“A mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you,

than you see in yourself, and helps bring it out of you.”

                                                                                                Bob Proctor

                                                                                                Canadian author, speaker and mentor

While campaigning in Virginia in 2008, President Obama said, “If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Later, in the same speech, he did mention the need for individual initiative. While Mr. Obama stated his belief that government is instrumental in individual success, he was also referring to the roles mentors play.

A mentorship can be defined as a relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. Young people who do well in school and in sports often attribute their success to the dedication of a teacher or coach. The same can be said for those beginning their careers, and it is true even for old goats who, late in life, take up writing essays. Mentors help turn doubt into determination, aspiration into accomplishment. Earlier this year, in the Harvard Business Review, Anthony Tjan wrote that “mentors need to be givers of energy, not takers of it.”

Mentoring is a way of giving back. Five years ago, I was invited to join a small group of retirees in Old Lyme, people who realized their experiences and talents could be of use to those in need. While I was not then retired, I was spending most Fridays in the country, so Friday morning meetings worked. We called ourselves Mentoring Corps for Community Development (MCCD), a 501(c)3 organization. Our website speaks to the “sparkle” we try to add to our town and the region – Old Lyme and southeastern Connecticut. Over the years, we have worked with schools and students, with families who have experienced natural disasters, and individuals who have suffered hardships. We have aided non-profit organizations and helped small businesses. We try to abide by advice Robert Frost once gave: “I am not a teacher, but an awakener.”

We all have had mentors in one form or another. Mistakes are a form of mentoring. Certainly, that has been true for me. While I was not smart enough to learn from them all, I have learned from some: my rudeness, when I was fourteen, to a young girl who was not very popular; a wise man who gently advised my 16-year-old self about the risks of speeding on back roads; a group of construction types who separated me from my paycheck when I was seventeen; I learn from my grandchildren who chide me when I mess up.

But, I also benefitted from those who mentored me: a teacher of English at Williston Academy, Horace “Thugsy” Thorner, whose class on Macbeth and Hamlet I have never forgotten; an instructor in journalism in college, and the editor of Foster’s Daily Democrat in Dover, NH, for whom I wrote a sports column. I recall being told by my first real boss – Jim Donnelly of Eastman Kodak – that, if I set my mind to it, I could achieve anything. I was taught the basics of selling equities to institutional investors by Andy Monness, who thirty years later encouraged my fledging writing career. He often disagreed with my opinions, but liked the way I expressed them. As important as anything, in terms of my writing, have been the hundreds like you who have corrected me when I was in error, challenged my opinions when yours differed, and emboldened me in offering praise, not all of it deserved. I consider you all mentors.

It is when we are young, and not fully formed, that mentorship is most effective. I think of an experience in mid-summer 1960. I was a member of a prospecting team in the Northwest Territories of Canada, along the Nahanni River. It was 3,000 miles from home and about 200 miles from a road, not to mention a village. I was nineteen and lonely. There were twenty people in the expedition, most of whom were at least twenty years my senior. In mid-July, we were to move the base camp about 100 miles further north. I told the manager, a man named Doug Wilmot, that I wanted to go home. He said fine, just help us move the camp. He said nothing more, nor did I. A week later, once the camp was moved, we prospectors were ordered back to the field. I joined the others without hesitation. I have always been thankful I did. Quitting would have been something I would have regretted the rest of my life. I am grateful that Mr. Wilmot handled me as he did – no arguments, no recriminations, no attempts to convince me of the error I would have made by leaving betimes, and no smugness at my decision to stay.

When thinking of mentoring, we typically think of bright, talented, but reserved or introverted students who come to the attention of an observant, caring and capable teacher. A January 2014 report titled The Mentoring Effect, commissioned by the National Mentoring Partnership, found significant positive outcomes for those who had a mentor: They were more likely to aspire to or attend college; they were more likely to participate in sports or extracurricular activities; they were more likely to assume leadership roles in school, and more likely to volunteer in their communities. While the political focus is on funding underperforming schools, the greater need is finding teachers, coaches and volunteers who will give counsel and care to students navigating the shoals that separate childhood from adulthood. Benjamin Franklin once wrote: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I may remember. Involve me and I learn.”

But, as important as I believe mentoring to be, it is no guaranty of success. It is not a magic elixir. In cannot substitute for a lack of aspiration and initiative. It cannot compensate for those who do not work hard, or who do not show fortitude. We all know the adage of leading a horse to water. Mentees, like Dickens’ Barkis, must be “willing.” Good mentors, as Mr. Proctor notes in the rubric at the start of this essay, see a spark that just needs igniting. Two thousand years ago, Plutarch wrote, as a lesson to both mentors and mentees: “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

Looking back on my life, I count myself lucky – fortunate to have been born into the family I was, and lucky to have been born at the time I was. I was fortunate in the woman who agreed to be my wife, in our children, and now in our grandchildren. I have been fortunate in my friends, both new and old. I was lucky to have served in the military when I did, after Korea and (just) before Vietnam. I was fortunate to have a career and a job that I loved. I have been lucky in my health, and thankful I was blessed to find an avocation as a writer. I was fortunate to have been endowed with an optimistic outlook. And I was fortunate to have had help from so many people over the years.

And, now, as age creeps up and I think of the past seven decades, I am thankful I can give back something through groups like MCCD. Mentoring is partial payment for all I have received.