MEET OUR ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS
Jeff Diver, executive director of SELF (Support to Low-Income Families) of Butler County.
Laura Seyfang, CEO of the American Red Cross Dayton chapter.
David Bohardt, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul Dayton.
Rob Andrews, director of operations for St. Vincent de Paul Dayton.
Melodie Bennett, executive director of House of Bread, Dayton.
Mike Calabrese, executive director of Opportunities for Individual Change of Clark County.
Moderators: Michael Williams, Ron Rollins
We read that the economy is getting better — but is it, for the people at the lower end of it? And how are the agencies who help those people faring, while things are still tight? We put those questions to a group of leaders of local nonprofit organizations that deal with people in need. Our latest roundtable ended up providing insights into not just how these agencies are handling current needs, but also how they’re looking toward the future.
Moderator: How are things for your organizations and the people you serve?
Rob Andrews: We're finding the demand for our services is a lot greater, and we're experiencing higher numbers in our shelters over the last few months that have topped last year, which was a record for us. Even though the economy supposedly is getting better, the need is still great.
Jeff Diver: About 40 percent of our clients now claim they have never come to any social service agency before. I would concur that we have a lot more clients, but they're a new type of client — one not as well-versed in social services and knowing where to go for help.
Melodie Bennett: At House of Bread, we would echo that. And interestingly, Sunday has become our biggest day for feeding people, when only we and the homeless shelter are open. Three years ago, we were closed on Sundays.
Mike Calabrese: We're also seeing a lot of new faces, all of them people facing new challenges. Our biggest goal as a nonprofit community action council is to keep our eye on the needs of the poor and how to best serve them, and not just chase dollars. And that can be a challenge, because you have to balance bringing in the dollars you need and yet not lose sight of your real mission.
Moderator: What do you think is causing the spike in need?
David Bohardt: The New York Times and Pew Research did a poll in 2010 that showed the poverty rate in suburban households had increased by 50 percent between 2000 and 2010, even before the recession hit. It has placed enormous stress on the social safety net and the human-service delivery system. It is true that the "new poor" — if you will, the first-generation poor — have knowledge deficits about how to use the system. Families who have been using the system for a long time not only know where to find the wheel, but know how to grease it to make systems work. But if you've got a former Delphi family who several years ago lost their six-figure income and took time to burn through their savings, their 401(k), lose the house and the marriage — when they show up at the shelter, they might as well be from another planet. They have no experience with agencies such as ours. They need help understanding all the services.
Diver: It's the same with us. New families coming in had good-paying jobs until the economic downturn, but now they're barely making ends meet and are at risk of going over the edge. And they need help, but they feel embarrassed to ask. One thing we've found, though, is that our agency launched a micro-enterprise program last year that has had a lot of traction with these individuals — because when you can offer them a chance of self-employment, they're likely to take advantage of it.
Moderator: How does that program work?
Diver: They come in for a class and learn every aspect of writing a business plan. It's very structured. At the end, they have a quality business plan and we have a review committee they work with, and they're eligible for a $500 to $3,500 loan. It gives them the opportunity for self-employment, because it's unlikely they'll find a job that pays like the one they used to have.
Bohardt: You know, almost nothing we will talk about here today would not be solved by employment. We have a large disconnect here now, with a lot of people with skills deficits that will never be remediated. The jobs coming into our region, for the most part, are not jobs for which they will have the necessary education and skills, and probably never will have. The biggest reason we have 200 to 230 men in our shelter every night is lack of jobs. But 25 to 30 percent of them are working, but still in shelter. If you make $8 an hour and are supporting a family, you can't afford housing. As much as I love the Dayton Development Coalition and the kind of work they're doing, and as much as we need the high-tech jobs they're attracting here, we also need 10,000 distribution-center-type jobs, more retail — the kind of jobs that fit the skill sets of a lot of the unemployed people in our community.
Calabrese: I agree. The state loves to talk about how many unfilled jobs there are, but there is a great need for meaningful, relevant training that just is not being met at the two-year college level. And we deal with a lot of people who couldn't take advantage of the micro loan program Jeff described, who couldn't ever learn to read a spreadsheet. They're who we are seeing a lot of, and they are the hardest to serve.
Andrews: A sustained job matters, too. A lot of the people in our shelters are there not because they lost their jobs, but because they lost hours. Just having their hours cut, they're living on such a razor's edge that just one hiccup — say, a medical bill that's higher than expected — can throw them back into shelter.
Bohardt: The whole business of how we talk about infrastructure for the poor is unfortunate. We make it as difficult as possible for them to reclaim their lives and have sustainable employment. If you are a young mother at our shelter and have good job skills but no resources for child care, you're between a rock and a hard place. Also, a lot of people need access to mental health services, and the bar for getting it to them is astonishingly high. We're in denial about it, but there is a mental health crisis in our community — dating back to when the Reagan administration decoupled federal government responsibility for mental health care.
Moderator: How is the current state of the economy affecting the Red Cross?
Laura Seyfang: The gist of our efforts are around disaster reaction and preparation, so it's a bit different for us. But we do have a homeless shelter in Dayton, and we have a higher number of clients seeking disaster services locally, mostly due to house fires. We have reacted to a higher number of national disasters recently, too — Sandy and the flooding in the Midwest. In fact, we have volunteers who just returned from that. With our shelters, I would echo David's concerns. Our clients have a fair number of mental health issues, and it can be a challenge to move them into long-term housing quickly, because they aren't ready to be on their own.
Moderator: Are you being affected by the federal sequestration?
Bohardt: Everybody is. However you do the math, there's going to be a 7.2 to 8.2 percent reduction in the allocation of funding we receive, which will affect the safety net in our community.
Diver: Directly or indirectly, we'll all be affected. Nonprofits rely on federal funding, and we'll be taking cuts that will impact our work.
Moderator: What about other sources of funding? Is fundraising up, down, what?
Calabrese: The challenge for us all is that these are times of shrinking dollars at the federal, state and local level. With foundations, some of their portfolios are performing better, but the demand on them is greater. You know, how we used to raise money has changed a lot from a few years ago; not only is a lot of the federal funding that used to help particular programs gone, but now there are requirements to show measurable outcomes and metrics when you report back. And with the people we work with, that is not always easy. In Springfield, for example, there are about 500 people returning to the city from prison incarceration every year. And if someone has been to the penitentiary, it doesn't just affect them, but their families, their children. The deliverables for them are broad and varied, and money is always an issue. Our services are free, but delivering them is not free.
Diver: The competition is greater than ever for funding. And there are greater requirements and demands placed on the funding you receive. And then some foundations will emphasize one area for a number of years and then shift resources to a different area — so that even if you had a good program with good outcomes, you may lose funding because they've shifted priorities.
Bennett: Most of our funding at House of Bread is from individuals, so a challenge for us is to determine how to reach a new generation of donors in a way they will respond to. Like how to use social media as a funding tool? You have to get them to react to you, then you have to learn how to get them to respond to you, and then how do you turn them into donors? In 140 characters?
Seyfang: Social media has been really good for Red Cross, because it tugs at the heartstrings. The Haiti crisis was the first time we really used it well, where you could text $10 donations. A lot of people responded and it really worked great. But you're right, it's about learning to tap into a different audience.
Bohardt: The DNA of 20- and 30-somethings is missing a philanthropic bone. One of the reasons for that, partly, is the last generation or two's focus on college education as a special training for employment, as opposed to the much broader-brush liberal arts education, which usually included some sort of social history, or a social-service dynamic. Ninety percent of my generation knows about the Marshall Plan, where maybe 3 percent of my son's does. We all knew about the New Deal and why it was important in keeping the country together in bad times; most 20-somethings have only a basic clue. So there's a disconnect that our society has about all of us having a mutual accountability and responsibility to each other. I'm not saying it's not there at all, but it's not the same as it was in my generation.
Diver: I think people, young and old, are bombarded today with so many messages that it's hard for us to get our messages out. But when you do get through to them individually, it has a lasting impact — and those are your future donors. We had a lot of young people volunteer with us for a home-repair project for the needy, and it had a real impact on them.
Seyfang: Looking at volunteers as a market themselves to be served and treated well is important, too. As volunteers, they expect good service — good systems, good scheduling. You need to pay attention to how you work with them.
Bohardt: You need to make sure they feel treasured.
Moderator: What keeps you all up at night?
Bennett: People come to us with a huge burden. Their lives are difficult. They've walked several miles to us. Transportation is a huge issue for everyone in poverty; a bus token is a luxury for many. We are able to help in preventing their hunger that day. But so many of their other needs are going unmet. We see gaps in the services available to people — mental health is huge, and opportunities for help are few and far between. Literacy is another one not being dealt with. Huge numbers of our guests are unemployable — so feeding them does nothing to help their current situation. What keeps me up at night, honestly, are the faces of the people I really don't think we can significantly help. They will stay in poverty unless something significantly changes for them. I love our success stories, and we tout them — but what bothers us as directors is those we can't help.
Bohardt: It probably depends on the night. I worry constantly that the privilege we have of serving the poor is matched by the highest quality of effort, resourcefulness and imagination we can bring. It isn't that even the least of these are not able to be helped; it's a combination of our not knowing how and not having the resources. And not just financial resources, but the intellectual commitment of the community. These are all God's children, and they all deserve the chance to raise their boat.
Calabrese: The most disheartening thing I experience day to day is seeing so many of the people we serve locked into this agency time, this agency life, where they actually think going to these various agencies over and over is how life unfolds for them. It's a pretty hopeless existence.
Diver: For me, it's thinking about the opportunities our clients would not have if our programs were not sustained. For many of our programs, we're the only agency in the county offering them. You're trying to help people get out of poverty, but you are dealing with so many funding sources — and with the dance, priorities are always changing. We had a foundation in New York that funded us for 10 years, and we had a great relationship with great outcomes, but they've changed and there's nothing we can do about it. I worry what would happen if we weren't here.
Andrews: Two things — one was mentioned before, not being able to provide the right solutions to the problems our guests have. Each has different needs, different problems that require an individual, unique approach, and we just don't have that ability. The second thing is trying to provide the right environment for our staff. We have 120 people working for the organization, and they work very hard. They're very dedicated, and love the mission. We also try to provide the right environment for them, so that we can hold onto those working at the highest levels.
Seyfang: We have to run our organizations as if they were for-profit organizations. We have all the same challenges. Keeping employees motivated, looking at your numbers, your deliverables — we're not that different. I was in the for-profit world before. But nonprofits also have all these extra things to deal with. And yet you can't stagnate. You have to keep your eye on your mission. You have to focus on the work and what it takes to survive.
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