This article about financial problems at the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF), a non-profit that supports the care of retired racehorses at farms around the country, hit especially close to home for me because I’m a horse person.  It also points out the serious implications to local affiliates or chapters when a national/umbrella organization runs long-term deficits.  While I’m a big believer in staff of non-profits being paid decently, it is hard to stomach the paragraph that says all staff salaries were paid while horses were starving.

HHC’s 2010 Year in Review website has been published.  I wrote the speech and the additional content that appears on the web.  The organization continues to do yeoman’s work despite severe financial pressures.  New York City needs HHC more than ever as hospitals close and healthcare options decrease, especially for underserved and uninsured populations.

America SCORES LA, full disclosure they’re a client, participates in a great program that brings musicians and songwriters into elementary and middle school classrooms in inner city public schools. Students work with artists to write, compose and produce original songs.

The ASCAP program is a great adjunct to the poetry writing that is a large part of program participants’ classroom work.

The America SCORES program combines soccer and poetry to help inner city elementary school students improve their literacy/reading skills as well as their fitness levels.  The programs watchwords are teamwork, leadership and commitment.

The first group of participants from America SCORES LA will enter college in the fall.  100% of them will graduate high school — more than double the usual graduation rate for LA public school students!

One of my clients wrote this year-end appeal — one of the best I have ever read because it is so heartfelt and so personal (he wrote it on his own, no help from me).

Had to share it.

Happy holidays!

Loved this commercial made by the Best Friends Animal Society, a non-profit animal welfare organization based in Utah.

While the ASPCA ad with Melissa Etheridge singing, or the one with Willie Nelson singing are effective because they are so heartbreaking, this one takes a positive approach and I think it’s brilliant.

http://www.bestfriends.org/homefortheholidays/

In this past Sunday’s New York Times, opinion writer Nicholas Kristof wrote a column called “When Donations Go Astray.”

It’s worth reading, and for the most part he gets it right, though there are a couple of things I would add.  First, the best way to figure out how a charity is using its money is to read its 990, the federal tax form non-profits have to fill out every year (no, non-profits don’t pay taxes, yes, they still have to fill out tax forms). It includes information on revenue, expenses, board members, investments, salaries and more.  You can usually find links to 990s on a non-profit’s website.  Problem is they reflect numbers that are at least a year old, and they are long and unwieldy.

As an alternative, go to guidestar.com, look up the charity, and you can see a summary of its 990 and its operations.

Second, when Mr. Kristof discusses direct mail and is critical of address labels sent to donors and potential donors, he misses a couple of important points.  Address labels are among the least expensive items to send in direct mail, and over a period of many years of analysis, they consistently get the highest/best response from donors.  They are one of the most effective –and cost effective–tools for successful direct mail.

This post is a small brag.  In August, I worked with a team of senior staff at the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) on a grant application for $10 million in health information technology to create a medical home model for patients with schizophrenia.

Last month HHC found out they will receive the money, which comes from the New York State Department of Health (DOH) and the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY) through the Health Care Efficiency and Affordability Law of New York (HEAL NY), and the Federal State Health Reform Partnership (F-SHRP).

From the HHC press release announcing the award:

According to HHC President Alan D. Aviles, this innovative program will improve patient care through the use of health information technology.  HHC’s record leadership in advanced technology applications and commitment to building patient-centered medical homes will serve as a model and better position the public hospitals system to adapt to the growing demands of federal healthcare reform.

The $10 million grant will advance the Patient-Centered Medical Home model of care and ensure better coordination between primary care services and behavioral health care for nearly 5,000 patients with schizophrenia within an 11-zip code care coordination zone across Queens, Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan.  Specifically, HHC will build an information technology infrastructure, based on the public hospitals existing advanced electronic health records system, to allow patient information exchange among five HHC hospitals and health centers and a number of mental health community based providers.  This will allow all providers in the care coordination zone who extend services to this target population to have access to clinical information, medication and problem lists, results and referrals.   The HHC facilities participating in this project include Elmhurst, Queens and Woodhull Hospitals, Gouverneur Healthcare Services, and Cumberland Diagnostic & Treatment Center.

Patients with schizophrenia often suffer from multiple chronic illnesses, and have numerous interactions with the health care system.  This complex patient population will benefit from the broad availability of information provided by multiple service providers who can work together to coordinate their care and improve patient self-management.

One of the things about my work that is fun is the opportunities that come along for me to exercise my writing and editing muscles in areas where I am not an obvious expert. There’s one in particular that I’m working on now, for the third or fourth year in a row, that’s especially rewarding. It’s helping to update a textbook called “E-commerce, business, technology, society.” Since things change extremely rapidly in the E-commerce world, the book is updated annually. It’s written by Kenneth C. Laudon, an E-commerce expert and NYU professor, and his business partner Carol Traver. My first assignment was to read through chapters and look up the names of all of the companies listed to make sure they were still in business. Over time, Ken and Carol gave me more to do, and last year I wrote a case study on the company OpenTable.com. Did that well enough that I’ve done a couple already this year. Right now I’m working on a case that illustrates the use of multi-channel marketing in order to build a successful e-business. The company I’m profiling is called The Exchange, and it’s a site that advertises high-end competition horses for sale. Full disclosure, Carol sold her horse through the site earlier this year so that’s how she came up with the idea. And I’m a lifelong horse person and am especially enjoying the rare situation where my horse life and my work life can intersect. When the case is done I’ll post it here.

“Lawmakers seeking cuts look at nonprofit salaries”

How much should nonprofit CEO’s be paid? It’s a question that comes up when the Chronicle of Philanthropy publishes its annual salary information, and occasionally when Congressmen want to appear to “crack down” on organizations that provide services to the public. Most recently, it was covered in the Times after the Boys and Girls Clubs of America were denied a federal grant because of their CEO’s salary.

As a non-profit professional, I found much of the article discouraging because it doesn’t take into account the complexities of running a large organization, and the skills necessary to do so. It reflects a very old-fashioned view of “charity,” one that is not appropriate in today’s world.

The article quoted M. Cass Wheeler, CEO of the American Heart Association, a large national organization that raised $645 million in 2008. He said that he felt executive compensation was the wrong measure of an organization. He said, “The question people should be asking is, ‘Is the organization effective, is it accomplishing real results?’” He added, “Once they get an answer to that question, they can put compensation into some kind of context and then decide whether it is appropriate.”

See the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/us/27nonprofit.html?scp=2&sq=strom&st=cse

I’ve been working on a big multi-media project for the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation since January, and I wanted to share the link to the first two parts. It’s called Believing, and it’s a report about HHC’s accomplishments in patient safety over the past five years. We’re using narrative, film, photography and data to tell the story. I’m working on the narrative, and any other text to accompany the other media, and I’ve gotten to work with some great colleagues at HHC and outside. You can view episodes one and two here:

Episodes three and four are coming soon.