If one more person tells me that I either need to “cut the fat during these lean times” in my non-profit budget, or that I need to “look for money elsewhere” due to all the state and federal cuts, I may say something I regret. When that happens, I pity the catalyst.
Since writing is therapy for me – let me address these statements here. First, the “fat.” There is no fat. Since we canceled the staff meetings in Cozumel, we could not be leaner. Oh wait - I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. Of course we’ve never had such luxuries. Our staff sit cross-legged on the floor on 15 year old industrial carpet in the lobby during staff meetings and wish they were in Cozumel.
In all seriousness, I am afraid that we are too lean. In our agency, lean means that our few enrollment staff have hundreds of volunteers in their queues waiting for interview slots that just are not available. It means that criminal background and reference checks are stacking up. It means that our match support staff members have too many families on their caseloads to be able to effectively address all their needs. It means that we currently have 1,376 unmatched at-risk students on a wait list for a Big Brother or Big Sister.
So lets move to this issue of “finding money elsewhere.” The implications in the statement “you’re just going to have to turn to other sources to make up for cuts” are, frankly, almost insulting. That statement assumes that we are not always aggressively searching for “other sources” of funding. It implies that we are not compelled to be able to hire the staff to match those 1,300+ students with mentors. It insinuates that we are content to sit back and relax while “government funds make it easy for us.”
All of this is most certainly not the case. Make no mistake here: When parents, teachers, counselors, therapists, principals, judges, probation and parole officers, CPS staff and other social service providers call us with a student referral, we know that we are at a crossroads in the life of that youth. We know that the time to provide that student with a mentor is now. We know we could lose them while they sit on a wait list. We are acutely, heartbreakingly aware that many of these students will not get the mentors they need; mentors who could help them develop the life skills necessary to overcome the environmental cycles of poverty, failure, abuse, drop-out and incarceration they face everyday.
But, just in case, if there are places we aren’t looking, and anyone who reads this happens to know of a source of funding, please, please let us know. Here is a summary of our current efforts: We receive funding from many, many local businesses and corporations. We conduct several friend- and fund-raising events, large and small – enough to keep our staff working overtime – every year. We are the beneficiary of others’ fundraising activities. We write tons of grants to foundations and receive our share. We do all kinds of social media campaigns. We are lucky enough to be a United Way agency and receive wonderful support from that organization. We apply for and receive city, county, state and federal funds from a variety of funding streams. We ask all of our volunteers and parents for donations and many of their companies also make matching contributions. The members of our Board of Directors make personal contributions and work to identify other sources of revenue for the agency all year long.
