SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2002

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Friends Celebrate at Annual Awards Ceremony
Honoring Campaign 2001 workplaces and donors

We'll have to mount a vigorous challenge to unseat this record," said Providence College Associate Professor Eric L. Hirsch when presenting the award for "Most Contributions Over 100 Employees" to Brown University Professor John Savage. Each year since the mid-1980s Brown University and Cavanagh Company, which merited this year's "Most Contributions Under 100 Employees Award," have walked off with the highest honors.

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Marsha Rice presents "Long-term Support Award" to Herman Rose, Photo: Jean Duffy

Hirsch, who chaired Campaign 2001, announced the campaign total as $360,000. Overall, The Fund raised $446,000 in calendar year 2001, up from $315,108 in 2000.

This represents a 15 percent increase from its second highest total of $376,780 achieved in 1999. Much of the current success was attributable to raising an additional $45,000 to receive Alan Shawn Feinstein's $45,000 matching challenge grant.

The Awards Ceremony was held at CAV on April 23. Rick Cohen, president of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, offered congratulatory remarks. He praised The Fund as one of the premier players in the important work of democratizing philanthropy. Gayle L. Gifford, ACFRE, principal in Cause & Effect, signed several copies of her book, Meaningful Participation, An Activist's Guide to Collaborative Policy-making.

Marsha Rice, chair of The Fund's Board of Directors, gave Kathryn Hopkins of Ocean State Action an "Open Doors, Open Minds Award" for welcoming The Fund into its first workplace campaign. Childhood Lead Action Project's Roberta Hazen Aaronson, executive director, and Heather Lee, staff member, were presented a watch with The Fund's logo for opening this campaign.

Writer Tom Ahern and Rhode Island Monthly received the "Media Spotlight Award" for drawing the public's attention to the efforts of nonprofit organizations to improve the quality of life for all Rhode Islanders. Ahern highlighted Henry Shelton of the George A. Wiley Center in the April 2001 issue and Joe Garlick's affordable housing efforts at Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation in April 2002.

The "Sister Carol McGovern 'Voice for the Voiceless' Advocacy Award" was dedicated to Catherine Rhodes, president of People to End Homelessness, who "stood up, spoke out, and slept out" to pressure the Governor and the General Assembly to begin funding affordable housing. The Long-term Support Award went to Herman Rose who has generously provided challenge grants for increased gifts and newly opened workplaces over four years.

The "Board Member of the Year Award" was given in absentia to Peter Walsh, senior vice president, BankRI, for his competence, compassion, and commitment. He single-handedly netted nearly $20,000 by chairing The Fund's campaign kick-off dinner, the roast of Heritage Harbor's Al Klyberg, last September. NHV

Voll Named Fundraiser of the Year

Nondas Hurst Voll Photo: Jean Duffy

The Fund's Executive Director Nondas Hurst Voll was named Fundraiser of the Year by the Rhode Island Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals at its annual conference on April 26. The award recognizes outstanding leadership and innovation, exceptional service to nonprofit organizations, a commitment to continuing professional development and a commitment to philanthropy. It also represents the high regard in which Nondas is held by her professional peers.

In presenting the award, Sr. Ann Keefe, S.S.J. of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Providence had this to say in presenting Nondas: "It is difficult to describe a leader with an engaging way of respecting the gifts of others. Nondas has taught us all by example that leadership in a collaborative model can and does work. Nondas, by her example and tireless dedication to justice through social change, can clear away any doubt that peace is possible, that justice can be created by all of us, that compassion, intelligence and integrity are mightier than any foe, that one small effort added to another will bring peace." JWH

Too Long for Too Little
Day Care providers earn less than half of minimum wage

Day Care Justice Co-op Members

A new economic study by the Day Care Justice Co-op, a Fund member agency, says the state has created a day care system that helps some women climb out of poverty by keeping other women poor.

Since 1997, the Department of Human Services has subsidized day care for low income families to encourage the transition from welfare to work. Families pay according to income, the state pays the rest. In Providence, a family day care provider receives $134 a week to care for a toddler.

Sounds good, until you subtract food, taxes, toys, books, games, gates, high chairs, insurance and other costs of care. Consider that providers work at least 55 hours and often over 100 hours each week.

The study, Mucho Trabajo, Poco Dinero (Overworked, Underpaid), looked at these hidden "costs of care" for a sample of 20 providers to find that:

• The providers earn on average just $2.76 per hour, less than half of the minimum wage.
• Thirty percent of the providers actually lose money after covering their costs.
• The average provider works over 70 hours per week.

Day care providers united to form the Day Care Justice Co-op in 1998, after a multi-year campaign organized by DARE to win state-funded health insurance. Now, the 250 women members are fighting for adequate pay for all providers. On May 1, hundreds of Co-Op friends and allies urged the General Assembly to adopt legislation guaranteeing providers at least the minimum wage. Please support them by contacting your legislator.

Copies of Mucho Trabajo, Poco Dinero are available from Day Care Justice Co-op. Call 454-0575. JWH

Fund celebrates anniversary with challenge to funders

Rick Cohen, president, National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy Photo: Jean Duffy

Rick Cohen makes a practice of biting the hand that feeds him. As the head of a nonprofit organization, Cohen has to ask foundations, corporations and individuals for major grants and gifts. Yet, as the President of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy in Washington, Cohen's job is to study, and frequently harshly criticize, the policies and priorities of these very funders. NCRP works to make all charitable giving more responsive to those with the least wealth and opportunity in our society.

Cohen came to Rhode Island on April 23 to help remind Rhode Islanders why this state is so fortunate to have The Fund for Community Progress. In a speech at The Rhode Island Foundation, he called The Fund "one of the premier players in the movement for progressive workplace fundraising and philanthropy." In 1982, NCRP helped launch The Fund as only the ninth alternative fund in the United States. Today, there are 208 such federations raising funds for social, economic and environmental change.

In his speech, Cohen laid out NCRP's case for higher giving and more public accountability by the nation's tax-exempt philanthropic foundations. Cohen called grants from foundations to community nonprofits "the risk capital of social change." He criticized foundations for favoring already wealthy institutions at the expense of urgently needed social investment. He said that the 1,000 largest U.S. foundations gave under 2.3% for social change and that their giving to community development organizations has fallen for three years in a row.

Foundations, Cohen said, are "tax exempt institutions, where private individuals... get to administer tax exempt resources for the public good without much oversight, criticism or due process." He called on nonprofits to find the courage to question the policies and spending of these funders.

"The discussion about what foundations do or don't do shouldn't be limited to foundations talking among themselves. We, as nonprofits, are the delivery system for foundations. They need us," Cohen said, urging his audience to join him from time to time in biting the hands that feed them.

The Rhode Island Foundation, which hosted Cohen's talk, has been a consistently generous supporter of The Fund. In brief remarks, Ronald V. Gallo, the Foundation's president, welcomed Cohen's challenges to the foundation world and urged Fund member agencies to continue to challenge the status quo in Rhode Island. JWH

Garlick Appointed to "Cities Count"

Joe Garlick

When The Rhode Island Foundation and the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council launched "Cities Count," a three-year project to assess Rhode Island's urban cities and recommend a revitalization agenda, they tapped Joe Garlick. He is Executive Director of Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation.

Garlick and Nicholas P. Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, are at-large members of the ten person Project Coordinating Committee.

"Cities Count" has hired as Project Director Verouschka M. Capellan, former executive director of Southside/Broad Street, an initiative of Greater Elmwood Neighborhood Services. The Foundation and RIPEC have also appointed a 25-person Strategic Advisory Group of community leaders and state and city officials to review analyses, suggest issues, and develop policy recommendations. Denise Barge, executive director of the R.I. Coalition for Minority Investment, is on this Advisory Group. NHV

Health Costs High and Rising
Rhode Island spends 21 percent more than U.S. average

The Coalition for Consumer Justice, a founding member of The Fund, has released preliminary data from an ongoing study of health care costs in New England. Based on the early data, Alan Sager, Ph.D., and Deborah Socolar, M.P.H., of Boston University's School of Public Health project that Rhode Islanders will spend $5,685 per resident on health care this year, the fourth highest per-person rate in the nation.

Sager and Socolar are continuing their economic feasibility study of the state's health care system on behalf of the Single Payer Rhode Island Task Force, an education project of the Coalition for Consumer Justice. "We aim to identify opportunities to address the legitimate needs of all concerned, seeking more affordable health care for all Rhode Island's people, while preserving all needed caregivers," says Sagar, describing the study's objectives.

The work of Sagar and Socolar will be overseen by an Oversight Task Force representing nurses, doctors, government, concerned nonprofits and labor. The chair of that group, Jann Campbell, says, "This is a golden opportunity to analyze the health care system in an objective way. We're seeking the best way to provide high-quality low-cost health care, yet health care is not readily available to all folks." JWH

Contributing Writer: Jonathan W. Howard

PROGRESS is published to inform friends of The Fund for Community Progress about the activities and concerns of its member agencies. Gifts to The Fund have a definite impact on solving problems of poverty, hunger, homelessness, mental illness, housing, discrimination and other issues of injustice. PROGRESS stresses the importance of your continued support as together we "build a better community."