RESCHEDULED: State Information Sessions on Master Contract

RESCHEDULED: State Information Sessions on Master Contract

We are pleased to announce that the State Grants Reform information sessions previously set for November have been re-scheduled.  Please see below for dates, and see the bottom of this email for more information on the sessions.  If you wish to attend, please RSVP to grantsreform@budget.ny.gov . If you had previously registered, you need to RSVP for the new date, and we encourage you to register soon as space is limited.

City	Date	Time	Venue
Albany	December 18, 2012	10:30 AM – 12:30 PM	Meeting Room 5 Empire State Plaza – Concourse Albany, NY 12220
Rochester	December 19, 2012	10:30 AM – 12:30 PM	Mustard Building Conference Center 1 Mustard St. Rochester, New York 14609
New York City	December 20, 2012	1:30 PM – 3:30 PM	Room 706-708 UJA – Federation Building 130 East 59th Street New York, NY 10022

As part of the grants reform effort, the State has set up a new website to serve as an information portal throughout the reform  process and we encourage you to visit the site and share with the appropriate staff.

Thank you.

Michelle Jackson | General Counsel

Human Services Council

130 East 59^th Street, NY, NY  10022

Phone: (212) 836-1588 | Fax: (212) 836-1368

jacksonm@humanservicescouncil.org

www.humanservicescouncil.org

Call to Action: Confronting Severe Challenge to Charitable Deductions, Spending Programs

National Council of Nonprofits 

Call to Action: Confronting Severe Challenge to Charitable Deductions, Spending Programs

Charitable nonprofits are truly at risk of losing the charitable giving incentive in the Lame Duck session of Congress. Now is the time to call on our 25,000+ nonprofit members – and their board members, staff members, volunteers, donors, and others you know with email addresses – to raise their collective voices in telling Congress to protect the charitable deduction and stop the arbitrary spending cuts known as sequestration set to go into effect on January 2, 2013.

Congress and the President are negotiating how to avert the $600 billion in spending cuts and tax hikes that take effect at year’s end if they fail to take action. One proposal rapidly gaining support (particularly - but not only - among Republican Senators) is capping itemized deductions, including for charitable donations, at $15,000, $17,000, or $25,000 for individual taxpayers. Such a cap would eliminate any tax incentive for donations to charities. The big fixed-cost deductions, such as for mortgage interest (national average of $10,640 in 2010) and state/local taxes (national average of $11,593 in 2010), that combined total $22,233, would eat away the entire deduction at the levels being discussed, leaving no room for discretionary gifts to the work of charities. Even if they increase the cap to $30,000 or $40,000, that leaves very little incentive for giving. Larger institutional nonprofits with dedicated development staff will then have an advantage to squeeze out smaller charitable nonprofits for the limited dollars then available.

DO SOMETHING TODAY! Click on the link below to learn more and to see what actions you can do. 

Call to Action Link 

Local Workshop December 7: How to Become a Powerful Presenter

Workshop:      How to Become a Powerful Presenter

Date:               Friday, December 7, 2012

Time:              9:00 am – 12:00 noon

Location:        10 Main Street, Whitesboro, NY  (Schafer Development Group)

Investment:    $99.00

Presenter: Fred Ashforth is the president of Ashforth Associates, a consulting firm established in 1991. He is an experienced salesman, speaker, trainer, writer and consultant. Over 15,000 people
have attended and participated in his programs. His audiences describe his programs as
educational, memorable and valuable.

All attendees will:

-           Actively participate throughout the workshop.

-           Have the opportunity to ask specific questions related to their needs.

-           Receive feedback that will help them improve.

-           Take home valuable ideas and information (including handouts).

This workshop will focus on:

-           Reducing and Controlling Nervousness

-           Organizing Ideas to Write Powerful Speeches and Presentations

-           Audience Interaction to Connect with your Audience

-           Using Visual Aids (including PowerPoint) Effectively

-           How to Handle Questions and Answers Like a Pro

-           And more!

Bring a colleague.

-           $99.00 for 1^st person from your company/organization. $79 each additional. 

TO ENROLL: 
Call: 315-269-4412
e-mail: fred@fredashforth.com
See: www.fredashforth.com

Space is limited- Last program of the year. Call or email to hold your places today!

Mohawk Valley Leaders Nov. 7th Program RECAP

Mohawk Valley Leaders Nov. 7th Program: Organizational Disaster Preparedness 

Presented by: Tim Riecker, Chair, HOOAD (Herkimer Oneida Organizations Active in Disasters)    

The two main topics of this presentation were emergency planning (which addresses immediate life safety issues in the event of disaster) and Continuity of Operations Planning (or COOP - which addresses sustainability of the organization post-disaster).  The program covered the reasons why we plan, what our hazards are, planning steps, considerations, and resources. 

For a better recap below are links to documents from the program.
 Preparing your Organization for Disaster Power Point 
Resources Flyer
Emergency Preparedness Solutions Busniess Flyer

Foundation Center's IssueLab Provides Comprehensive Access to Third Sector Research

Foundation Center's IssueLab Provides Comprehensive Access to Third Sector Research

Knowledge Sharing Platform Now Contains 11,000 Resources

New York, NY — November 8, 2012. The Foundation Center has launched the next generation of IssueLab, a web site that provides free and open access to resources that analyze the world's most pressing social, economic, and environmental challenges and their potential solutions. The platform contains more than 11,000 documents and represents one of the largest collections of social sector knowledge, spanning 40 issues areas, from agriculture to immigration to welfare.
Earlier this year, the Foundation Center acquired IssueLab, then an independent online publishing forum. Since then, it has worked to integrate IssueLab with PubHub, the Center's catalog of more than 7,000 annotated links to foundation-sponsored reports. The result is a unified platform that retains the name IssueLab and contains a wide range of case studies, white papers, evaluations, fact sheets, issue briefs, annual reports, and toolkits from the social sector.
"IssueLab's integration into the Foundation Center is a critical first step in our ongoing commitment to the spirit and practice of data sharing," said Gabriela Fitz, director of knowledge management initiatives at the Foundation Center. "This resource makes it easy for anyone to find, access, and share the collective intelligence of the social sector."
IssueLab's features include:

• Efficient searching and browsing by social issue area, author, publishing organization, or geography;
• A one-of-a-kind searchable database of more than 9,000 authors and researchers in the social sector; and
• The ability for any organization to add research to the collection as a way to share valuable resources with a broader audience.

In addition, IssueLab offers customizable "Knowledge Centers," which organizations, coalitions, and networks can use to create and maintain their own online libraries in a proficient and sustainable way, while allowing automatic and easy sharing of their knowledge with new audiences through IssueLab.
As a centralized collection and knowledge sharing platform, IssueLab keeps users current on social sector research, and it also provides long-term access to important documents that may otherwise be lost. For example, when the organization Public/Private Ventures recently ceased operations after 35 years, its large body of groundbreaking research was transferred to the Foundation Center under a Creative Commons license. These reports — many that evaluate programs that help young people from high-poverty communities — are now part of IssueLab's permanent collection and continue to be freely available to others working to help children, youth, and families.
The re-launch of IssueLab aligns with the Center's Foundation Center 2020 strategic plan and reflects its commitment to building the global data platform for philanthropy, providing nonprofits with the resources they need to succeed, and empowering donors with knowledge tools for strategic decision making.
IssueLab can be found at Issue Lab.