Study: CABVI has $17 million impact on local economy

The Herkimer Telegram related: An impact study of the Industries for the Blind of New York State and its Affiliated Agencies conducted by the University of Buffalo details the economic and quality of life impact in communities that employ blind or visually impaired workers.

“The key for improving prospects for people who are blind and want to work is improving opportunity and that’s the goal of this impact study,” said Rudy D’Amico, president and chief executive officer of the Central Association of the Blind and Visually Impaired, during a press conference Tuesday at CABVI’s main location on Kent Street, Utica.

Eight nonprofit organizations across the state partner with IBNYS to provide employment for blind New Yorkers. According to CABVI, the study released in October 2011 showed “the economic impact of the eight agencies on the state’s economy is $168 million reflecting, $88.3 million in direct sales, through more than 21,600 orders as well as $80 million in spin-off activity in related industries.”

D’Amico said during the press conference CABVI’s economic impact in Central New York is $17 million each year, including $4.4 million in payroll. He also said Central Industries expects its revenue to exceed $37 million this year, compared to $12 million in 2000.

The conference was held inside the association’s Central Industries manufacturing area, where blind and sighted workers work side-by-side to produce goods on about 30 product lines. In 2010, the association had 200 total employees with 79 of whom were blind or visually impaired.

“There is a perception the challenges associated with the unique needs of an employee who is blind cannot be overcome. This is not true,” said D’Amico. “With CABVI’s support and that of the state Commission for the Blind we can help employers and employees achieve reasonable accommodations.”

D’Amico also said they have a goal to double the number of blind and visually impaired individuals at each IBNYS affiliate to nearly 1,000 by 2016.

“CABVI and New York are working hard to breakdown barriers in the community,” he said.

State Sen. Joseph Griffo said about 60 percent of those who are blind in New York are unemployed, and about 70 percent nationally.

“CABVI is so important in playing such a significant role for individuals who want and need that chance to work, said Griffo, R,C,I - Rome, during the press conference.
“Many individuals suffer from blindness from birth or injury and are frustrated with the challenges they have to face and confront. Trying to find a job compounds that frustration.”

Griffo said he and other legislators will continue to support the efforts of CABVI and the IBNYS.

Assemblyman Marc Butler was among the state legislators who showed their support for CABVI, which serves those in Herkimer, Fulton, Montgomery, Oneida, Jefferson, Lewis and northern Otsego counties, during the press conference.

“Many of us have believed in the high quality and reliable workforce here at CABVI and now its there in black and white,” said Butler, R,C,I - Newport, about the study after the press conference.

Butler said by supporting their efforts, they are “helping these people and helping the economy.”

Region receives $100,000 federal grant to study food access

Local officials suspect there’s a direct relationship between neighborhood poverty rates and access to local food.

With the help of a $100,000 federal grant, they will be able to study that connection and figure out ways to overcome it.

The grant, which will be administered by Rust to Green Utica, Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Resource Center for Independent Living and the City of Utica, aims to increase food access by “promoting coordination and partnerships between public, private and nonprofit partners,” according to a news release from those organizations.

“Together, I think we’re really going to make a huge difference in this community’s food system,” said Ron Bunce, executive director of Cornell Cooperative Extension in Utica.

The grant award was announced at a news conference Wednesday at the downtown Harza Building, where city grant writer Pamela Jardieu said future meetings about the study could be held. It was also attended by Mayor David Roefaro, County Executive Anthony Picente and other officials.

City Public Relations Director Angelo Roefaro said the mayor pushed for the grant in the absence of federal earmarks this year.

Overall, fourteen grants will be awarded to communities throughout the country, according to the news release.

Further grant funding could become available and help implement some of the opportunities identified in the study once it is finished, Jardieu said.

Original article from the UticaOd.com

Charities Seeing Slight Recovery in Giving, But Not Enough to Keep Up with Demand or Budget Cuts

Nonprofit organizations have seen a slight turnaround in giving so far this year that mirrors the slow economic recovery, a new survey from the Nonprofit Research Collaborative (NRC) finds. But the small rebound hasn't been enough to help many nonprofits that are grappling with staff and service cuts even as demand for their services has increased.

The national survey showed that 36 percent of charities reported an increase in donations in the first nine months of 2010, compared with only 23 percent in the same period of 2009.

Thirty-seven percent of charities reported a decrease in giving, a dramatic change from 2009's 51 percent. Among those experiencing a decline in giving, the main reason cited was fewer individual donations and smaller amounts. Lower amounts received from foundations and corporations also contributed to the overall lower giving amounts at these charities. Giving remained unchanged at 26 percent of nonprofits in 2010 vs. 25 percent in 2009.

"We are beginning to see some positive signs, but despite that giving still has a long way to go to return to the levels it was at three or four years ago," said Patrick M. Rooney, executive director of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, which spearheaded the collaboration. "One-fifth of charities in the survey said their budgets for 2011 will be lower than for 2010, forcing many of them to look at cuts in services, salaries and staff."

Among the 20 percent of nonprofits anticipating reduced budgets next year, 66 percent say they will have to reduce programs, services or operating hours, 59 percent expect to cut or freeze staff salaries or benefits, and 49 percent are planning layoffs or hiring freezes.

"The Nonprofit Fundraising Survey: November 2010" is the first product of a collaboration involving six organizations that serve the nonprofit sector: the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Blackbaud, the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, the Foundation Center, GuideStar USA Inc., and the Urban Institute's National Center for Charitable Statistics.

"For the first time in two years, there is cause for cautious optimism about the nonprofit sector in this economy," said Bob Ottenhoff, president and CEO of GuideStar. "Nonetheless, in this latest study, as in all prior years, nonprofits also are reporting increased demand for their services. Even as giving increases, philanthropic dollars fall short of the amounts needed to help people in our country and abroad."

Demand for services increased at 78 percent of human service nonprofits and 68 percent of charities overall in 2010. Charities will be hard-pressed in 2011 to secure funding for growing needs, especially as individual and foundation donors are cautious about boosting support and other sources of funding — including government contracts for services — are cut.

"Younger, less well-established nonprofits have been especially hard hit by the recession," noted Lawrence T. McGill, vice president for research at the Foundation Center. "Many foundations, seeking to maximize more limited resources, have steered their grantmaking toward organizations they believe have the best chance to weather the economic storm."

Other Key NRC Survey Findings:

• In four of eight subsectors, the share of organizations reporting an increase in contributions was about the same as the share reporting a decrease. The four with nearly equal percentages of organizations with giving up and giving down are: arts, education, environment/animals, and human services.
• International organizations were the most likely to report an increase in contributions, reflecting donations made for disaster relief.
• In three subsectors — health, public-society benefit, and religion — a larger share of the organizations reported declines than reported increases.
• The larger an organization's annual expenditures, the more likely it reported an increase in charitable receipts in the first nine months of 2010 compared with the same period in 2009.
• Most organizations were guardedly optimistic about 2011. Forty-seven percent plan budget increases, 33 percent expect to maintain their current level of expenditures, and 20 percent anticipate a lower budget for 2011.

The Collaborative and Survey Methodology

By working together, the Nonprofit Research Collaborative can reduce the number of surveys nonprofits are asked to complete, collect information more efficiently, and analyze it in more useful ways to create the benchmarks and trends that nonprofits and grant makers use to guide their work. Each partner has at least a decade of direct experience collecting information from nonprofits on charitable receipts, fundraising practices, and/or grantmaking activities. Survey participants will form a panel over time, allowing for trend comparisons among the same organizations. This approach provides more useful benchmarking information than repeated cross-sectional studies.

The first NRC survey, based on questions that GuideStar used for its annual economic surveys, was fielded between October 19 and November 3, 2010. It received 2,513 responses. More than 2,350 charities completed the questions, as did 163 foundations. The analysis for grant makers includes responses from charities that make grants but that are not foundations. These include United Ways, Jewish federations, congregations, and a number of other types of organizations. There were responses from 386 grant makers.

The respondents form a convenience sample. There is no margin of error or measure of statistical significance using this sampling technique, as it is not a random sample of the population studied. However, given the long-running nature of GuideStar's economic surveys and the strong relationship between findings in those studies in prior years and actual results once tax data about charitable giving are available, the method employed here is a useful barometer of what charities experience and what total giving will look like. In the future, the NRC surveys are expected to occur in early winter, spring, and fall every year.

"The Nonprofit Fundraising Survey: November 2010" (PDF), which includes responses broken down by types of nonprofits and budget size, can be downloaded at no charge from the Gain Knowledge area of the Foundation Center's web site.

Guest view: Alliance fosters community knowledge that can help us grow

The OD offered the following Guest Viewpoint from the Community Foundation's Peggy O'Shea:

In 2009, The Community Foundation of Herkimer & Oneida Counties, Mohawk Valley EDGE and United Way of the Valley and Greater Utica Area decided to invest in community knowledge.

Over the course of several conversations, we realized that we all had a great need for information about our two-county area. The three organizations began working together under the name Leadership Alliance for a Vital Community (LAVC).

Rather than conduct separate studies, we collaborated on a community indicators project with full support from our respective boards. For this project the Center for Governmental Research (CGR), a leading indicators consultant, collected data in the areas of arts and culture, demographics, economy, education, financial self-sufficiency, health, housing, public safety, technology and transportation. In October 2009, we were joined by more than 100 community leaders who reviewed the indicators and provided us with insight and guidance. This project is meant to benefit their work, too. The information gathered is now available at www.hocindicators.org, and has the potential to be a powerful tool for all of us to use on behalf of the community.

The most frequent question asked about this project is, “Why?” The short answer is that each of our organizations can use the information in the project to inform our work, but there is a more valuable investment. We live in a community that examines itself often – an important collaborative health study was recently released, and we can all think of others. These studies are wonderfully detailed in their particular area, yet they do not always provide an overall picture. A community indicators project provides a broader snapshot of our overall quality of life. Read more here.

Leadership Alliance for a Vital Community (LAVC) Launches Community Indicators Website

Representatives from the Leadership Alliance for a Vital Community (LAVC) introduced a new website and the results of its community indicators study recently at a gathering of over 60 Oneida and Herkimer county organizations.

The website, www.hocindicators.org, provides a statistical snapshot of issues in the two-county region and creates county-level data benchmarks that the community can use to establish shared goals toward increasing the region’s economic viability and sustainability. Indicators measured included the economy; education; health; public safety; housing; arts and culture; transportation; and technology.

LAVC is a partnership among The Community Foundation of Herkimer and Oneida Counties, Inc.; Mohawk Valley EDGE; and United Way of the Valley and Greater Utica Area. Formed in 2009, its purpose was to undertake a community indicators study to obtain an overview of the area’s most pressing needs and opportunities for positive change. Data was collected, processed, and analyzed after a six-month study by the Center for Governmental Research (CGR). CGR, of Rochester, N.Y., also developed the website.

CGR demonstrated to participants how they can use the website and data to further the missions of their organizations and practical applications for the data at this morning’s workshop.

Herkimer County health stats need work

Herkimer County ranked 41st for health outcomes and 43rd for health factors of the 62 New York counties surveyed as part of a study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and conducted by the University of Wisconsin's Population Health Institute.

The rankings place the county barely above the bottom third in terms of mortality and morbidity rates, and in the bottom third when it comes to such factors as health behaviors and clinical care.

Health behavior rankings are based on community statistics for tobacco use, diet and exercise, alcohol use and unsafe sex. Clinical care rankings are based on statistics for access to care and quality of care, and includes statistical measures of the number of uninsured adults, primary care providers, preventable hospital stays, diabetic screenings and hospice use.

While health outcomes and health factors are considered to be the two "biggest" rankings, Public Health Director Dr. Gregory O'Keefe said the biggest concern is a last place ranking for clinical care.

This ranking shows that 17 percent of Herkimer County's adults are uninsured, compared with 15 percent across New York, and that the county has 33 primary care providers, or a rate of 52 per 100,000 of population, which is below the state average of 148 doctors per 100,000 of population.

The ranking also shows that 12 percent of county residents utilize hospice, against an average of 21 percent across New York, and that the county had 100 Medicare hospitalizations per 1,000 Medicare enrollees, compared with 78 hospitalizations per 1,000 enrollees across the state. Read more here.