November 9 , 2009
The Community Action Partnership is in the
2009 Combined Federal Campaign.
Our CFC number for designating donations is 80371.
TO 150% POVERTY LEVEL
Before the U. S. House of Representatives passed its version of health care reform legislation, the Partnership—thanks to the incredible leadership by Families USA and U.S. Public Interest Research Group—joined with several major national advocacy organizations in advocating that Medicaid eligibility be expanded to serve more low-income people and families.
November 4, 2009
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable John Dingell
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Dingell,
We are writing to commend you for making extraordinary historic progress towards improving the health and economic well-being of low-income Americans in H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. The bill increases the Medicaid eligibility floor to a nationwide standard of 150 percent of poverty – about $33,075 for a family of four. This is one of the most significant contributions health reform can make. This measure will improve the lives of millions of low-income people who currently do not have access to affordable, high-quality health care they need and deserve.
Strengthening and expanding Medicaid fits within President Obama’s health reform framework of building upon and improving what currently works in our system. The program is specifically designed to serve low-income people by providing substantial limits on out-of-pocket expenses, a comprehensive benefits package and coverage protections that cannot be found in the private insurance market. In addition, it is cost-effective and has a proven track record in every state. Creating a nationwide Medicaid eligibility floor at 150 percent of poverty makes a profound statement about the value of this program and its ability to cover many of the nation’s uninsured.
Thank you for your passionate, effective leadership and continued commitment to low-income people. We look forward to working tirelessly with you to ensure that meaningful, comprehensive health reform becomes a reality this year.
Sincerely,
Alliance for Children and Families
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN)
American Public Health Association
Association for Community Affiliated Plans
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Center for Adolescent Health & the Law
Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc.
Child Welfare League of America
Children's Dental Health Project
Coalition on Human Needs
Community Action Partnership
Community Voices: Healthcare for the Underserved of Morehouse School of Medicine
Disciples Justice Action Network
Easter Seals
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Families USA
Generations United
Japanese American Citizens League (JACL)
Medicaid Health Plans of America
Mental Health America
MomsRising.org
National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys
National Alliance on Mental Illness
National Association for Children’s Behavioral Health
National Association of Community Health Centers
National Association of Social Workers
National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare
National Council of Churches USA
National Council of Jewish Women
National Health Law Program
National Hispanic Medical Association
National Physicians Alliance
National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness (NPACH)
National Spinal Cord Injury Association
National Women’s Health Network
National Women’s Law Center
NCCNHR: The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care
PHI-Health Care for Health Care Workers
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office
Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need
RESULTS
Society for Adolescent Medicine
The AIDS Institute
UJC / The Jewish Federations of North America
Union for Reform Judaism
United Neighborhood Centers of America
United Spinal Association
Voices for America’s Children
ON NONPROFIT BENEFITS SYSTEM
Last week, the “Listening Post Project” at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Civil Society Studies issued its “Retirement Benefits Communique,” which describes the growing financial problems and challenges facing the defined benefit plans offered by nonprofit agencies like Community Action Agencies. The report reaches three major conclusions:• Retirement benefits are especially important for nonprofit organizations as such benefits offer agencies a way to offset generally lower wages and to support dedicated employees and their families in the future.
• Both defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans are under considerable stress, especially given the recent decline in the value of an agency’s investments.
• To cope with these challenges, sizeable proportions of nonprofits are offering less generous retirement benefits and reducing the scope and scale of their plan’s coverage.The Community Action Partnership is proud to serve on the Steering Committee for the JHU Listening Post Project. Your agency is encouraged to sign up as a Listening Post participant (you’ll respond to 3-4 national surveys per year which will significantly help advance the missions and goals of nonprofits). There is no cost to be a Listening Post respondent, but agencies do have to enroll through Johns Hopkins University. For more information, contact Don Mathis at dmathis@communityactionpartnership.com
Escalating Pension Costs Hurting Nonprofits
Most nonprofit organizations offering retirement benefits to their workers report that these plans are under stress, according to survey results released today by the Johns Hopkins Listening Post Project.
Nonprofits offering “defined benefit plans” (plans with a guaranteed benefit) have been particularly hard hit, with 76 percent reporting that their plans are currently under stress and 43 percent reporting severe or very severe stress. Even those offering “defined contribution plans” (plans with investments controlled by the employee and no guaranteed benefit) have been affected, however, with 58 percent reporting that their plans are under stress.
As a result, organizations have been forced to reduce retirement benefits, scale back employer matches, end future benefit accruals, and deny pension coverage to new employees, or as a last resort, divert resources from program operations. Many smaller organizations have been prevented from offering pension benefits at all.
“Retirement benefits are especially important for nonprofit organizations because they offer a way to help offset the generally lower wages paid to nonprofit workers,” said Lester M. Salamon, report author and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies. “But, given the Pension Protection Act of 2006’s requirement that defined benefit plans have assets in place to cover the full cost of their outstanding benefit obligations, the recent economic crisis, by decimating the value of pension assets, has provoked a crisis for the thousands of nonprofits that offer such plans.”Other findings from the Johns Hopkins survey include:
• More than two-thirds (67 percent) of all survey respondents reported offering some type of retirement benefit plan to their employees. This appears to be higher than the proportion of comparably sized for-profit firms that offer such benefits.
• More than half (58 percent) of responding organizations offer a defined contribution plan for workers and about 15 percent offer a defined benefit plan. Because defined benefit plans are more common among larger organizations, the actual share of employees in organizations providing such plans may be greater than these figures suggest.
• Coverage of nonprofit workers is extensive: 69 percent of organizations offering defined benefit plans and 54 percent of those offering defined contribution plans indicated that at least half of their employees (including both fulltime and part-time workers) participate in the plans.To deal with the stress their retirement plans are under, responding organizations have had to make some painful choices:
Among organizations providing defined benefit plans:
• 28 percent reported prohibiting prohibited new employees from participation;
• 22 percent reported ending future benefit accruals for all participating employees; and
• Another 9 percent have blocked future benefit accruals for a portion of their workers.Among organizations providing defined contribution plans:
• 14 percent of those offering an employer match reduced that match; and
• Another 3 percent eliminated their match altogether.Among smaller organizations, those with one to 9 employees, the majority (58 percent) are not able to provide any retirement benefits at all.
“Nonprofit organizations employ the fourth largest workforce of any industry in our country,” noted Peter Goldberg, president and CEO of the Alliance for Children and Families and chair of the Listening Post Project Steering Committee. “We have to make sure that these workers have the protections they need to continue to make the enormous contributions they provide to our communities.”
The 412 nonprofit organizations responding to the Listening Post survey included children and family service agencies, elderly housing and service organizations, community and economic development organizations, museums, theaters, and orchestras.
The full report "Escalating Pension Benefit Costs—Another Threat to Nonprofit Survival?" is available online at http://ccss.jhu.edu.
The Listening Post Project is a collaborative undertaking of the Center for Civil Society Studies at the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Policy Studies, the Alliance for Children and Families, the Alliance for Nonprofit Management, the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, the American Association of Museums, Community Action Partnership, the League of American Orchestras, Lutheran Services in America, Michigan Nonprofit Association, the National Council of Nonprofits, and United Neighborhood Centers of America. Its goal is to monitor the health of the nation's nonprofit organizations and assess how nonprofits are responding to important economic and policy changes. Support for the Listening Post Project has been provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Surdna Foundation.
WEBINAR: Tax Credits Outreach:
Tips and Tools for Service Providers and Advocates
Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern
This year, tax credits are more valuable than ever for working families.
As service providers and advocates, you can make a big difference for families by making sure they get the information they need to claim valuable tax credits. Our free webinar training will give you information about simple and successful tax credits outreach activities that can have a major impact on working families. Sign up today at http://action.nwlc.org/taxcredittools.
This webinar will help you:• Get free outreach materials;
• Connect with local coalitions;
• Find free tax preparation services in your community; and
• Learn some successful techniques for spreading the word about tax credits.Register today at http://action.nwlc.org/taxcredittools. This online session is free to participants, but registration is required. We also would like to invite you to join our outreach campaign as an NWLC Community Partner. As a community partner, you will receive:
• Customized resources that make it easy to spread the word about tax credits to families in your community;
• Technical assistance on issues relating to tax credits and outreach activities; and
• Acknowledgement of your partnership on our website.Sign up to be a community partner at http://action.nwlc.org/communitypartner.
These webinars are part of the National Women's Law Center's Citi Education Series on Family Economic Security (http://www.nwlc.org/educationseries) and the Tax Credits Outreach Campaign (www.nwlc.org/loweryourtaxes).
EDUCATION & COUNSELING $$$
Thanks to Janet Topolsky, a valued colleague from the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group, for sharing this grant information. The RuFES (Rural Family Economic Success) Network is a project sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
KEEP IT and GROW IT
How can you better support prospective homebuyers in your community?Here is a new funding opportunity that can help your Keep It and Grow It activities. Through a new Financial Education and Counseling (FEC) Pilot Program, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund is making grants available for entities that provide a range of financial education and counseling services to prospective homebuyers.
Notices about this new program have been featured in many newsletters and alerts, so you have probably already heard about it. But we wanted to remind the RuFES Action Network that there is less than one month left to apply. The application for the Financial Education and Counseling grants is due on November 19!
The FEC Pilot Program grants will target these goals and activities:• increase the financial knowledge and decision-making capabilities of prospective homebuyers
• assist prospective homebuyers to develop monthly budgets, build personal savings, finance or plan for major purchases, reduce their debt, improve their financial stability, and set and reach their financial goals
• help prospective homebuyers to improve their credit scores by understanding the relationship between their credit histories and their credit scores
• educate prospective homebuyers about the options available to build savings for short- and long-term goals.In order to be eligible for funding, the applicant must be one of the following:• Community Development Financial Institution certified by the CDFI Fund
• Housing Counseling Agency approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Credit Union
• Governmental entity (State government, Local government or Tribal government)
• Collaborative effort of two or more such entities.Again, the FEC Pilot Program application deadline is 5:00 PM Eastern Time on November 19, 2009.
For more information, click HERE.
The Community Action Partnership is a “national partner” with the U.S. Census Bureau to help ensure that every resident in America is counted. Here’s info on a new website that you can use to help convince others about the importance of the 2010 Census.
The Census Bureau is working hard to reach every person living in America to inform them and their communities about the importance of the 2010 Census. As part of a comprehensive communications efforts we have launched a new Web site, 2010census.gov.
This Web site is the platform on which we can build a national dialogue about how each person's participation helps paint a new "Portrait of America."
Site features:• In the Marquee, hear real people from all walks of life and from communities across America express their questions about the Census and get the real answers.
• In the Whole Story, learn the truth behind census myths.
• In Top Questions, easily find answers to even more questions.
• "How It Works" explains the census and walks you through the 10 questions on the form that you will receive next spring.
• Information on key census dates is just a click away.
• The multimedia center (videos, photos and audio) shares with you peoples' stories about how the census is easy, safe, and important.Share this site with your family, friends and neighbors to spread the word about why the 2010 Census matters. The census is now in your hands.
Thanks to Dave Leyland, CCAP and Executive Director of the Community Action Partnership of Greater St. Joseph, Missouri, for sending in his compelling op-ed column on Community Action’s role in reducing poverty and promoting economic security in his four-county area. Great job Dave!
The Promise Fall 2009 issue is now availableHow are CAAs using federal ARRA funds (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) to help people and change lives? Find out in the Fall issue of The Promise magazine. Four CAAs highlight their efforts to use the funds to provide jobs, training, and food during these tough economic times. Also featured are a new Weatherization center in Louisiana, a Self-Help housing project in Maryland, and the HOPE Café in Ohio that trains shelter residents for jobs in the food service industry.
Also check out articles on the 2008 Census poverty numbers, 2010 Management and Leadership Training Conference, and how the Partnership is “going green” with the Administration’s Emerald Cities Collaborative.
Best of all, you can relive all the fun and excitement of the 2009 Annual Convention in honor of the 45th anniversary of Community Action.
Robert M. Coard, a charismatic immigrant from Grenada who united Bostonians from every neighborhood and many backgrounds during 40 years as president and chief executive of Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD, a Community Action Agency), died on November 3rd at the age of 82.
Mr. Coard officially retired after 45 years with ABCD. He was too ill to attend a retirement tribute held in his honor on October 30, during ABCD’s annual dinner.
About 1,500 people, including Governor Deval Patrick, attended and saw a 10-minute film featuring scenes of Mr. Coard’s decades spent fighting for social justice and education as paths out of poverty. “ABCD is a testament to Bob,’’ said John Drew, who worked with Mr. Coard for 40 years and was appointed as the new CEO of ABCD by their board of directors.
“Nothing else in the country is set up like this with so much community participation, and that was what Bob was all about. He loved politics, and he was good at it.’’ Under Mr. Coard’s leadership, ABCD helped countless individuals and families find housing, jobs, food, and heat. “Boston without Bob Coard is like the Public Garden without the swan boats,’’ said former Boston mayor Raymond L. Flynn.
Born in British-controlled Grenada, Mr. Coard was the son of a civil servant. He immigrated to Texas and attended Dillard University in New Orleans and later earned a master’s degree in sociology from Boston University. He was working on his doctorate in city and regional planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he was offered a job as a planner at ABCD and threw himself into the war on poverty.
“It is unconscionable!’’ he often said in speeches decrying the lack of funding for fuel assistance or food.
His wife of 32 years, Donna, said her husband was proudest of his work in fostering educational opportunities, specifically his role in helping launch the accredited two-year Urban College in Boston. “He had endless energy and passion,’’ she said. “He really had a wonderful understanding of the city and an appreciation of all the different cultures in the city. I used to look at ABCD in the early days, and I didn’t see any other institution in Boston where all races and people from all neighborhoods came together to do these wonderful programs. He understood that so well.’’
Drew said Mr. Coard enjoyed the challenge of keeping ABCD alive when political foes sought to weaken the agency. “He thrived on it,’’ Drew said.
Beyond his work, Mr. Coard loved the city and its cultural opportunities, his family said. He was a regular at Boston Ballet performances and spent his summers tending his garden at home. In addition to his wife, Mr. Coard leaves three sons and a daughter.
The Conference Brochure is now in the mail!
Watch for it!
Begin the New Year with in-depth learning and sharing of ideas with your colleagues. Our 2010 Management and Leadership Conference will take place at the New Orleans Marriott and will include sessions on Head Start, Green Jobs, Job Creation, Board Training, and the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act. Please visit our website regularly for more information as it becomes available.
Click here to download a pdf of the Conference flyer; click here to download
the Conference Registration Form.
Join now for 2010 and get the discounted membership rates!
Thank you for your great support and involvement in 2009. The year has been an exciting one and the outreach to other national organizations, foundations, and the Obama Administration has been stronger, effective, and positive! We need to have you standing with us this coming year as we undertake even greater partnerships and initiatives! Your agency membership is a critical force behind the Partnership's strength. Take a moment to renew your membership for the coming year.
The Convention special discounted rate is still available for the 2010 Community Action Partnership membership. Please get a "head start" on your benefits and services for 2010 - including discounted registration for the 2010 Management and Leadership Training Conference in New Orleans. We have not increased our membership dues for 2010 - and you will save on the rates if you respond by November 10th. Thank you!! If you have any questions about membership, please contact Sranda Watkins at (202) 449-9773 or SWatkins@communityactionpartnership.com
Click here to download the Early Membership form with the discounted rates!
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT EFFORT
The federal Office of Community Services (OCS, ACF, HHS) has awarded the Partnership with a 3 year grant to do a variety of economic development tasks involving Community Action. The Partnership is looking to hire an experienced project director for this effort. The job is based in Washington, DC. Your attention is requested to the job announcement below.
Project Director, Community Economic Development
Community Action Partnership is seeking a candidate with minimum 5 years experience in community economic development and 3 years experience with national level projects. Experience in Community Action or related field preferred. Must have strong writing, analytic, computer, and communications skills. Travel required, must work well under pressure. Bachelor’s required, Master’s preferred. This is a three-year grant-limited position. Send resume, writing sample, 3 references to Don Mathis, Community Action Partnership, 1140 Connecticut Ave., NW Suite 1210, Washington, DC 20036. No phone calls. Community Action Partnership is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
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