Minutes: January 22, 2008

Minutes of the Board of Directors, The Special Hope Foundation

After receiving proper notice via e-mail on September 10, 2007, a quorum of the Directors named either by the Incorporator or listed in the Articles of Incorporation, constituting the Board of Directors of this Corporation, held their meeting at this time, on the day, and at the place set forth as follows:

The following Directors, constituting a quorum of the full Board, were present at the meeting:

• Lynne O’Hara, President
• John O’Hara, Vice-President
• Ed Hoskins, Secretary
• Mary Wilson, Treasurer
• Carrie Jones
• Tracie Sloat (via speaker phone)

MINUTES APPROVED

The first order of business involved the review of the minutes from the previous Board Meeting on September 25, 2007. All reviewed and accepted the minutes.
 

Review of Existing Business

Updates from Previous Grantees

• Oak Hill – we funded a sex education program at Oak Hill.  They included a write-up on Special Hope in their News Brief.  Their program is still under development, and will be ready to launch in complete form in June of 2008.  We also received a preliminary report that included the results of the pilot program from last summer.  It included a graph with pre-test vs. post-test results, and it showed that every single participant improved.  They also presented their program to the annual conference for duly diagnosed as well as some other groups.  In their initial survey of possible programs, they had anticipated a larger response.  This showed that their biggest challenge was getting people interested.
• Community Mainstreaming Association – This is the group who were setting up a bakery.  They sent us a press release, and they are close to starting the remodel of their store space.
• Special Olympics Connecticut – we funded the production of a dvd which is now complete.  They sent us a version of the video via an e-mail attachment.  Once we receive the DVD, we will be able to view it in a future board meeting.  They are trying to appeal to a national audience, so it’s not clear where the DVD will be shown.
   

Committee Reports

Communications Committee – Lynne O’Hara

• The new iPhone has been great, it allows her to work wherever she is, and has become a great organizational tool.  It turns out that due to changes at the current facility, that she would have had to change her number anyway, so the timing was good.
• The iMac is all set up, and she is able to run most of the business on the mac side, and just Quickbooks on the Windows side.  The only thing left is to automate the backup procedure from the Windows side.
• Some work has been done to tighten up our word choices on the website.  This should help site visitors understand exactly what we do, and should take care of many of the repetitive questions that come in.

Finance & Investments Committee – Mary Wilson

The budget vs. actual report has the largest variance that we have ever had.  This is mostly due to timing issues with the liquidation of stock that occurred in December.  The investments are doing very well, so there are no concerns there.  Grant spending was lower than planned for, but was due to the decision that was made in the last meeting to hold some of the grant spending for this meeting.  The computer purchase was also not expected to happen at that time.

We continue to move towards our goal ranges, but we are not there yet.  We also looked at our grant distributions to date.  WE have $800,000 budgeted for this year, and we will need to grant an amount close to that number.  If we were to grant everything that is on the schedule for the year, it would equate to $876,000.

Grant Review

The board was asked if anyone has any personal connection to any of the following organizations: County Education Foundation of Santa Clara County, Hope Technology School, Kidpower-Teenpower-Fullpower, Pacific Diversified Services, St. David’s Child Development & Family Services, Tetra Society of North America, The Arc of San Francisco, The Arc of the Farmington Valley, and Youth in Arts.  Mary works for Hope Technology School and will recuse herself from the discussion and vote on their proposal.

County Education Foundation of Santa Clara County
Lynne met at one of their projects, so she got to see some of the work they do.  It was difficult to figure out exactly how this group is made up, but after digging for clarification, she was able to get a sense of what they do.  The organization is largely volunteer, and they don’t actually have office space, which explains why they have no “overhead” numbers listed in their financial information.  Their members are concerned citizens who both donate their services and fund programs.  Since this group is a fundraising entity, our donation will pass through them to the inclusion collaborative, a project of the Education Department of Santa Clara County.  One matter of concern, is that they didn’t provide very complete budget reports.  On the other hand, they do have other donations from very reputable sources.

Since we need more complete information before moving forward, we will request more documentation from the collaborative directly…since it will actually be their program that the money will be used for.  This will help us draw a better financial picture.  This information needs to include:

• What kind of entity is the collaborative?
• What are their revenue numbers?
• Why aren’t projects reported on the 990?

A motion was made to fund the County Education Foundation of Santa Clara County for $40,000 contingent on receiving the documentation that we will request, and was unanimously approved by all who were attending.

Hope Technology School
The school has never looked better.  Encouraging because things were shaky in years past.

A motion was made to fund the Hope Technology School for $100,000, and was unanimously approved by all who were attending.

Kidpower-Teenpower-Fullpower
The goals seem huge for how much money they are asking for.  These guys are great.  Lynne got to see this one in action.  It makes so much sense. 

A motion was made to fund Kidpower-Teenpower-Fullpower for $25,000, and was unanimously approved by all who were attending.

Pacific Diversified Services
Our previous concern with this group is that the number of people who would benefit from the grant was low (23) and that this didn’t seem like much impact.  The program director assures us that expansion is an important goal for them.  She does such a great job, we just wish that the program could be expanded.  She has lost some of their prior funding, so she’s trying to expand her fundraising.  We need to make the point that they can’t depend upon us as an ongoing revenue stream.

A move was made to fund Pacific Diversified Services $24,000, was unanimously passed by all present.

St. David’s Child Development & Family Services
This program has been going on for 40 years.  At first look it seemed really good, however we discovered that there was no training and no evaluations.  The inclusion is innovative, but what they are requesting is really archaic.  These things should be standard.  One third are special needs or children with behavioral challenges.  It doesn’t seem particularly innovative.

A move was made to not to fund St. David’s Child Development & Family Services which was unanimously passed by all present.

Tetra Society of North America
We were unable to establish this organizations tax-exempt status.  We have the original letter of determination, but we can’t get verification of tax exempt status.  It looks like they may have lost it at some point and the home office was unresponsive to our request.

A move was made to not fund the Tetra Society of North America was unanimously passed by all present.

The Arc of San Francisco
This program really can change perceptions.  The director has seen many parents hold their kids back by not letting their kids participate in events like school dances, their program will help change this common occurrence.  Although they haven’t done a great job with evaluation materials, it looks as though they have begun working on that.  The total budget for the documentary is $55,000.  Most compelling thing is that Arc nation wide would get access to this.  Plus 3 public screenings.  It’s possible that the documentary will also be available on the web.

A move was made to fund The Arc of San Francisco for $50,000, was unanimously passed by all present.

The Arc of the Farmington Valley
In this region, the public recreation department will allow a person with a disability to enroll in one class per quarter with an assistant.  They are trying to get more inclusive recreation programs without the restrictions.

A move was made to fund The Arc of the Farmington Valley for $35,000, and was unanimously passed by all present.

Youth in Arts
We love this one.

A move was made to fund Youth in Arts for $20,000, it was unanimously passed by all present.  100%

New Business

Next meeting date:  May 13, 2008 (with the following date set for September 23, 2008)

Adjournment

There being no further business to come before the meeting, upon motion duly made, seconded and unanimously carried, the meeting was adjourned at 8:07 p.m.

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Lynne O’Hara, President

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Ed Hoskins, Secretary