Minutes of the Board of Directors, The Special Hope Foundation

After receiving proper notice via e-mail in December, 2010, 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:

TIME: 7:16 pm
DATE: January 11, 2011
PLACE: Special Hope Foundation Office,
2225 E. Bayshore Road, Suite 200,
Menlo Park, CA 94303

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

  • Lynne O’Hara, President
  • John O’Hara, Vice-President
  • Tracie Sloat
  • Via Skype
    • Carrie Jones

Excused:

Mary Wilson, Treasurer
Ed Hoskins, Secretary

Minutes Approved

The first order of business involved the review of the minutes from the previous Board Meeting on September 21, 2010. All reviewed and accepted the minutes.

Review of Existing Business

Old Business

  • The Special Hope attorney who specializes in non-profit law audited our articles of incorporation, by-laws and processes. She specifically reviewed by-laws and to be more in line with a typical non-profit agency.  The SHF Board moved and adopted the updated by-laws with the typo corrected as given to us.   
  • The by-laws of the Special Hope Foundation stipulates six board members, but the board must acknowledge and agree when to grow the board and THEN elect board members.

Updates from Previous Grantees:

  • Kids included together – San Diego recreation programs are now more inclusive.  Also the Department of Defense approved disability training on military bases worldwide.
  • Miracle league of Blair County – sent photos of their new ball field.

Committee Reports

Report from Communications Committee – Lynne O’Hara for Ed Hoskins

  • The new SHF website went live online November 1, 2010.  It is now receiving hits from around the world!  The SHF blog on the site has comments from all over.  The SHF is going to a completely online, paper-free grant system ready by March 1, 2011 complete with the new grant cycle on the new system. 
  • Features on the website include “Foundant” technologies – which goes beyond our previous online pre-application.  We will have very few hard-copy letters, etc going out.  That is now all automated and collected in a database from here on out.  This means Lynne’s archives will shrink.
  • At the next SHF meeting in May 2011, the board will receive a demo because each board member will have a piece of it.  The board can rate the proposals and provide a comment online.

Report from Communications Committee – Lynne O’Hara for Mary Wilson

  • Investment report:  The important bottom number of portfolio/corpus size is now $13 million!  We have regained a good amount from our 2008 losses, especially from our low of $11 million.
  • SHF will begin the process of looking for a Board member to serve as treasurer.
  • Expect the SHF annual financial report in May, maybe September.
  • Update on Grant Budget to Date:   The SHF spent $240,000 in September – right on target.  Now that the SHF is going paperless it was decided to go to two grant cycles instead of three this year.  SHF will have no grants in May to consider (because there is no process yet – a short lag time), but there will be important business to discuss nonetheless.
  • The SHF is legally obligated to spend $50,000 this year and that mark has been reached already. Total budget = $650,000 but it doesn’t all have to be used.

Grant Review

The board was asked if anyone has any personal connection to any of the following organizations:Connecticut Association of Schools, Hope Technology School. No one had any connection or had been contacted by any of these organizations

Connecticut Association of Schools:  Model summer camp program based on their Unified Sports Model created by Special Olympics of Connecticut.  The Unified Sports program has expanded and very positive.  Passes unanimously – $28,000

Hope Technology School: Three years of general operating support to strengthen their current program — $100,000 per year for three years.  This is in part to cover expenses for publishing a manual on using assistive technology. ISAAC – International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication – the School needs to get someone certified.  SFSU has a specialist and lab to get certified.  The OTs and speech pathologists need this certification especially.  Have to be careful not to be perceived that HTS is going in a direction that is not professionally credentialed.

NEW!! Major corporate partnerships to start a website (where HTS was massively promoted) “Autistic Hackers” — a go-to site for finding technologies available for autistic children.  This is a national program that they will push.  $100,000 approved unanimously.

New Business

ARC of San Francisco – NO:  $10k – database solution so they can measure health outcomes.  One of the concerns is that the ARC is not really a health care provider and they are not a licensed medical facility.  Where does their responsibility end and others’ begin?  But no one else is taking responsibility (especially the Regional Center who is SUPPOSED to take responsibility).  Legal concerns as to whether they could collect this info re HIPA requirements.

Development Disabilities Conference In March 2011:  Surgeon General will be attending conference.  Great opportunity for SHF to promote a great event.  We considered giving them more to help create a better conference can replace the frills that they may have dispensed with previously.

$20k requested. — $50k approved.

 BOARD RECRUITING:  Losing a few board members and now is a tremendous opportunity to re-shape the board with more clinicians.  Recruiting and board elections are scheduled for May.  We will lose two board members but hope to gain three:

Dr. Lucy Crain, MD
Treasurer
Secretary
Other

Use of Consultants:  Scan the field study.  Funders in the field of health care reform / provision for DD. Plus who are the experts in this field?  Good intro for partnerships and attracting larger funders to this area.  Interview between 40-50 people, quoted at $35k, possibly less.  Lynne has discretion to move forward and report back to the Board.

Development of a strategic plan– phase three – once we gather the funders scan and who are the experts then we use that information plus our resources, talents help us decide how to insert ourselves into this space.  Having someone with experience in the health care field help us sort out our priorities. Invest the money up front to help us be more effective in this issue area.

Conflict of Interest Policy. – updated signatures from all board members. We authorized the use of email as a method of notification.

Next board meeting May 17, 2011 at the Palo Alto meeting room.

Adjournment

There being no further business to come before the meeting, upon motion duly made, seconded and unanimously carried, the meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m. PST.

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Lynne O’Hara, President

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Tracie Sloat, Assistant Secretary