GILROY
– Faced with the grim prospect of treating only the desperately
needy, South County’s most comprehensive social service program is
stepping up efforts to land more private funding for next fiscal
year.
GILROY – Faced with the grim prospect of treating only the desperately needy, South County’s most comprehensive social service program is stepping up efforts to land more private funding for next fiscal year.
By Mother’s Day, Community Solutions will ask residents in Gilroy Morgan Hill and other South County communities via direct mail and face-to-face conversations, to dig into their pockets to help fund programs that reached 14,588 people last fiscal year. The effort is a partial solution to state and county revenue shortfalls, which in a worst-case scenario could have providers treating only the sickest of the sick or cutting some of the 20 programs the agency has established in recent years.
“We didn’t have to cut anything this year, but come July it looks like we’ll lose some funding,” said Erin O’Brien, the chief executive officer for Community Solutions who just last month was second in command. “What we’re absolutely committed to doing is preserving as many clients and services as we have now, but I’m very, very nervous.”
Community Solutions, which moved its headquarters from Morgan Hill to Gilroy less than a year ago, provides education and counseling services to youth, families and the elderly, including foster children and the mentally ill.
“We’re definitely stepping up the effort to get more individual donors, people who can give $25 to those who can donate thousands,” said Lisa DeSilva, director of community and resource development for Community Solutions. “Special (fund-raiser) events typically are not the way to go. We need to look at more individual donors at all levels. It’s something we’ve just been starting to cultivate over the last couple years.”
The agency does not have firm numbers detailing how much funding is generated by private donors now, nor has it set a specific fund-raising goal.
“Those are all things we’re in the process of putting together. Generally, foundations and private donors give smaller amounts over shorter periods of time. Government funds usually come in larger amounts over a period of several years,” DeSilva said.
Community Solutions typically sends out mailings asking for donations twice a year, but future mailers will now be followed by phone calls and face-to-face meetings with residents and business heads.
“We’re really going to step up those face-to-face requests,” DeSilva said.
Community Solutions, which operates on a $7.2 million budget, has weathered the storm of mid-year budget cuts at the state level.
County officials estimate they’ll now have to close a budget gap approaching $160 million, and it could be tens of millions worse depending on how the state deals with its massive $34 billion shortfall.
“It’s early enough in the process that nothing is set, but when they (the county) get cut, we get cut,” O’Brien said.
County officials and non-profit interest groups are working together, O’Brien said, to identify which cuts would harm clients the least.
“I’m living in budget meetings at this point,” O’Brien said. “No cut is painless, but we can try to find ways to make cuts that cause as little pain as possible.”
Meanwhile, Gov. Gray Davis proposed a massive shift of state health and welfare programs to local governments to be funded by raising taxes. But county officials and the state’s nonpartisan budget analyst have expressed doubt that counties would receive the amount of money they need to fully cover their assumption of those services.
To the horror of city and county officials across the state, Davis’ plan to balance the budget includes a proposal to strip local governments of $4.2 billion in key funding over the next 17 months by taking away money that is given to cities and counties to help cover revenues they lost when the state lowered vehicle license fees.
As Community Solutions ventures into more private funding opportunities, leaders of the five-year-old agency are dealing with two ironies.
First, the economic downturn that caused the government revenue shortfall also impacted the businesses and donors Community Solutions wants to approach. Even the stumbling stock market factors in, since wealthy businesses and individuals typically set up foundations which use interest earnings to make donations.
“There’s just less money out there, yet the demand for it has gone up,” DeSilva said.
The second irony is that demand for services from Community Solutions typically increases as economic times get tighter.
“When the economy tanks the need for services goes up. People are out of jobs, and along with poverty come a whole lot of other stressors that people start coping with,” O’Brien observed. “Families get stressed and a whole lot of dysfunctions pop out.”
Community Solutions was created five years ago when three groups – Discover Alternatives, South Valley Counseling and The Bridge – merged to form one social service super agency. Community Solution’s most prolific program is the education, intervention and prevention services for sexual assault. The program reached nearly 6,000 individuals in fiscal 2001-02.
Almost 2,000 first and multiple offenders use the agency’s drinking and driving program in lieu of jail time or as a condition of their parole. Another 432 people are part of the so-called restorative justice program which sets up, among other things, community service plans and prevention classes for juveniles. If the youth successfully complete their restorative justice plan, they can avoid detention in juvenile hall.
“We’re hoping to find individuals who believe in these services and want to step up to the plate to help the community,” DeSilva said. “A lot of times people do have the desire to help out, but often are not asked. We’re asking.”
For more information or to learn how to donate, visit www.communitysolutions.org or call 842-7138.
Staff writer Jonathan Jeisel contributed to this report.
