Kinman speaks out
Further bolstering her claim to the most revered position of 'My Favorite Athens-Clarke County Commissioner,' Alice Kinman was kind enough to exchange emails - and thoughts and ideas - with me regarding ways to get more out of shrinking Community Development Block Grant funds, as well as the local community's responsibility to work for the common good.
In my email to her, I asked Kinman if she felt frustrated sometimes that sense of community seemed to be lost, and she responded:
As you can tell by my rather equivocal comments quoted in the ABH, I'm not at all sure that we haven't lost our sense of community and commitment to one another. It is my great hope that we have not and that a budget discussion about increasing the amount of General Fund money that goes to public service agencies will flush out the
philanthropist in us all. As Jim Wallis likes to say, a budget is a moral document.
The reality these days is that we've gotten used to funds from state and federal levels to take care of our local needs. But these funds are shrinking at an alarming rate, which pushes the responsibility for paying for these needs down to the local governments. What else can we do but find ways to address them? A federal tax cut does not cut down on the number of poor people. What it does mean is that we have to find the will to take care of our own on our own. Or else ignore the problem, face a diminishing quality of life, and move ourselves and our children into gated communities. OK, maybe that last phrase sounds a bit apocalyptic, but that's what it feels like.
I raised the point made in the Banner-Herald article concerning the fact that 20 percent of CDBG funds go to administrative costs for HED, and asked Kinman to explain why those costs were higher and how much that impacted the use of our funding:
As for administrative costs, I do think, from conversations with a number of people who work for a variety of non-profits, that we could realize some savings by consolidating our efforts. Take affordable housing, for example, which has at least five major agencies involved, all of which get some CDBG funding. All do very good work, but all need different types of accounting and reporting. You have Athens Land Trust, for example, which renovates homes and tries to keep them affordable by keeping the land in trust - only the house is sold. Then you have East Athens Development Corp which builds infill, but allows owners eventually to benefit from the increased value of their homes when they are sold.
Athens Housing Authority has a similar program but, if I understand it correctly, must account for and report their "proceeds" or "income" differently. I think there's a good argument that we need all three programs, but perhaps all of them need to be guided by a larger community-driven affordable housing strategic plan. I don't think we really know, for example, what the future affordable housing needs of our community are. How many units do we need? How many should be targeted to single-family owners? How many to rentals? How many should be permanently affordable? How many should be earmarked for creating future wealth through equity? Also, should ACC govt be doing something more direct and pro-active to encourage developers to include affordable housing when they build? You see the complexity.
Both Kinman and I work with the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Athens, and we've both seen the ups and downs of fundraising. Charitable giving, by its very nature, is a peculiar beast and it's difficult (though not impossible) for any organization to base its long-term needs on the fluctuations of private giving. As a result, particularly during the beginning stages of many non-profits, they turn to CDBG funding to get their feet on the ground. Unfortunately, many of them non-profits become entrenched in the funding and often feel entitled to the same percentage of funding year after year. The Banner-Herald article said that 10 local agencies have received CDBG funding every year for the past 20 years. I asked Kinman, first, if she thought this was a problem particular to this community and if the difficulties in private fundraising helped feed into the entrenchment:
I don't know the answer to your third question, and it's a good one. I'm willing to bet that it's not a problem exclusive to us. Athens is unique, but not that unique.
Raising private funds is very difficult, and the more agencies we have asking, the harder it gets. Donors can get donor fatigue. HED has put a great deal of work into their long-range planning, engaging a large number of citizens in a needs-assessment process that basically sets out what the needs are, prioritizes them, then comes up with strategies to address them. But of course this is only one funding source, and they are bound by the HUD priorities of housing (esp. home-ownership) and economic development. This leaves out so much - healthcare, addiction treatment, academic support, scholarships, services for the chronically homeless, etc., etc.
I have high hopes for the poverty initiative currently underway to give us a way to talk about all these needs and then coordinate efforts, including fundraising efforts, to address them. When I did my taxes for this year, I was a little surprised by all the little checks I wrote to various organizations. Of course this number was tiny compared to all the organizations I didn't write any checks to. Would it be easier for me just to write a monthly check to a single
organization that doles out money for all these needs? Yes, but only if I had a great deal of confidence that that organization understood our local needs from a grass-roots level. I'm glad to see that you bloggers are promoting the poverty initiative, and I hope you'll continue to do so.
I like Kinman's idea of exploring the ways to use our local budget to assist local agencies which help the community. These are local organizations which aren't government-run, but rather community driven non-profits that are on the front-lines of the fight against poverty and disease and addiction day-in and day-out. Such innovative thinking is essential, and that's what I like the most about Kinman.
It seems to me that she sees the big picture. Whether it's her work to develop a master sidewalk plan or this initiative, she's looking for long-term solutions which bring all of the community's players to the table. For that, she is to be commended.
And let me thank her for taking some time to share her vision and ideas with us.
In my email to her, I asked Kinman if she felt frustrated sometimes that sense of community seemed to be lost, and she responded:
As you can tell by my rather equivocal comments quoted in the ABH, I'm not at all sure that we haven't lost our sense of community and commitment to one another. It is my great hope that we have not and that a budget discussion about increasing the amount of General Fund money that goes to public service agencies will flush out the
philanthropist in us all. As Jim Wallis likes to say, a budget is a moral document.
The reality these days is that we've gotten used to funds from state and federal levels to take care of our local needs. But these funds are shrinking at an alarming rate, which pushes the responsibility for paying for these needs down to the local governments. What else can we do but find ways to address them? A federal tax cut does not cut down on the number of poor people. What it does mean is that we have to find the will to take care of our own on our own. Or else ignore the problem, face a diminishing quality of life, and move ourselves and our children into gated communities. OK, maybe that last phrase sounds a bit apocalyptic, but that's what it feels like.
I raised the point made in the Banner-Herald article concerning the fact that 20 percent of CDBG funds go to administrative costs for HED, and asked Kinman to explain why those costs were higher and how much that impacted the use of our funding:
As for administrative costs, I do think, from conversations with a number of people who work for a variety of non-profits, that we could realize some savings by consolidating our efforts. Take affordable housing, for example, which has at least five major agencies involved, all of which get some CDBG funding. All do very good work, but all need different types of accounting and reporting. You have Athens Land Trust, for example, which renovates homes and tries to keep them affordable by keeping the land in trust - only the house is sold. Then you have East Athens Development Corp which builds infill, but allows owners eventually to benefit from the increased value of their homes when they are sold.
Athens Housing Authority has a similar program but, if I understand it correctly, must account for and report their "proceeds" or "income" differently. I think there's a good argument that we need all three programs, but perhaps all of them need to be guided by a larger community-driven affordable housing strategic plan. I don't think we really know, for example, what the future affordable housing needs of our community are. How many units do we need? How many should be targeted to single-family owners? How many to rentals? How many should be permanently affordable? How many should be earmarked for creating future wealth through equity? Also, should ACC govt be doing something more direct and pro-active to encourage developers to include affordable housing when they build? You see the complexity.
Both Kinman and I work with the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Athens, and we've both seen the ups and downs of fundraising. Charitable giving, by its very nature, is a peculiar beast and it's difficult (though not impossible) for any organization to base its long-term needs on the fluctuations of private giving. As a result, particularly during the beginning stages of many non-profits, they turn to CDBG funding to get their feet on the ground. Unfortunately, many of them non-profits become entrenched in the funding and often feel entitled to the same percentage of funding year after year. The Banner-Herald article said that 10 local agencies have received CDBG funding every year for the past 20 years. I asked Kinman, first, if she thought this was a problem particular to this community and if the difficulties in private fundraising helped feed into the entrenchment:
I don't know the answer to your third question, and it's a good one. I'm willing to bet that it's not a problem exclusive to us. Athens is unique, but not that unique.
Raising private funds is very difficult, and the more agencies we have asking, the harder it gets. Donors can get donor fatigue. HED has put a great deal of work into their long-range planning, engaging a large number of citizens in a needs-assessment process that basically sets out what the needs are, prioritizes them, then comes up with strategies to address them. But of course this is only one funding source, and they are bound by the HUD priorities of housing (esp. home-ownership) and economic development. This leaves out so much - healthcare, addiction treatment, academic support, scholarships, services for the chronically homeless, etc., etc.
I have high hopes for the poverty initiative currently underway to give us a way to talk about all these needs and then coordinate efforts, including fundraising efforts, to address them. When I did my taxes for this year, I was a little surprised by all the little checks I wrote to various organizations. Of course this number was tiny compared to all the organizations I didn't write any checks to. Would it be easier for me just to write a monthly check to a single
organization that doles out money for all these needs? Yes, but only if I had a great deal of confidence that that organization understood our local needs from a grass-roots level. I'm glad to see that you bloggers are promoting the poverty initiative, and I hope you'll continue to do so.
I like Kinman's idea of exploring the ways to use our local budget to assist local agencies which help the community. These are local organizations which aren't government-run, but rather community driven non-profits that are on the front-lines of the fight against poverty and disease and addiction day-in and day-out. Such innovative thinking is essential, and that's what I like the most about Kinman.
It seems to me that she sees the big picture. Whether it's her work to develop a master sidewalk plan or this initiative, she's looking for long-term solutions which bring all of the community's players to the table. For that, she is to be commended.
And let me thank her for taking some time to share her vision and ideas with us.
posted by Jmac at 6:34 AM
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