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Fact Sheet |
Leadership |
| Impact Summary »
Please note: this Investment Summary represents
VPP's perspective at the time of the investment agreement, September,
2002.
In September, 2002, Venture Philanthropy Partners entered a multi-year
investment partnership with the Center for Multicultural Human
Services (CMHS), a dynamic mental health and social service organization
that is serving thousands of refugee and immigrant families in
Northern Virginia by helping them become full participants in
American life. VPP will provide up to $2,750,000 in total funding
over a four-year period and provide significant non-financial
support to augment this funding, bringing VPP’s total funding
for CMHS to $3,005,000 (VPP provided $255,000 to CMHS for comprehensive
planning in 2002). The non-financial support will include strategic
management assistance; the leverage of VPP’s investors,
board, advisors, and other contacts; and direct engagement in
initiatives such as the development of information systems. This
funding is contingent upon CMHS’s achievement of agreed-upon
milestones (outcomes, outputs, and organizational accomplishments)
and the continued validity of the key assumptions upon which this
partnership has been based.
OPPORTUNITY
The VPP investment partnership will help CMHS achieve its
vision to be recognized locally, nationally, and internationally
as a leader in helping at-risk children and families from
low-income and diverse cultural backgrounds overcome the
obstacles that prevent them from achieving healthy functioning.
CMHS hopes to expand its services to benefit significantly
more children and families; refine its model for services
to at-risk children from multicultural backgrounds to achieve
greater effectiveness and impact; and provide consultation
and training services to help to adapt and replicate its
model regionally, nationally, and internationally. More
specifically, the CMHS vision for 2007 includes:
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Increasing the number of children receiving
extended developmental services from a current 785 children
annually in Northern Virginia to 2,500 children annually
throughout the National Capital Region, including establishing
new branch offices in Montgomery County, MD; Washington,
DC; and Herndon VA. Without VPP's support, the expected
growth would likely be approximately 1,300 children and
only one branch office.
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Deepening the level of services received
by children to ensure that larger numbers transition from
“at-risk” levels to “thriving”
instead of movement only to “vulnerable” or
“stable” status. This will involve developing
outcome measures for all services provided and the ability
to produce research data documenting intervention/treatment
effectiveness.
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Providing consultation and training to
professionals in the US and abroad on the CMHS model of
services for at-risk children from multicultural backgrounds,
including development of well-defined, replicable therapeutic
interventions to help children traumatized by displacement,
war, or abuse achieve their full potential. This would
serve not only as a revenue-generating activity, but also
as a way to fill the gap regionally for children unable
to receive direct services from CMHS.
In summary form, CMHS's milestones for the first 18-month
period of its VPP partnership are:
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Outcomes: Produce a significant, measurable
improvement in the lives of 1,650 children.
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Outputs: Serve a total of 10,350 individuals
in the DC region and train 900 individuals to provide
more effective services to culturally diverse children
and families.
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Organizational Accomplishments: Strengthen
management, board, outcomes assessment, fund development,
and information systems.
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Pressure point for change:
The Washington metro area has become one of the top destinations
for immigrants to the US/ The diversity of the immigrants
in the area is the greatest in the nation. The majority
of this flow has been to the suburbs, with more than two-thirds
of the population growth (750,000 people) in the last
20 years in Northern Virginia alone attributed to immigrants
and their offspring. The emotional and environmental problems
many of these children face and their resulting inability
to succeed have created an environmental pressure point
for change. Culturally appropriate services to low-income
children and families that represent a variety of ethnic
backgrounds and cultures are limited in the region. CMHS
fills a critical gap by providing services to a large
number of low-income, cultural minority populations and
by specializing in mental health and developmental work
with these children and families.
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Leadership, management, and
staff: CMHS has the leadership and staff
to take the organization to the next level. The executive
director, Dennis Hunt, built the organization from six
employees with a $200,000 budget to its current size.
His leadership and vision have drawn an outstanding group
of professionals, highly regarded in the community. The
members of the first-class multicultural staff at CMHS
speak 30 languages and over half have advanced graduate
degrees, many in clinical and child psychology. Thoughtfulness,
dedication, and adaptability characterize the leadership
team and staff. They have demonstrated performance in
their work and have the organizational foundation to build
a stronger, more sustainable organization.
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Demonstrated performance
and proven model: Administrators from the
schools in which CMHS provides services describe CMHS
staff’s unique ability to deal with the difficult
issues faced by children who experience the trauma of
displacement, war, or gang violence. In the words of one,
having CMHS to help students work through these issues
helps teachers to focus on instruction and children on
learning. While children in the school-based program and
in the Child and Adolescent Clinical Program receive pre-
and post-tests tracking a child’s progress, CMHS
has not had the resources to develop an evaluation system
to rigorously demonstrate its model. An indirect measure
of its performance is the reputation it has eared in the
community for its services. In fiscal year 2000/2001 It
was voted Outstanding Nonprofit of the Year by Leadership
Fairfax, voted Outstanding Volunteer Program of the Year
by Volunteer Fairfax, featured by Washingtonian
magazine as one of 16 agencies that use donated funds
well, and recognized for outstanding services to the community
by AYUDA in Washington, DC
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Receptivity:
The CMHS leadership exhibits openness to and eagerness
for the VPP high-engagement approach, recognizing a strong
need for organizational capacity development and an interest
in business management practices. The newly appointed
board chair brings a business background to the organization.
It appears CMHS would benefit from and leverage a partnership
with VPP.
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Reputation and position in
community: CMHS is recognized in the community
as uniquely positioned to help at-risk multicultural children
overcome obstacles that prevent them from developing their
full potential. It is a trusted agent within the community
it serves. In a recent series of testimonials, representatives
from a range of agencies dealing with immigrants or mental
health issues all consistently praised the outstanding
services provided by CMHS for children from low-income,
multicultural backgrounds.
USE OF FUNDS AND SUPPORT
VPP’s funding and non-financial support is
aimed at helping CMHS strengthen its organizational capacity,
allowing CMHS to increase its scale and improve outcomes
for the clients it serves. Specific areas of focus include:
Capacity
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CMHS will put in place the organizational
leadership to effectively execute its mission and vision.
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CMHS will create a board that is recognized
as highly effective by its peer organizations and by effectiveness-awards
groups.
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CMHS will put in place the information
systems and outcomes measurement processes to ensure that
its services are of high quality.
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Through management and technology improvements,
CMHS will become a model of nonprofit cost-effectiveness,
allowing it to utilize a high percentage of its revenues
for client services.
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CMHS will put in place the funds-development
capability and cash reserves to ensure its long-term sustainability.
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The excellence and distinctiveness of
the work done at CMHS will become widely recognized, allowing
the agency to attract the funds needed to maintain and
expand its service capacity.
Accomplishing these infrastructure-improvement goals will
permit CMHS to:
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Produce replicable, evidence-based interventions
demonstrating a significant, measurable improvement in
the lives of 6,800 children.
- Provide access to critically needed, culturally appropriate
mental health, educational, and social services to more
than 28,000 children and adults in the metropolitan Washington
area.
-
Train more than 4,500 individuals to
apply evidence-based, culturally appropriate intervention
strategies to more effectively serve vulnerable, ethnically
diverse children and families.
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Implement an outcomes measurement system
to monitor and improve the effectiveness of the interventions.
Reputation
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CMHS strives to become one of the most
prestigious and sought-after placements for graduate student
interns and externs around the country.
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CMHS strives to be recognized for playing
a major role in solidifying the reputation of the Greater
Washington region as a model multicultural community.
INITIAL PLANNING PHASE
The initial planning phase began in March 2002, with the
formal planning effort lasting from March 8, 2002 to June
18, 2002. McKinsey & Co. led the effort in conjunction
with a planning team made up of CMHS board members, CMHS
staff, and two VPP representatives. A staff working group
helped provide information for the effort. In the planning
phase, CMHS:
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Reviewed its current internal and external
situation;
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Revisited its mission, set aspirations,
and defined strategy;
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Identified priority initiatives and resources
required; and
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Developed an implementation plan and
communicated findings.
The planning effort included planning-team meetings, board
reviews, interviews, site visits, and focus groups and entailed
hundreds of hours of collective working time. The planning
team enthusiastically embraced the planning effort, discussed
and resolved very difficult issues, and now CMHS Executive
Director Dennis Hunt and the entire CHMS team “own”
the plan. The full board has participated in the planning
effort and supports the plan wholeheartedly and understands
the intensity of effort it will take to accomplish the ambitious
goals it has set.
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