GRANTEE: California Coalition for Youth AMOUNT: $15,000

TCWF PROGRAM DIRECTOR: Gary L. Yates

GRANT START DATE: 11/01/2002

CONTACT ADDRESS:

1220 H Street, Ste. 103

Sacramento, CA 94510

TELEPHONE: (916) 340-0505 FAX: (916) 340-0510

E-MAIL ADDRESS:

The Foundation wants to know about your accomplishments toward achieving the grant’s objectives, any changes there have been since your original proposal, any challenges you have encountered, and how you have addressed them. In order to maximize our learning, we would appreciate your most candid response. Please complete the reports and submit them to the Foundation by the dates listed below.

NARRATIVE AND FINANCIAL REPORTS DUE (with reporting period covered):

08/30/2003 Narrative Final Report (Comprehensive)

08/30/2003 Financial Final Report (Comprehensive)

For FINAL REPORTS Only Please Include an Executive Summary (single-spaced, no more than 1 page). Briefly describe the purpose of the grant, what was accomplished, lessons learned to date, and next steps/implications for your future work, or any pertinent information.

1. What did CCY accomplish?

The grant was provided to help offset unexpected reductions in the general operating funds for the California Youth Crisis Line. The purpose of the funds was to provide assistance for replacing some of the outreach and promotional funding that was cut by the State of California, to increase the elements in place for greater volunteer trainings, involvement and commitment; and to help develop avenues for replacement funding in an effort to keep the Crisis Line operational in the future.

We were successful on many levels and simply would not have been able to achieve what we did without this supportive funding. However, we were not able to return the Crisis Line to full operations as the State cuts were too great, and we are still in the process of finalizing sustained future funds.

The specific accomplishments for each of the identified areas are as follows:

GENERAL OPERATIONAL SUPPORT: The loss of funding ($210,000 in total or over 65%) would have resulted in massive reductions in the number of calls that we could have fielded on the Crisis Line. We projected a reduction of about 8,000 to 10,000, or down from 25,000 to around 15,000. As it turned out, those numbers were quiet accurate and last year’s total number of calls were down to about 12,000.

However, the combination of new, temporary funding (including this grant of $15,000) ultimately allowed us to replace nearly $175,000 of the $210,000 that was cut. This allowed us to begin raising our services once again to a higher level of operation at the same time that we started doing the other elements of this grant (increasing outreach and training more volunteers and seeking more stable future funding). Thus, in a slow, gradual process over the period from November 2002 to June 2003 we incorporated your donation and others from Haigh-Scatena and the California Workforce Investment Board as they became available. Unfortunately, these funds were not adequate to make up the entire loss and were only temporary. Plus, the Workforce Investment funding was not even finalized until June 2003 for expenditure in that same fiscal year, making it very difficult for implementing a precise planning and spending effort.

While it is not possible to identify all precise impacts from a grant of this nature (since it was part of a larger effort to stabilize our general operations), we do know that during the period when the grant was being utilized, the numbers of monthly calls that had initially fallen from about 2,000 per month to about 700-900 began a steady rise until it achieved a rate of about 1,000 or so calls per month by the end of the fiscal year with progressive growth still happening. Thus, we believe that your funding contributed to stopping and ultimately reversing the downward spiral of calls as we initiated a number of efforts (including an awesome growth in our volunteer component!) bring the Crisis Line back to full capacity.

Thus we were very pleased with the impact your grant provided and do believe that it achieved the first goal quiet clearly.

VOLUNTEER TRAINING AND RECRUITMENT: Prior to the loss of funding, the Crisis Line had already begun the process of seeking more volunteers, but that effort was immediately stopped with the budget cuts and would not have continued without your financial support. Our training process requires a substantial commitment of time and energy (50 plus training hours and 4 to 8 guaranteed hours of service each month by each trained volunteer), and so it takes a lot of work to find the right kinds of people and to get then up to speed on our listening and referral model. At the time of the budget cuts we were averaging about 400 to 500 hours of service annual by volunteers. This came from a pool of about 12 to 15 regular volunteers with about a 30% turnover rate.

In our last update (covering through August 2003), we were generating approximately 1,800 hours of volunteer time (actual, not just committed) per year, or a tripling of the numbers prior to our work. This originated from a pool of close to 35 regular volunteers (a 100% growth rate), who were culled from a larger group of nearly 100 volunteers who received training or screening to meet our minimum qualifications.

This growth has been tremendous on both counts. However, it has not been easy. And we are still in the process of determining how to successfully distribute these volunteers across our 24-hour operational spectrum to ensure that we have volunteers during as many hours of the day as we can. Right now, paid staff deals with almost all calls in during early business ours (8am until 2 pm) and during the graveyard shift of midnight until 7am since volunteers usually have other life expectations during this time. We expect to be able to spread this prime coverage (3 pm until midnight) as we continue in this successful endeavor, and we are examining ways to make more than 50% of the online hours volunteer controlled.

A copy of the August report has been attached.

SECURING ADDITIONAL FUNDING: One of the most important elements of this grant and our ongoing struggles has been finding a regular source of funding to replace the State general funds that have long been the bedrock of the Crisis Line.

During the period of crisis covered by this grant, as noted above, we lost $210,000 and replaced it with $173,000. The breakdown of funders during this period was a follows, with the “new” funds being all of those below the State General Funds:

• State General Funds $127,000 (down from $338,000)
• Federal OCJP Discretionary $100,000
• Haigh-Scatena $25,000
• California Workforce Investment Board $25,000
• California Workforce Investment Board $5,000
• California Wellness Foundation $15,000
• Mendocino County Youth Project $2,000
• Other Small Funders $1,000

The movement from one basic funding source to these many funders was quite a challenge. We had to modify our reporting and financial systems to generate reports, and we had to make a variety of modifications in our allocation processes as the new sources were added over the course of the year. This fiscal effort was more difficult than anticipated and did result in us overspending for the agency as a whole.

The reason that we were able to achieve this diversified funding was because the Crisis Line has a tremendous history of agencies and supporters in communities throughout the State. Plus, as a result of several of the new funding obligations, we undertook new efforts to solidify our relationship with targeted community projects. For example, in exchange for the federal discretionary funding we worked directly with child abuse and neglect programs and shelters, ultimately signing a number of Operational Agreements for ongoing cooperation. Similarly, in exchange for the funding provided by the Workforce Investment Board, we surveyed and provided outreach materials to more than 400 local One-Stop Center and their youth councils throughout the state. Samples of these materials are attached.

Also, for the agencies that count upon the Crisis Line for referrals of young people, we also solicited letters of support for our use in securing other funding from the State and private foundations. We received quite a few, and have attached about 50 samples.

While the purpose of most of these efforts were to comply with the specific grant or contract requirements of the individual funders, we also utilized these relationships to lay the groundwork for future funding possibilities. We used the result of these efforts to develop grants for companies such as UPS and Starbucks to reach out to homeless youth, while we likewise prepared a detailed application for federal funds to better serve targeted immigrant youth populations (Southeast Asian youth). We also prepared detailed and short request for funds to the Walter Johnson Foundation and the Hearst Foundations, in addition to writing a number of general letters of intention to about 10 other potential foundations based upon their expressed interest in youth mental health concerns.

None of these foundations registered any interest due to the statewide nature of the Crisis Line or other concerns about the project complying with their guidelines.

The bulk of our other efforts were at the same time centered on developing contracts with other state agencies to off-set the funding lost via OCJP and to give us adequate opportunity to continue pursuing other means. We developed specific discussions about a wide-range of alternatives with the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, the Department of Mental Health, the Department of Social Services, the Governor’s Task Force on Homelessness, the California Department of Education and the California Workforce Investment Board.

As of this date, none of these efforts have secured any definite contracts either due to budgetary concerns.

2. What did we learn?

We learned first and foremost that when people begin to really examine the work of the Crisis Line that they are literally amazed at what we have accomplished. The fact that we were able to touch secure funding from so many sources quickly the first time was quite a testament to the role that we play in the lives of California’s young people. Thousands and thousands of young people who call about a wide range of topics. And that these youth clearly get much out of this, as we have heard from the people we talk with who know of people who relied upon the Crisis Line.

We also learned that we should have diversified the funding many years before. While we had (and have) strong relationships, the enormous pressure caused by the current fiscal reality is much greater than anyone anticipated, and the pain has just begun to set in. If we had started several years earlier we could well have strengthened the Crisis Line and more fully integrated it into other projects, such as we have now gotten started with the Workforce Investment Board and the state’s child abuse and neglect programs. By not having done this, however, we were not in as strong of a position as we could have been in when the economic pressure really started to grow.

The tremendous increase in the number of volunteers we utilized also taught us about the potential of this element to our project. Historically, it was very difficult to get the number of volunteers needed. But we concentrated on other outreach approaches and have been very successful. But we also learned that volunteers alone would not be sufficient. Running a project like this 24 hours per day requires a strong, core, paid staff. We were forced to reduce that staff before the volunteer component was fully established and that resulted in unnecessary delays and obstacles.

3. How were the grant dollars spent?

The grant monies were spent in the same categories as identified in the original budget. However, it was determined that we would spend a greater percentage of the funds on our direct volunteer and outreach efforts, including to increase the numbers of outreach materials we printed in an effort to establish that the Crisis Line remained available. Thus we spent only about half of the projected costs for salary and increase the printing proportionately. However, at the same time, we also had to invest a greater percentage of the funds for bookkeeping, financial record keeping and related costs that fell into our administrative indirect expenses (but which remained below the 15% level). The remaining costs were generally consistent with those we projected.

Attached is the required budget detailed report.

4. Is there a product from this grant?

We printed additional copies of existing materials for outreach, but did not create these products. The only other products created where the correspondence and materials used to generate greater volunteerism and our collaborative relationships. Attached are samples of these items.

I hereby certify that this report, including any attachments, is accurate to the best of my knowledge, and that our organization, as Grantee, remains in full compliance with the terms of the Grant Agreement Letter regarding this grant.

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Authorizing Signature Organization

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