Oregon 211

OR 211 Board of Directors

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Call to Order

Meeting was called to order at 9:10am at the Oregon Office of Emergency Management in Salem.

Attendance

Jeri Shumate, 211info (Portland Metro Area), Chair

Roy Spurgeon, UCAN (Douglas County), Vice Chair

Len Hockley, White Bird Clinic (Lane County), Treasurer

Stephen Guntli, Oregon CCR&R Network

June Harris, United Way (Lane County)

Julie Massa, Oregon Food Bank

Kathleen McHarg, Multnomah County Aging

Jimi Smith, Community Action (Washington County)

Tom Page, Consultant

Board members information

A brief update was provided on Wendy Elverdinghe’s successful surgery.

Approval of Minutes

The January 30th and March 6th, 2007 minutes were reviewed. No corrections were noted.

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Julie moved that the January 30th and March 6th, 2007 minutes be accepted as submitted. The motion was seconded by Len and passed unanimously.

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Approval of Financial Report

The Treasurer’s report for the period from 7/1/06 through current was presented. Jeri explained the increased amount of income in “Board and Friends Donations” includes one pledge which has not yet been received. It was noted that Wendy has not had an opportunity to ask the CADO Board for additional funding due to her recent health issues.

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Jimi moved that the Treasurer’s report be accepted as amended. The motion was seconded by Roy and passed unanimously.

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As Jeri explained to the Board in her 2/14/07 email, the 211info Board has approved a matching grant of $5,000 to OR211. This grant is to be made available to OR211 upon its successfully securing an additional $10,000 in committed funding no later than March 31, 2007. Jeri noted that we are currently only $900 away from reaching the $10,000 goal, but only have a few days left in which to raise the funds. She felt the 211info Board would probably be willing to grant us a two week extension if necessary.

OR211 Board officers

Two changes in Board officers have recently come up. Roy will be retiring and will not be able to continue as Board Vice Chair. He will bring his replacement to the April board meeting for introductions. Wendy would like to continue on the OR211 Board, but will not be able to continue in her capacity as Board Secretary. Jeri proposed that we generate a slate of prospective officers for discussion at our April meeting, and voted on the slate of officers at the May meeting.

Statewide thinking

Jeri asked that we clarify what OR211 can do to support the regional efforts and call centers. Three areas of support were identified: 1) legislative support, 2) technical assistance, and 3) generation of funding.

Roy indicated they continue to be dissatisfied with ServicePoint and would support changing to another I&R software. Also, the legislative support would be a key area of support for their area.

June felt that re-addressing the OR211 recommended software selection would be helpful as Lane County would like to align its regional system with the statewide system.

Key meeting updates

Jeri, Stephen and Tom met on Monday the 26th to discuss what preparations are needed to get ready for requesting funds from the State Legislature. They determined we need to build a plan outlining what is up and running, and what areas need further development.

Joyce White, Grantmakers of Oregon & Southwest Washington

Jeri and Tom recently met with Joyce as an introductory step. Joyce understands and supports the need for 211. She was impressed with Tom, and felt that hiring Tom is what OR211 needs at this time. She indicated now is the time to get back to funders like the Ford Family Foundation, Meyers Memorial Trust, Oregon Community Foundation, etc. She felt we need to develop relationships in the business and emergency response communities. A few potential contacts are Duncan Wiese, President of The Business Alliance, Bill Thorndike with Medford Industries, and John Gray who is an individual with ties to the Oregon Community Foundation. Tom mentioned the importance of connecting to the emergency response community due to the recent focus on homeland security.

Joyce suggested looking into legacy projects we could initiate in 2009 during Oregon’s sesquicentennial. Sue Densmore was identified as a possible contact.

We discussed Joyce’s suggestion about gaining validation by partnering with Portland State University’s School of Social Work for data research. She further suggested we connect with One Economy-The Beehive.

Tom will contact Sue Mazio regarding the best approach for a funding request at the Boeing Employees Community Fund. Julie may also have a contact there – Mike Whitehead. She will give his contact information to Tom for follow-up.

Len asked about partnering with the Red Cross. Tom mentioned the Red Cross has a national directive to work with 211. We discussed the structure and feasibility of partnering with the Red Cross.

Jan Kennedy, Murdock Trust

Jan was not very encouraging due to their past experiences with Idaho, but our relationship with Joyce White and recent progress may improve her Board’s perspective. Stephen suggested we develop a one page, two year plan and send it to Jan within the week. It would give her time to think about OR211 and begin to work with her Board.

Ellen Lowe and Kay Sohl

Jeri and Tom hope to catch Ellen briefly between sessions. Nothing is expected to happen in this session, and they feel OR211 needs to pay for the services of a lobbyist. Julie has been encouraging others to include 211 (by name) success stories in their testimony. It was suggested we contact John Mullin, and Stephen mentioned he knows of a few funders who pay for lobbyists.

Jeri has scheduled a meeting with Kay Sohl on April 13th so she can meet Tom and they can update her on OR211 activities.

Kenn Allen re: Strategic Planning

Jeri reviewed Kenn’s history and involvement with 211. She has scheduled a meeting for the afternoon of April 24th in Portland.

Mary Hogan re: Database Development

Jeri gave a brief rundown of Mary’s background. Mary recently resigned from her position as Vice President of the Connecticut 211 which is a statewide system including CCR&R, Maternal & Child Health, etc. Jeri is trying to schedule a meeting for the afternoon of April 25th. Jimi will be reactivating the Technology Committee. Since the recommendation that OR211 use ServicePoint was made almost three years ago, we would like to conduct a new the database selection. We would like the Tech Committee to meet with Mary to discuss the best process for this future database evaluation.

Jeri mentioned 211info will be moving to the UCN phone system. They are having a meeting to discuss conversion by June 30th of this year.

Next steps discussion

We need to begin creating community relationships and identify mission relationships. Stephen feels we need a current two year plan that includes:

1. Advocacy – in the form of hiring a lobbyist.

2. Preparing for statewide 211.

3. Providing assistance for the current 211s.

4. Fundraising to include a) private sector seed funding to work with the plan and get the statewide effort off the ground, b) start working in ’08 in order to take a funding request to the legislature in ’09, c) OR211 must be ready and established as the entity to manage the federal funding prior to its arrival, and d) support local efforts to acquire and sustain local funding. Seed money would be used to hire a full time director and a .5FTE admin assistant. In order to show our readiness to manage federal funds, we need to prepare a funding formula. We may need to use 211info data resources to make a case to support local efforts in acquiring sustainable funding.

Brainstorm item: The funding community has its own taxonomy. Maybe we could find the common ground between the I&R taxonomy and the funding community’s taxonomy to create pertinent data for the funders.

Julie indicated that data is quantitative, and that we also need to include the qualitative piece which would be the client stories. We all need to work on gathering those stories.

Tom felt we should be clear about exactly what 211 can do. For example, the fact that 211’s phone number is listed on all the electric bills does not mean 211 can give everyone money to pay their bills.

Jeri mentioned clarifying the marketing message to avoid incorrect messaging as we heard about at our last meeting (the opinion column written by Rene Mitchell for the Oregonian).

Stephen felt we need a realistic picture of what we can do to prepare for statewide 211. He felt we are in a good position to do a one page, two year proposal (one project/one service) and disburse it to everyone.

Jeri mentioned a potential new model for the more rural areas. This model uses a “one stop” approach with community health, CADO, CCR&R, mental health and aging and disability resources all sharing resource and call center duties while maintaining their particular specialization and keeping the services locally focused.

211 needs to be presented as the means to a more effective coordination for service delivery. We need to identify existing models to share. We also need to find agencies open to exploring partnerships starting with statewide groups such as mentioned above. These groups should have statewide help lines and a functioning network. These groups should be open to new modes of service delivery and would be good candidates for the one page, two year plan.

We need to develop and communicate a role for 211 in disaster, and we need to be clear and maintain the focus on OR211’s mission.

Mission Statement Discussion

We need a mission statement that incorporates:

- An understanding that every Oregonian can dial 211 at any time to get help

- Creates support for 211 network

- Educates and gains support for 211

- Develops a unified system

- Coordinates and collaborates

- Is a channel/conduit for resources and awareness

- Technical resource for 211s and possibly other I&Rs

- Explores and develops partnerships for more effective and efficient service delivery

Board Development

We need to give some thought to statewide organizations that should be included. Kay Sohl may be able to provide a list. We determined we are not at a point where we need to include particular entities due to their area of expertise (lawyer, human resources, fiscal, etc) yet.

Contract Development for Consultant

Funding is nearly completed in order to offer Tom Page a contract. The Board needs to empower 211info to draft a contract for Tom’s services.

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Katleen so moved. The motion was seconded by Roy and passed unanimously.

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The Board’s next meeting will be April 25th from 9am to noon at OEM in Salem.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:00pm

Respectfully submitted,

Jimi Smith, Interim Secretary