From the Executive Director's Desk

Executive Director’s Report

June 3, 2010 Board Meeting

GOAL: MAINTAIN AND STRENGTHEN SUSTAINABILITY FOR UPHS

A. Research/develop new fee for services/products

· Our website is now configured to work with PayPal so we will be offering members online registration services.

· I am working on a proposed fee structure for offering fiscal management and evaluation services to members and non-members

· The Services page of the UPHS website is almost complete.

B. Seek grants/funding partners for new collaborative projects

· UPHS is working closely with the Certified Public Manger program and the Askew School for Public Administration on collaborative grants. We are actively searching for capacity building grants and other community outreach projects.

C. Generate money by sponsoring the professional training conference

· The two trainings held as part of the 2009/10 training series did not generate the level of participation we had hoped for at the beginning of the year. The Conference Committee, charged with overseeing the trainings, has decided to cancel the remaining trainings.

· I have been working with the Conference Committee on developing strategies for increasing participation in the conference. We are proud to have 40 people from Central Florida registered for the event.

· The grant money from the County has paid for the development and mailing of the conference registration form. Thanks to 2-1-1 Big Bend, the registration form will go out to approximately 500 local organizations.

D. Increase membership and retention

· The Membership Committee is working on developing an events calendar for 2010/11 that will involve more meetings of the general members.

· One of these events is an Orientation/Reorientation for members.

· The Membership Committee is also bringing back the CHSP Appreciation Day.

· The Membership Committee is working with John Milhous, a graduate student from Notre Dame, to collect information from the membership about what they value from UPHS. This will help the committee develop a strategy for member retention and recruitment.

· The Membership Committee will be requesting that the “Affiliate” category be removed and have all members as either Regular or Supportive. This will help in marketing membership to other nonprofits.

GOAL: TO FOSTER A COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENT AMONG ALL SECTORS OF THE COMMUNITY

A. Utilize conference to educate about the value of collaborations, teach how to collaborate and explore collaborative opportunities amongst community

· It was our hopes to partner with the Knight Foundation to offer a part 2 of the collaboration workshops in conjunction with the conference this year. However, with the reorganization of the Foundation that was not feasible.

· Joy Watkins has agreed to meet with the UPHS members, once all the criteria for the new Knight Funds have been established, to go over the process and criteria for those funds.

B. Examine new collaborative opportunities

· As mentioned earlier, I have been working with FSU’s Certified Public Manager Program and the Askew School of Public Administration on a collaborative effort to bring grants to this community. FSU has a grant researcher who will be searching for grants, specifically grants for capacity building. We would like to be able to use the grant we wrote together last year as a starting point.

C. Improve and utilize communication vehicles

· Below is a table of statistics for our website since January. As you can see, we are driving more traffic to our site.

Month	Unique visitors	Number of visits	Pages	Hits	Bandwidth
Jan 2010	236	484	2038	11619	318.47 MB
Feb 2010	356	742	2918	18450	535.79 MB
Mar 2010	462	968	5477	38225	1.07 GB
Apr 2010	695	1494	9185	57107	1.71 GB
May 2010	303	653	3174	21358	727.61 MB
Jun 2010	0	0	0	0	0
Jul 2010	0	0	0	0	0
Aug 2010	0	0	0	0	0
Sep 2010	0	0	0	0	0
Oct 2010	0	0	0	0	0
Nov 2010	0	0	0	0	0
Dec 2010	0	0	0	0	0
Total	2052	4341	22792	146759	4.33 GB

· UPHS now has a public relations intern named Anyea Debose. She is a junior at FAMU and has already created a press release and marketing plan for the conference. She has also taken over the Facebook page so we can start having a more dynamic page.

· UPHS has a Twitter account which is utilized to update members on Commission decisions pertaining to CHSP funding.

· UPHS is working on securing a broadcast intern. The original intern did not work out due to a scheduling conflict.

GOAL: ADVOCATE WITH A UNIFIED VOICE TO IMPROVE THE DELIVERY OF HUMAN SERVICES IN THE BIG BEND

A. Maintain and support strong active advocacy committee with effective leadership and member agency commitment. Promote non board member participation on this committee, as well as other UPHS committees.

· I worked with the Advocacy Committee to develop a survey to help us identify key points to be addressed at our candidate forum this summer.

· An email went out several months ago to solicit non-board member participation on the UPHS committees.

B. Have the Advocacy Committee work on identifying the proposed message and public agenda for adoption by the board at the beginning of each year.

C. Develop training in effective policy advocacy for member agencies (2010); incorporate mini training at membership meetings plus a more extensive training at other times

D. Continue candidate forums and increase attendance of candidates and membership

· The Advocacy Committee is working on hosting a candidate forum this summer.

· The Advocacy Committee distributed a survey asking members to submit questions they would like to have answered at the Candidate Forum and to rank the general category of hot issues according to their priority.

· UPHS will be hosting a Candidate Forum on July 8^th at 6:00 p.m.

E. Explore linkages with other human services coalitions around the state.

· This idea has been explored but needs to be discussed further with the board.

GOAL: TO STRENGTHEN MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS

A. Communicate formally - every month

· In order to reduce the number of email sent out on the listserv, I have started sending emails out on Friday with meeting reminders and other pertinent information.

· A template for an e-newsletter has been developed. I tried using it for the week of April 2^nd but ran into technical difficulties with the format. The format is being adjusted and will hopefully be ready to use for a May newsletter.

· UPHS has been sending out a Friday e-news email which includes important meeting dates and fundraising events around the region.

B. Engage members in face-to-face, personal venue – quarterly

· The Membership Committee held a social event for new members and new Executive Directors in December.

· The Membership Committee is working on developing a calendar of events.

· The Membership Committee has secure Joy Watkins to speak to the membership about the new criteria for the Knight funds.

· The Membership Committee has completed the calendar of events for the 2010/11 year and will distribute it at the Annual Membership Meeting.

C. Build the capacity of member agencies

· I am working on a proposal for the City to help UPHS engage in more capacity building for its members.

· The Membership Committee is working on hosting a workshop on how to conduct a good CHSP presentation.

D. Annual training conference

· The UPHS board recommended that we engage in peer to peer circles. We finished the peer learning circles that were required by the CEY grant and the participation was minimal. There is not much interest in these meetings.

E. Partnerships

· It was recommended that UPHS start mentoring businesses. This idea needs to be explored more with the board.

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