Despite Good Deeds, Public Service Groups Must Hustle for Funds

The last few weeks have been touch-and-go for Chilton Alphonse and his dream of ending the violence and drug use that have ravaged the South-Central Los Angeles area.

To raise the funds that will keep that dream alive, the director and founder of the Community Youth Sports and Arts Foundation, a nonprofit, anti-gang group, has appeared on a network television special, testified at county supervisors’ budget hearings, held press conferences and gotten tennis elbow from working the phone.

But he is not sure if he will be able to make this month’s payroll.

His conversation is peppered with possibilities:

“(City Councilman Nate) Holden has said he will put forth a motion to supply emergency funds for us. The AIDS Project L.A. has contacted us and will probably purchase two public service announcements for $25,000, probably in the next two months. The (state) attorney general’s office has released a final payment for our BAAD (Black Artists Against Drugs) spots. We have submitted grant proposals to United Way, the Xerox Corp., the city and the feds. The funding process is constant.”

Kind Heart Not Enough

For hundreds of nonprofit social and human service groups, the pursuit of funds--the lifeblood of such organizations--is a frustrating and often fruitless endeavor. In the scramble for limited resources, it is not enough to have a bright idea, a compassionate heart or a good cause.

There are more than 72,000 nonprofit organizations in California providing services ranging from child care and job training to counseling for troubled youth and victims of child abuse. They have a combined annual budget of more than $20 billion, according to the state Registry of Charitable Trusts.

They are created at a rate of nearly 6,000 a year, but nearly 2,000 go out of business each year for various reasons, most often because they cannot maintain funding, officials say.

While federal, state and local governments are contracting with private organizations for more and more services, changes in the system have hurt small, community-based groups the most.

“One of the major factors is the retrenchment in spending,” said Jennifer Wolch, an associate professor of urban and regional planning at USC.

“There are far fewer dollars for social spending at the federal level and at the state level since the passage of Proposition 13 and large organizations have an advantage because they have more resources. For many of the smaller, newer, more marginal groups, all energies can go into managing the funding crisis and the cause can take a back seat.”

At the same time, agencies that assist nonprofit organizations are demanding more accountability.

Los Angeles County, for example, will require a more stringent accounting system for grant holders beginning next year. Rather than reimburse organizations for the costs of providing a service, as is present policy, they will be paid on the basis of how well they provide that service.

Susan Widman, division chief for Los Angeles County’s Community Services Division, said the change is part of a general trend toward fixed-price contracting as a way to ensure that “citizens are getting services on the best possible terms.”

As a result, it is more important than ever that organizations know the rules of the funding game if they are to survive.

“It’s becoming more and more a professional endeavor,” said Clifford Lum, special projects coordinator with the California Community Foundation, a nonprofit philanthropic organization that manages more than $84 million in assets.

Competing for Money

“Nonprofit organizations now see themselves competing for money as for-profit companies compete,” Lum said. “They have to become very sophisticated about their public image, their finances. Small groups are not used to that.”

Even groups with good fund-raising track records face uncertain prospects.

“The (fund-raising) environment is more difficult . . . and agencies will have to develop stronger ties to the community and diversify funding sources. It’s the only way we can count on surviving,” said Stewart Kwoh, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California.

The center, which opened in 1983 and is the only legal aid program devoted to the Asian/Pacific Islander population in Southern California, was begun to fill a need for legal services when government aid was drastically reduced, Kwoh said.

Funded in the beginning with small church donations, the center now has three attorneys, nine staff members and an annual budget of $500,000, secured primarily through foundation grants, an annual fund-raising dinner and an amnesty program run with the First United Methodist Church.

However, the amnesty program, which provides $150,000 of the budget, mostly through small fees and church funding, may not survive, Kwoh said. “We don’t have any definite sources to replace that (money)” if the amnesty program ends, he added.

The Asian Pacific center now finds itself seeking more government funding.

Funding Support Shrinks

“But we also know there is tremendous competition for those funds,” Kwoh said. “At the same time, while government resources have been getting smaller, groups previously reliant on that funding are seeking more private support, which is also shrinking. . . .”

Alphonse may have an advantage over other groups--in Los Angeles alone there are at least 45 anti-gang agencies--in the pursuit of funding. He describes himself as a “hustler who will go out and get money and not wait for it to come to me.” He first became involved with the gang problem in 1979 when, shortly after his return from an overseas stint in the Navy, he was chased at gunpoint by a gang member because he used the word “blood.” In the 1960s and early 1970s, the expression was slang for a black person, but has more recently come to identify one of Los Angeles’ most violent gangs.

Alphonse and his program are well-known in the community and among local and state lawmakers. The program, which offers counseling, parenting classes, computer training and other educational classes, has assisted more than 500 young people since its founding in 1985.

“It’s a very worthwhile organization that’s doing a lot of good in the community,” said H. Randolph Moore, a Superior Court judge assigned to the Juvenile Justice Center. Moore said he has referred many youths to the foundation.

“His program is a broad-based one that attempts to cover many problems that teens have, not just one aspect of the problem. Chilton is a little outspoken. He makes people mad and steps on toes. But he’s doing what he has to do to support kids.”

The Community Youth Sports and Arts Foundation produced a series of public service announcements aimed at minority youth featuring such celebrities as Bill Cosby, Stevie Wonder and Run DMC in a campaign against drugs, gangs and AIDS, and has held an annual celebrity basketball clinic attended by stars like Magic Johnson and James Worthy.

There are currently more than 60 young people attending alternative high school classes at the foundation’s office, a two-story building on Crenshaw Avenue that includes a computer room and a gym. Behind the office, the group also owns a house with comfortable if utilitarian furniture donated by Pacific Bell. Young people can stay there temporarily.

Seeking Money

While his staff works with the young people, Alphonse spends his time haunting the halls of city and county government, in search of money.

Like most smaller nonprofit groups with no permanent, stable source of funding, the youth foundation has serious cash-flow problems.

With a staff of eight full-time employees and a payroll of about $9,000 a month, Alphonse estimates that his group is about $35,000 in debt. He has survived primarily through loans, about $40,000 from the Brotherhood Crusade, a community-based charitable organization, and a $50,000 bank loan.

Alphonse had submitted a $154,000 proposal for a city human service grant to tide him over until the city’s next funding cycle in January. Instead, he was recommended for a six-month, $60,000 grant retroactive through June. He has asked Councilman Holden to carry a motion to raise the amount to $100,000 but Holden’s aides say no decision has been made and, so far, no money has been allocated.

Although the foundation received a $100,000 county grant two years ago, a $500,000 proposal for a job-training, counseling and education program aimed at “at-risk” youth and their parents, was denied for 1988-89 because there was not enough money.

Another proposal for county funds was rejected because the presentation of objectives in the proposal--not the objectives themselves--received a low score, said the county’s Widman.

“It is a system of judging that I have never understood and probably never will,” Alphonse said. “It is hard for groups like mine because you need a professional to come in and write a proposal. They can cost $1,000 per proposal and even then it’s not guaranteed you’ll get funded.”

The group has now hired a part-time staff member who handles only grant proposals.

“Many groups are challenged by having to put together a decent proposal,” Lum said. “It requires long-range planning, financial and administrative abilities. A lot of groups may have great ideas but if there is no one who they can call on to implement them properly, then their survival is put in doubt.”

Alphonse is also soliciting money from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors’ discretionary fund. Aides to Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Kenneth Hahn said both will consider allocating $40,000 for the group.

Red Tape a Factor

Even if the funds are approved, budgetary delays and bureaucratic red tape mean it will be months before the group sees any of it.

“I can’t handle it, I’m under so much pressure, just hoping and praying something happens quick,” Alphonse said. “What do I tell my people? How do they eat if they can’t be paid. The sad thing is, my agency is one of the ones that is better off.”

Consider, for example, the plight of the Committee for the Rights of the Disabled, a tiny agency of four paid staff members housed in run-down offices in the Mid-City area for which it pays $1,700 a month in rent.

In 1987, the organization provided counseling, advocacy and consumer services for more than 1,000 disabled people. Its entire budget--about $78,000--is funded through a city grant, said Odessa Wilson, president and chairwoman of the group’s board of directors.

But the staff has not been paid since June because the city has yet to release funds allocated to the group, Wilson said.

“It’s the same situation each funding cycle,” she said. “It’s a real hardship. Sometimes we barely keep our heads above water.”

Wilson said the group’s application for county funds was denied because of an “inadequate” proposal. It has had no better luck in securing corporate grants. “It’s always a lot of nice words in the beginning, but then it’s ‘sorry, we’ve already given all we had to give,’ ” she said.

The organization has started selling buttons and bumper stickers to raise money.

There are a few sources that nonprofit groups can turn to for temporary help.

The Emergency Loan Assistance Fund, a joint project of the California Community Foundation and United Way, makes loans to groups that have a secured funding commitment but face delays in receiving money.

$600,000 Fund

The fund was established six years ago with grants from a number of banks, nonprofit agencies and corporate foundations and now has a principal working base of about $600,000, said Lum, the fund’s manager.

While lauding Alphonse’s dedication and his foundation’s programs, Lum said an emergency loan request was denied the group because of concerns about its administrative management.

But Alphonse sees himself caught in a cycle common to many smaller groups:

“I agree 100,000% with (Lum). I’m the first to admit the group has many areas of weakness. But how do I attract good administrators without having the money to pay them?” he asked.

Lum said small community groups must learn to depend more on private and corporate funding if they are to survive.

It is a lesson that the foundation is beginning to learn, Alphonse said. The group now has at least 10 proposals out for corporate and business support. The Xerox Corp. has given the group a $25,000 grant, three computers and pledged four more and a Xerox district manager is chairman of the foundation’s board of directors.

“If there is a message I could get across to other small community groups it is that they need to establish a strong working relationship with a neighborhood bank and solicit the business community,” Alphonse said. “We’re in bad shape right now, but without that support, I don’t know if we’d be here today.”