Newspapers / Philanthropy Journal of North … / March 1, 1997, edition 1 / Page 14
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Corporate Giving Philanthrq)y Journal of North Carolina A focus on kids Caring Program director looks to expand health-care program’s reach Judith McKay is the new executive director of the Caritig Prograin for Children, a Durham nonprofit that offers health insurance packages from Blue Cross and Blue Shield to needy chil dren in North Carolina. She joins the program after 16 years as president and chief executive officer of St. Joseph’s Villa in Rochester, a non profit mental health care provider. McKay, a Rochester native, also is a former member of the Sisters of St. Joseph and has experience as a community organizer in Brazil. JOURNAL: What’s new at the Caring Program for Children? McKAY: We have a new prescription drug pro gram that went into effect in November that’s real ly exciting. There was concern that we were insur ing kids whose parents would have a real challenge paying for prescriptions. The co-payment [for the new pharmacy benefit] is $5 and the limit is $1,000 annually. A team of people was put together to look Q&A at a core of medications that children would need. That’s elastic - we can add to it. We think we are linked up with approximately 95 per cent of the [drug] dispen saries across the state. So people are buying into this. JOURNAL: How did that program come about? Was it something that had been planned for a long time or something that arose just recently? McKAY: We do a parents’ survey to find out what parents of children enrolled in the program think about the benefits. So this had been on the minds of the board for some time. Judith McKay It was a good collaboration between the board interest and Blue Cross people interested in responding. 'They led the work on the product. JOURNAL: How many children are now enrolled in the Caring Program? McKAY: We’re now close to 6,000, which is about where we were at the turn of the year. We still have another 150,000 that are eUgihle to he enrolled. That number comes from a Duke study of [uininsured] children in the state that’s broken down by county JOURNAL: What are your priorities for the coming year for the Caring Program? McI^Y: To develop a systematic way to do enrollment. I really think we need to establish rela tionships with systems that are already connected to these kids. The key one for me is the schools. We’ve had a lot of meetings and gone to a lot of Look for MCKAY, page 13 Education support topic of summit Two hundred business, educa tion and government leaders have been invited to the 1997 North Carolina Business Summit for Education, which will he held March 20-21 in Research Triangle Park. The summit is being convened by Gov. Jim Hunt and Robert Ingram, president and chief executive officer of Glaxo Wellcome Inc. The heart of the conference will include breakout sessions that orga nizers say are intended to identify, examine and adopt specific steps the business community can take to sup port hi^er academic standards. “As you are aware, despite signif icant improvements in student per formance, North Carolina’s educa tional system still faces major chal lenges in preparing students to enter the workforce and compete for jobs in the 21st century” Hunt and Ingram said in a letter to people invited to the summit. “'The business community has a vital role to play in partnering and collaborating with schools, parents and educators.” Hunt has made improving educa tion standards and raising teacher pay top priorities of his administra tion, and Glaxo Wellcome has focused much of its corporate philan thropy on supporting education. Students from 25 schools from throu^out the state will demon strate learning technology currently in use in Tar Heel schools. Electronic links Firm takes weather, logistics out of charity golf Struggling to keep pace Three-fourths of corporate giving exec utives surveyed by Barnes & Associates of Boston expect an increase in requests for assistance from nonprofits. Only a third expect a rise in their giving budgets. March 1997 Software charity Microsoft may end discount rates By Barbara Solow Officials at Microsoft Corp. are considering whether to end the com pany’s special discount prices on software sold to some nonprofits. At the end of November, the giant technology company in Redmond, Wash., announced it no longer would offer its lower-cost academic pricing to 501(c)(3) charities. “The project proved to be a prob lem,” says Microsoft spokesman John Pinette. ‘“rhere were problems with leakage in the channel and so we wrote and told our academic resellers that we would discontinue the pro gram.” The main “leakage” problem was that some of the software sold at the nonprofit rate ended up going to non charity accounts, Pinette says. By Kelly Preupp Lojk Putting together a charity golf tournament can be a daunting task for nonprofits with limited resources. Now, Phantom Golf Associates Inc. is offering a new high-tech twist to golf fundraising that may help nonprofits avoid some of the most common traps TECHNOLOGY encountered when organizing such events. When using the firm’s services, a nonprofit organization chooses a tar get course from a list of more than 14,000 in the U.S. — from Pinehurst to Pebble Beach, Calif. Donors play a round of golf at their favorite course, choosing where, when and with whom they play. They then submit their scorecards to PGA. For a fee of $10 per registrant, the firm uses software it has developed to compare scores, slope ratings and handicap ratings for the donor’s own course with those of the target course. 'The firm then reports what each player and team would have scored playing the same round on the target course. Rick Mitchell, president of Phantom Golf Associates, says the fundraising service is a “tournament without” because nonprofits can avoid many of the “logistical ni^t- mares” associated with golfing Phantom Golf Associates eases the burden of putting together charity golf tournaments through the use of software. events. Organizers needn’t worry about poor weather. The number of donors who can participate is not limited by the size of the course. And donors aren’t restricted to playing on a par ticular course on a set date. The firm has been developing its software since 1995 and only began marketing its program this year, says Mitchell, who is also president of Cii, a computer staffing company in Raleigh. So far, no phantom tourna ments have been played, but the National Multiple Sclerosis Society has signed up for Phantom Golf Associates’ services and will hold its phantom tournament in June. Local Multiple Sclerosis chapters are still heatedly debating which target course to choose, according to Mitchell. For information, call Phantom Golf Associates at (888) 867-4268. SOFTWARE After hearing protests from con sumers, the company decided to rein state the special pricing program in mid-December and reevaluate it with in 60 days. When the Philanthropy Journal went to press, Microsoft still had not made a decision on its nonprofit discounts. Pinette says he does not know how large a cate gory of Microsoft sales is involved in the discount Steve Snow pricing program. But national nonprofits such as Catholic Charities and the United Way are among the organizations that have received special rates. Steve Snow, head of Charlotte’s Web - a technology training program for nonprofits - says he’s not sur prised that Microsoft may end its non profit discounts. “You have to be very careful about making commitments to companies that sell software,” he says. “Software is like heroin. You get committed to a certain path and you’re stuck and it’s hard to break free. All the software companies try to hook you because of that.” Microsoft’s direct donations of software to nonprofits - which totaled more than $18 million in 1995 - will not be affected by its decision on dis count pricing. 1110 company’s contri butions program made grants of $28 million in 1995. Microsoft reported net profits of $499 million in 1995 and $614 million in 1996. BRIEFLY Companies give less to eoucotion U.S. corporations are con tributing less to higher educa tion, says a new report from the Conference Board. Corporate support for col leges and universities fell to $222 million in 1995 from $330 million in 1994. The decline shows a shift in sup port from higher education to K-12 programs. Companies donate to hungry Employees of Mitsubishi Semiconductor America in Durham donated 300 pounds of canned and boxed foods to local service agen cies during the holiday sea son. Employees contributed more than $4,700 to 21 nonprofits through the com pany's holiday match pro gram. BellSouth sponsors jobs program BellSouth in February spon sored a "Job Shadowing" project that allowed students from Daniels Middle School in Raleigh to observe employ ees and their jobs first-hand. Jobs included service techni cian, consumer representative and marketing executive. The United Way of North United Way gives companies awards Carolina awarded several companies its Spirit Awards for nonprofit fundraising. Winners were First Union National Bank, Charlotte, and Partners National Health Plans of North Carolina, Winston-Salem. Excellence award winners were: First Union, High Point; Sale Auto Mall, Gastonia; RWM Casters Co., Gastonia; High Point Bank & Trust Co.; Sara ' Lee Sock Co., High Point; Glaxo-Wellcome Inc., Research Triangle Park; Kimberly Clark Corp., Hendersonville; and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina, Durham. UNC employees give to nonprofits Employees of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Hospitals raised a record-setting $597,051 for more than 1,000 nonprofits through this year's State Employees Combined Campaign. The total raised statewide was $2.88 million - surpassing the goal of $2.75 million.
Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina (Raleigh, N.C.)
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March 1, 1997, edition 1
14
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