Bright Futures Joplin and Bright Futures USA are separate entirely. Joplin operates under the authority of the Joplin School district, but is funded by donors. USA is it's own 501C3. Neither of the Bright Futures are funded by Joplin Schools in any way. Even the BF Joplin staff (which is only 2 people) is paid by donors (not school funds).
It is not uncommon for a new non-profit that is building capacity to operate on a deficit budget as they are building a support base. It's much like a new business that takes out a loan to get started. Many times, a new non-profit has an initial investor(s) and then spends 2-3 years even getting to a place of self-sustainability.
(The second comment came a few moments ago in response to what another reader said about the Joplin R-8 School District's putting $600,000 for Bright Futures in its 2014-2015 budget.)
The $600,000 listed on the board report is money that Bright Futures Joplin has already raised - it's money in the bank. The district allocates no funds for this program. BF Joplin is housed in the district office because they serve the district and work together with people on all levels to meet needs. A centralized location to do that makes sense. BF Joplin staff ARE district employees who live by all the same rules as other district employees - they are just funded by donations (much like if a position is grant funded or something like that). These two people share one office.
BF Joplin was designed by the community - faith based, business, and human services partners worked together to identify the school district's needs and ways that the community can work together to meet them (realizing that the school district cannot do everything). BF is like the bridge between the district and the community. BF works with the community agencies, but also with the school district. The goal is to connect the dots to meet student needs (which 505 were served this school year alone). But BF also supports a number of other initiatives throughout the district besides meet student needs (although that is the first priority). BF works with counselors, therapists, principals, and case managers within the district to help connect students and families to resources throughout the community. BF is not about duplicating services, but raising the level of accessibility to these services by bringing the agencies to the kids (as much as possible) and filling in any gaps that might exist (for instance if a family can't get help fast enough, BF would either find a partner church/agency or fill that need immediately until a proper referral could be made) so that the kids don't feel the impact of the difficulty QUITE as much. You can't save all kids from the hard things of life, but it is possible to build an intentional community network where all work together to help as much as possible. The goal here is not only to meet the immediate needs, but also to help connect families to agencies that can help them avoid being in these situations over and over. It's not
Kim Vann is the Director of Community Development & Communications department for the District. BF Joplin is a program in the department. Kim and others in the department have support roles in all of the district's communication - not just Dr. Huff's. In addition to that 40/hour/wk responsibility, Kim has taken on an additional amount of responsibility to help as the Executive Director of BFUSA because she believes in the mission of BF and wants to see it spread to help schools throughout the country.
Some things are not a scam, people. Sometimes people do things for the right reasons.
The $600,000 listed on the board report is money that Bright Futures Joplin has already raised - it's money in the bank. The district allocates no funds for this program. BF Joplin is housed in the district office because they serve the district and work together with people on all levels to meet needs. A centralized location to do that makes sense. BF Joplin staff ARE district employees who live by all the same rules as other district employees - they are just funded by donations (much like if a position is grant funded or something like that). These two people share one office.
BF Joplin was designed by the community - faith based, business, and human services partners worked together to identify the school district's needs and ways that the community can work together to meet them (realizing that the school district cannot do everything). BF is like the bridge between the district and the community. BF works with the community agencies, but also with the school district. The goal is to connect the dots to meet student needs (which 505 were served this school year alone). But BF also supports a number of other initiatives throughout the district besides meet student needs (although that is the first priority). BF works with counselors, therapists, principals, and case managers within the district to help connect students and families to resources throughout the community. BF is not about duplicating services, but raising the level of accessibility to these services by bringing the agencies to the kids (as much as possible) and filling in any gaps that might exist (for instance if a family can't get help fast enough, BF would either find a partner church/agency or fill that need immediately until a proper referral could be made) so that the kids don't feel the impact of the difficulty QUITE as much. You can't save all kids from the hard things of life, but it is possible to build an intentional community network where all work together to help as much as possible. The goal here is not only to meet the immediate needs, but also to help connect families to agencies that can help them avoid being in these situations over and over. It's not
Kim Vann is the Director of Community Development & Communications department for the District. BF Joplin is a program in the department. Kim and others in the department have support roles in all of the district's communication - not just Dr. Huff's. In addition to that 40/hour/wk responsibility, Kim has taken on an additional amount of responsibility to help as the Executive Director of BFUSA because she believes in the mission of BF and wants to see it spread to help schools throughout the country.
Some things are not a scam, people. Sometimes people do things for the right reasons.
By what authority does a taxing agency establish a non profit and then spend the money?
ReplyDeleteThere hasn't been anything on the Turner Report that suggests Bright Futures is a scam. The organization's accounting practices and management is questionable but the intent is honorable. Unfortunately, the overall goal of BF appears to be another stroke for CJ Huff's severely inflated ego.
ReplyDeleteThere are many faith-based, government, and charitable organizations providing the same service as Bright Futures so it seems to be another layer and duplication of effort. The difference is most of those organizations are staffed by volunteers (except for government, which is staffed by underpaid workers) and not some high priced "executive director." Regardless if the two staff members are paid by donations, that money could just as easily be donated to other agencies doing the same thing but with lower overhead.
I've not been able to find any information on Kim Vann's education, which causes one to wonder if she has a degree of any kind and, if not, what qualifies her to be the Communications Director for R-8? Perhaps I'm mistaken but I don't recall such a position existing within R-8 before Ms. Vann was appointed to the position by CJ Huff. Was the position created for her so it wouldn't appear she was being paid a high salary to oversee a new non-profit?
These are the type of things that cause skepticism and cast a black cloud over the entire organization.