Families with Children from China – Greater New York

Families with Children from China – Greater New York

 

Annual Board Meeting Minutes

Sunday, March 2, 2008

 

Place:  Huron Consulting  1120 Avenue of the America at 44th Street – 8th Floor

 

Board members present: Marjorie Berman (Acting President), Mary Nealon (Secretary), Tim Stoenner (Treasurer), Ross Lewis, Mary Sellner, BH, Judith Fiorini, Tim Helck, Mark Maas, Nicki Genovese, Amanda Baden, Lily Cardlin, Deb Levine and Aileen Koeger, Barry Radick (Members of FCC’s Advisory Board)

 

Others present: Peggy Kerry, Marcia Hochman,  Kurt Berhang, Mary Lou Berhang, Jesse Combs

 

Marjorie Berman convened the annual meeting at 12:15pm with welcome remarks, attendees present introduced themselves. 

 

Marjorie explained that, in the past, the Annual Meeting occurred in conjunction with FCCNY’s Lunar New Year Celebration.  This year, the Board of Directors wanting to conduct an annual meeting independent of an event to discuss substantive issues and begin a strategic planning process.  Special acknowledgement and thanks were offered to those FCC members who attended today’s meeting as volunteers.  

 

Board membership and elections: The Board recently solicited applications for board membership.  A sub-committee was formed and interviewed all the applicants who applied.  The sub-committee recommended three new members to the Board, Judith Fiorini, Nicki Genovese and Tim Helck, all of whom were unanimously approved via electronic vote prior to today’s meeting. 

 

Marjorie turned the meeting over to Barry Radick.  Barry explained that board member terms are for two years, and staggered in a way that approximately 50% of member terms expire each year.  Barry led the election of this year’s new officers (Judith Fiorini, Nicki Genovese and Tim Helck) and the re-election board members whose terms expired this year (Amanda Baden, Lily Cardlin, Deb Levine, Ross Lewis).  All officers were unanimously elected to a two-year term, commencing with today’s annual meeting.

 

Next year, two year terms for the following board members will expire: Marjorie Berman, Mark Maas, Mary Nealon, Mary Sellner, Tim Stoenner and Hollee McGinnis, who is currently on leave.

 

Marjorie Berman share written notification that Meg Tolan officially resigned from the board. 

                                                           

Treasurer’s report: Tim Stoenner, Board Treasurer, reported that FCCNY’s current fiscal year ends  October 31, 2008.  Shortly after March 31, 2008, FCCNY’s accountant will prepare the mid-year (six month) report which will be posted on the organization’s website at that time.  Tim reported that FCCNY is solvent with approximately $118, 000 in its general fund accounts.  The main account is a minimal interest bearing (approximately 5%) checking account.   

 

Donations to FCCNY’s Orphanage Assistance Fund are segregated in a different account, which has also been reconciled to today’s date.

 

The vast majority of the organization’s income comes from membership.  Currently we have 1317 paid memberships.  Between now & Culture Day 2008, a few more hundred members will probably renew.  In the recent past, we’ve had about 2,000 paid members/year.  Last year, membership declined to approximately 1,800.  This year, we anticipate membership will continue to decline.  At recent meetings, Board members recognized that the organization should explore ways to solicit new members and sustain renewals.

 

2008 FCC Orphanage Assistance Appeal: Aileen Koeger gave a brief overview of FCC’s fundraising efforts on behalf of children currently living in orphanages in China.  Amity is the equivalent of FCC’s non-governmental organization in China with whom we have partnered to provide local programs.  Since 1996, FCC nationwide has raised about $2 million in charitable contributions from its members, of which 100% of donations has been given to Amity for programs it directly provides to infants and children in orphanages.  Amity’s initial administrative fee of 5% was raised to 7% a number of years ago but has not been increased in years. FCCNY has sold t-shirts and held raffles etc. to cover its direct fundraising costs such as mailings, brochures and annual reports.   

 

Over the years, FCC worked closely with Amity to develop programs that were needed for infants and children in the orphanages, such as developing its grandma’s program for babies in the orphanages, school fees so children living in orphanages can attend school, and foster care programs to place some children with families in the community. 

  

Since FCC began its charitable initiatives, a proliferation of organizations has emerged that are also raising money and providing programs in China.  In the past, FCC has raised as much as  $250,000 in a year.  Over the past few years, contributions raised by FCC have decreased slightly each year as other professionally based organizations with full-time staff have grown.  One significant benefit to FCC contributions is that all of the money raised (except for Amity’s nominal fee of 7%) actually goes directly to programs in China.  Most of the other organizations raising funds have more operational and fundraising costs in addition to their programs.  

 

Recent changes within China have impacted the lives of children and infants in China’s orphanages.  Children in China are required to attend nine years of compulsory education.  In the past, children in orphanages could not attend school because orphanages could not afford the fees, which was why FCC and Amity raised contributions for school feed.  Now the Chinese government sponsors all school fees for children living in orphanages.  However, since foster children are living with families instead of orphanages, school fees are still needed for these children.  More medical needs are also taken care of by the Chinese government, which has now developed a program to obtain surgical and medical services for children in orphanages with disabilities. 

 

This year, FCCNY’s Board decided to begin a formal evaluation to assess the needs of children currently remaining in orphanages in China and to re-assess our programs there.  Each year, Amity assesses the needs of the children and the programs it provides.  Because we are anticipating changes in the needs of children there because the Chinese government has said there are fewer infants available for adoption, we asked Amity to determine the cost of sustaining our current programs this year without any additions. 

 

Since things are in transition in China, we decided to do a simpler, less expensive fundraising appeal this year, from which we have raised $131, 527 to date.  Based on the interim report submitted by Amity for the current FCC-sponsored programs, Tim Stoenner made a motion to approve disbursement of  $117,730 to Amity.  Marjorie Berman seconded the motion.  The motion was opened for questions. 

 

New board member Timothy Helck asked if this report was based on an annual proposal submitted by Amity.  As in prior years, Amity and FCCNY worked together to create this year’s proposal and budget. Amity’s initial proposal was for $210,000.  FCCNY had raised a little over $100,000 when Amity submitted this proposal, so we asked them to look for ways to reduce costs.  In response, Amity made a few programs cuts.  One example is in the nursing team programs for children with more acute medical needs, Amity is now going to ask the orphanages to place these nurses on staff and pick up their salaries directly.   A few of the grandma projects in certain orphanages have been terminated as other NGO’s in China have created alternative programs providing education and training of caretakers in orphanages in those orphanages.   While we continue to fund school fees for older kids in foster care and strive to provide funding for children currently in foster care, we are not adding additional foster cases.  As we are not the only organization outside China working with Amity, they are also working in cities and rural areas that we are not in position to fund. 

 

An example of another donor raising significant funds for Amity programs is Peggy Gurrad from the Pacific Northwest who seeks to raise funds for similar Amity programs in orphanages specifically in Jiangxi province.  Donors in other countries such as the UK, Canada & Scandinavia also contribute funds for province-specific Amity programs, often based on the provinces from where their children were adopted.    

 

One FCCNY member and major donor in attendance at the meeting observed that FCCNY Orphanage Assistance revenue is declining while other organizations’ funding efforts have increased, possibly because they have engaged professional fundraisers and/or paid staff that use work full-time and use celebrities to help raise funds.  While FCCNY is and plans to remain a volunteer-based organization, we may be able to better convey how Amity is a valuable, efficient and effective way to donate and support programs in China.  We need to be more proactive to explain the benefits of our program earlier to families with children adopted from China.  For the most part, when parents first return from China, they tend to be eager to help.  As children become older and more involved in their own lives, it is more difficult to get parents to give who have not given before.

 

No further questions or comments to be made, Marjorie Berman asked for current board members to vote on the motion approve disbursement of  $117,730 to Amity, to fund programs based on the proposal submitted earlier this to FCCNY’s Board of Directors.  The motion was unanimously approved. 

 

 

FCCNY Membership discussion:  Marjorie presented an analysis of FCCNY’s current members in terms of ages of children of families who belong to FCCNY in comparison with USA State Department visa data for children entering the USA as international adoptees from China.  The board is planning on forming a Membership sub-committee, which will look more carefully at this data, factors that influenced membership patterns in the past and how those factors may be changing with the new CCAA regulations in the years to come.   Hopefully, this membership analysis will help FCCNY better understand why members join/renew, the relevance of the programs it currently offers and why there has been a decline in membership in recent years.  The committee will then be able to make meaningful recommendations for increasing future membership.  A number of suggestion were made for membership outreach which included:

  • FCCNY needs to better define the benefits of membership
  • The newsletter is more than just a public relations vehicle.  In the past, it has been an invaluable source of information about adoption and identity.  The issues are archival resources.
  • FCCNY could investigate ways to educate adoption agencies about its programs, resources and network which complement programming also being offered by some adoption agencies.
  • FCCNY could also reach out to social workers performing home studies in order to educate waiting families about our work. 

 

All FCC tri-state regional groups have the ability to associate with FCCNY as their umbrella organization so they can use FCCNY’s federal tax identification status for contributions, liability insurance for events, and bookkeeping and accounting services for annual not-for-profit filings.   FCCNY provides annual monies to the regions as a rebate on membership, which the regions promote to their constituency.  FCCNY seeks to serve the regions, asks regions to let families know what FCCNY does, and to help promote membership.  FCCNY does not determine what activities regions should do so long as the programs they offer are within FCCNY’s mission (Celebrate, Educate, Advocate), nor does FCCNY’s Board of Directors take an active role in local regional governance.

 

Some of the challenges in promoting and sustaining regional membership that were discussed, include:

  • Programs FCCNY offers are usually located in NYC and inconvenient to families located outside of NYC.  Since FCCNY is aware of this, it has begun developing “Events-in-a-box” as a way to package and offer some of its programs to regional chapters. 
  • The regions themselves have difficulty developing their own programs because they do not have large enough membership to afford program costs such as honorariums and travel costs for speakers.  The possibility of adjoining regions coming together to share program fees and resources was discussed.
  • Distance between families within regions can make gatherings difficult.
  • Initially when families return from China with young children just the basics of adjusting to raising a child can feel overwhelming.  Parents are not always able or ready to participate in outside activities.
  • Older children’s interests in FCC events are more difficult to sustain as their lives get more complicated and their time less available. 
  • Public school systems outside of NYC are beginning to offer Mandarin, so there is less of a need to form Chinese language and cultural groups. 
  • Yahoo groups create virtual opportunities for parents to communicate and “get together” around issues they share. 

 

  • Scheduling events that do not conflict with FCCNY and other regional events has resulted in conflicts.  While FCCNY does a good job of posting events once they are scheduled, there is no process for checking dates in advance to explore potential conflicts.  The logistics of having a fluid master calendar is not easy, given that FCCNY is completely volunteer-based organization. 

 

By way of example, Nicki Genovese, new board member who recently relocated from California, shared that over 1,000 members routinely attend the LA Lunar New Year celebration.  The majority of the children in those families are 10 years old and under.  Most regions have indicated that events for families with younger children are generally better attended than events for families with older children. However families in larger coastal cities are also beginning to have children (mostly girls) who are approaching adolescence, perhaps because adoption from China began earlier in those places.  Yet parents report that getting older kids to events is more difficult, and therefore parents are less as willing/able to organize/volunteer for events.  Is this a consequence of age, marketing or the relevance of the programs we are offering? 

 

FCC in general may have a marketing problem in that we could more effectively communicating the benefits of FCC membership to families who have adopted from China but not joining their local FCC chapters.  Ideas were discussed about ways to reach out to local adoption and social work agencies (some of whom offer programming and may see FCC as a competitor) to promote FCC as a valuable resource for families with children adopted from China.  

 

In terms of programming, the discussion focused on how programs currently evolve.  For the most part, parents volunteer to organize programs they believe are meaningful for their children.  Chapters also share ideas about programs that have been successful so other chapters can offer similar programs.  Now that some of our families have older children who are beginning to grapple with more complex issues of race and identity, in addition to adoption, creating programs that are effective is challenging for many reasons.   We discussed that FCC needs to make a multi-pronged targeted effort to grow our membership (reaching out to new and lapsing members) while also seeking ways for our older children (those reaching adolescence) to take a more proactive role in creating programs that connect them to each other and that will eventually make FCC their organization as well as their parents. 

 

Another area of challenge FCC faces is how to reach out to waiting families in the face of the recent CCAAA changes in adoption regulations.  Agencies are currently telling people interested in adopting from China that the wait can be for as much as 4 to 5 years from the time paperwork is filed to referral from China. 

 

Looking to the future and what role FCC may provide for our families, we wondered what relationship our children will have with China when they become adults, what education and support families may seek when/if our children want to begin searching for birth family connections, and information about DNA databases that are emerging here.  FCC has the distinction of having a different kind of relationship and role with the CCAA in China than adoption agencies because we mostly consist of families raising children already adopted rather seeking to adopt from China.  If adoption from China continues to be restricted and the wait so prolonged, adoptions will become fewer in number, as those starting the process choose other options.  Is there a way FCC can move discussion with the CCAA forward around adoption regulations given that we are not an adoption agency?

 

Also, as reported by at a recent Asia Society event, there has always been a lack of accurate information about the existence of a dual orphanage system in China of parallel orphanages in many cities and rural regions that are not part of the CCAA’s international adoption program.  For children in these orphanages, adoption abroad is not an option and financial support is limited to funds provided directly from the Chinese government, which then directly impacts the lives, educational opportunities and access to medical care for the presumed thousands of children languishing in these local orphanages. 

 

In terms of the advocacy component of our mission, FCC is not a political organization and therefore is limited in how much of our time, income and efforts we can spend doing advocacy work.  Yet as parents of children adopted from China, these are all issues of concern that have been raised by members at one point r another. 

 

 

After a ten-minute break, attendees reconvened and divided into the groups below to discuss relevant issues, establish a few reasonable goals and to begin creating an action plan for the coming year.  Groups met for 30 minutes and then shared their ideas with everyone. 

 

1.      Regional Outreach, led by Lily Cardlin and Deb Levine, discussed the following:

            The Regional Coordinators Event that happened on 1/26/08. 

            Local/regional programs/activities that have been successful

Status of the “Event-in-a-box” idea

Ways to better Coordinate calendars in advance in some centralized place 

To share info, get it out there & avoid conflict – in some centralized place

Better clarification of FCCNY’s role & that the regions are part of this entity

The Newsletter as a communication & marketing device

                        Inclusion of regular regional news featuring different regions

A Regional Editor position on the newsletter staff

Address misperception that FCCNY is FCC Manhattan

            Regional Coordinators’ mixer, networking together & not always through NYC

Every chapter should have a table at Culture Day to promote chapter membership & activities

Monthly e-Letter from the President – not to exceed one page…

 

                       

2.      Harnessing the Power of our kids, led by Amanda Baden and Mary Nealon

·        Our kids are The Future of FCC

·        Girls Connect & Kids Connect – examples of two new FCC programs initiated based on kids’ ideas.

·        Charitable initiatives involving FCC kids have been very successful and inspiring

·        Will China keep having an adoption program?

·        While kids are young, parents bring them to events, they mostly participate & enjoy them.

·        As kids get older, they may want to start their own organizations, efforts. 

o       Examples, CAL, CASPY, started by college students (our kids not quite there yet)

·        Ideas/topics for groups that may have more relevance for older kids

o       Adoption, race, culture, friends, relationships, dating, family.

o       Web profiles, virtual connections

§         “Email Amanda”  kids asking their own questions

§         Social networking possibilities

·        Older kids do not want to be objectified, feel on display, want to be in “own older” group,

·        Then need more programs & volunteers with expertise for specific ages:

o       Early years – concrete, look different, reproduction, where they came from

o       Middle school ages – teasing, grief/loss, realizing others don’t think so highly of adoption

o       Tween/teens – race, identity, sexuality (birth & relinquishment)

 

As a parent driven organization, we seek to create programs for kids that balance the following:

·        Social interests, adoption/race related education/awareness/connection and social consciousness (giving)

·        How can we make Culture Day more appealing to older kids?  Think – What’s Hip, American Chinese kids?  As mostly white parents, it’s hard for us to know this.

o       Rockband, HipHop, Columbia Univ radio station, models, stylists outreach. 

o       Forest Hills Asian-American high school group

·        Consider social service and community awareness opportunities here rather than just in China

o       Tween/teen walk-a-thon at Culture Day

o       The Asian-American Legal Defense Fund provides outreach to Asian Americans in needs

§         Flushing Nursing Home, LI School dance performance raised money for Chinese elderly

§         Children’s Aid Society

o       OCA Westchester Youth – 15 kids get together & do fun, social activities together

 

·        Harnessing the power of kids might involve beginning to put something in place and then letting our kids figure this out.

o       What models are out there for 13 y/o girls – Girl Scout model.  The Dragon Flies, a Maplewood/Montclair area group of older adoptees that raises money for orphanages. 

o       Consider forming a Youth Board &/of Kid position on our board – 12 & up

·        Looking ahead & going to college: OCA dinner honors kids & awards scholarships – a tangible award.

 

·        Parent Education is important, in addition to programs for tween/teens.  Parents with younger children should be informed earlier about emerging issues around race, identity, adoption, loss and grief.  There are experts who work with organizations on issues of race & identity.                                

                       

3.      List serve: Guidelines for posting & more, led by Marjorie Berman & Ross Lewis

·        Commercial posts: should we consider a fee structure for advertising a product or service?

·        Public Relations: our list serve communications take the form of P.R., as well as outreach for FCC, via to website

·        A survey to the membership about what’s important & what’s not

·        Sense there is too much out there

·        Website interfacing with email discussions

·        Website as another, new way for community to come together

·        Should we start putting limits on emails? More consolidation, regionally…

·        Link to a bulletin board/blog forum  “Hot topics”

 

 

Whole Group Brainstorming for a new, ideal FCC Website, led by Tim Stoenner and Tim Helck.  The following ideas were just thrown out to be discussed further at a future board meeting. 

·        Regional coordinators section/forum – Yahoo group

·        Enable certain sections to be accessed by others (event & regional coordinators) than just administrators, so regions can input their own information

·        Facebook – what can you do there that we can’t?

·        Resources for parents organized in an easily accessible way for all members

o       Example - Chinese New Year’s section for parents going into the classroom

·        Wiki sight software is free

·        Blogs

·        Certain parts should be for members only

·        Website – very dry, could anonymously feature kids art, music

o       Shows our vitality and culture

o       Need to be careful with protecting youth

·        Kids board where kids could contribute writings, poetry, art, journaling

·        Re-write in Open Source – Microsoft no longer provides support for our technology

·        Text search by topics

·        Store credit card info so adults can register for multiple events &/or buy products

 

The discussion concluded with Marjorie asking that anyone with additional ideas should email Tim S. and Tim H., as over the next year FCCNY would like to update the website.                                                          

 

Marjorie Berman thanked all those that attended this first content and discussion driven annual meeting with members.  Marjorie especially thanked the FCC volunteer members who are not on the board and attended today’s meeting. 

 

The meeting adjourned at 4:35pm.

 

Respectfully submitted by Mary Nealon, FCCNY Board Secretary