Mayor de Blasio Highlights Accomplishments of Nonprofit Resiliency Committee's First Year

October 11, 2017

NEW YORK—As the Nonprofit Resiliency Committee embarks on its second year, Mayor Bill de Blasio today highlighted its accomplishments in strengthening the partnership between the City and the nonprofit human service sector. Since the creation of the Committee, the City has implemented practices and policies to facilitate closer collaboration between the City and non-profit organizations in the development, design and management of more than $6.5 billion in social service programs every year. 

The committee’s accomplishments include many immediate investments and policy changes made to stabilize the sector, and the implementation of strategies that will allow social service organizations to continue delivering high-quality services to vulnerable New Yorkers over the long-term.

Investments
The City’s FY 2018 adopted budget includes $374 million in investments made by this Administration in the human services sector for the current fiscal year, increasing to more than $600 million annually by FY 2021.
This includes additional funding to support nonprofits’ administrative overhead costs, and rate increases for several essential programs and services including homeless shelters, Beacon youth centers, and case management for seniors. With these investments, the City acknowledges the increasing costs of delivering services. In some cases, payment rates had not been increased in a quarter century.

The investments also cover collective bargaining increases for day care workers, along with a wage increase of about 9% and a minimum wage of $15 per hour by 2019 for employees in the nonprofit human services sector.

Cash Flow Policy
The City implemented a new policy designed by our nonprofit partners to put payments in the hands of service providers earlier. The 25% advance on all registered City contracts increases cash flow to service providers, allowing them to seamlessly continue to help New Yorkers in need.
In the first quarter of this fiscal year, the City disbursed $604 million in advances to fund program startup costs and support financial stability for nonprofit providers.

Enhancing Contracting Services
Health and Human Services (HHS) Accelerator is the City’s web-based system used to electronically manage procurement with our nonprofit providers. Through the work of the Committee, the City leveraged the platform to digitize fiscal audits for the first time, impacting more than 1,000 human service contracts per year.

Digitizing audits reduces duplicative requests and hours of staff time and labor required to submit documents to City offices.

Collaborative Program Design Guide
The Committee produced a written guide on how City agencies and nonprofits can work together to design programs and services that achieve maximum impact for New Yorkers. 

Feedback from nonprofit partners suggests that the design and structure of programs can present challenges in executing contract responsibilities as it relates to staffing, budgeting and other requirements. By improving communication during the development of human service programs, the guide will be a tool for creating more effective and sustainable programs moving forward.

The City is currently using this guide to design a three-year, $29.7 million program at the Department of Corrections that aims to reduce the recidivism rate. Recommendations from the guide also informed the creation of the Civic Service Design Tools + Tactics, an initiative of the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity that launched this month to provide an introduction to service design for City Agencies and public servants.

Procurement Training
In response to feedback from nonprofit partners, the Mayor’s Office for Contract Services (MOCS) held educational sessions to provide more information about the City’s procurement process, making the City contracting more accessible and transparent. 
Taken together, the Nonprofit Resiliency Committee’s policies and practices implemented in the first year will alleviate administrative burdens for nonprofits; foster greater communication between the City and community based organizations and expand the capacity for each organization to execute its mission; and increase consistency, efficiency, accessibility and transparency in working with the City.

“We set out on a mission and our first year’s efforts have proved to bring significant improvements to the way we best serve New Yorkers with our partners in human services,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “New Yorkers count on us to work together and deliver on some of our biggest initiatives. The Committee’s second year promises to build upon these achievements.”

“Our government and nonprofit providers are critical partners in our work to support New Yorkers,” said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Dr. Herminia Palacio. “I am very proud that in the past year we have together been able to weave a strong, vibrant fabric to support individuals, families, and communities.”

“In order to fulfill our mission of creating a more just and sustainable city, the social service sector and City government must work together. Much of the important work we do happens in partnership with our nonprofit partners. This past year, through joint problem-solving, increased collaboration, and by addressing some of the most immediate needs of New York City's non-profit sector, we’ve made important strides to making an already strong sector even stronger. In doing so, we will be able to positively impact the lives of more people in this City and achieve our shared goals,” said Richard Buery, Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives and Co-chair of the Nonprofit Resiliency Committee.
 
"Our nonprofit partners are essential to delivering critical and effective services throughout our New York City communities," said Michael Owh, Director of the Mayor's Office of Contract Services. “The City is committed to supporting their organizations and programs MOCS appreciates the countless hours nonprofit leaders devoted to collaborating with us in an effort to streamline administrative processes and enhance accessibility to City contracting. Our partnership achieved rapid results that we look forward to expanding in our second year.”

"The city's community-based organizations do critical work to increase equity by ensuring all New Yorkers have access to vital services," said Matt Klein, Executive Director of the Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity. "The Committee has opened new critical pathways for government and nonprofit providers to work more closely together and we are proud to help strengthen this cross-sector collaboration."

"The Nonprofit Resiliency Committee is delivering on its promise to offer opportunities and establish meaningful partnerships with nonprofit organizations around the City. Thanks to their work, New Yorkers in need have prompt and efficient access to social services. I want to thank Mayor de Blasio for his commitment in making sure these vital organizations count with the City's full support,” said Council Member Julissa Ferreras-Copeland, Finance Chair.
“In its first year, the Nonprofit Resiliency Committee has already demonstrated the progress that is possible when City leaders and nonprofit leaders work together to strengthen the sector,” said Jennifer Jones Austin, CEO and Executive Director of FPWA. “In real time, the Committee is making key contractual changes, such as providing a 25% advance across all City-registered human services contracts, so that nonprofits have in hand the government resources required to serve their clients. FPWA looks forward to continuing our work with the Committee to help bring about greater partnership between human services agencies and the City, to ultimately strengthen the services and care provided to New Yorkers in need of support.”
“It’s been a year since the Mayor established the Nonprofit Resiliency Committee and the impact of the work is already being felt across human services agencies,” said Allison Sesso, Executive Director, Human Services Council. “Through this effort, nonprofit human services organizations are coming together with City leaders to drive meaningful changes in the way we do business. We are undoing bureaucracy and implementing common sense solutions that impact everything from cash flow to program design approaches. I give the Mayor a lot of credit for investing in this process. These changes are not the things that make headlines but, make a big difference to nonprofits working under city contracts.”

“I’m encouraged by the accomplishments of the Mayor’s Nonprofit Resiliency Committee,” said Fred Shack, Chief Executive Officer of Urban Pathways. “Over the past twelve months the Committee has demonstrated how much can be accomplished when government and the nonprofit community work in true partnership to identify solutions designed to improve efficiencies and strengthen the nonprofits who serve this City’s most venerable citizens. The introduction of PASSPort and the Digital Audit process through Accelerator has streamlined the procurement and auditing processes making them more efficient while reducing the cost to both the City and Urban Pathways. The new advance/recoupment protocols provide consistency across City contracts and has improved my organization’s cash flow.”

“The Nonprofit Resiliency Committee through the leadership of the Mayor’s office has made important progress over the past year to highlight, and mitigate, some of the daunting challenges that nonprofits face in achieving maximum impact," said Phoebe Boyer, President and CEO of Children's Aid and co-chair of the New York City Nonprofit Resiliency collaborative program design workgroup. “As a collective group, nonprofits are bound by an overarching mission to build the well-being of all New Yorkers, which demands a system of stable, strong nonprofits. We appreciate the city’s focus and commitment to this work and look forward to continuing our partnership to achieve our common goals.” 

“As co-chair of the New York City Nonprofit Resiliency infrastructure workgroup, I am pleased with the strong progress we have made over the last year,” said Louisa Chafee, Senior Vice President for Public Policy and External Relations of UJA-Federation. “There is still a lot of work to be done to ensure our non-profits can be better prepared and resilient organizations. We thank Mayor de Blasio and the infrastructure workgroup co-chair, the Office of Management and Budget, for their additional investments to the sector and their commitment to helping nonprofits provide critical human services to New Yorkers."

"The Nonprofit Resiliency Committee has been a productive collaboration between the Mayor's Office and social services organizations," said Wayne Ho, President and CEO of the Chinese-American Planning Council, Inc. "Because of our partnership, we have increased funding for nonprofit providers, reduced bureaucracy, and improved equity and access for small organizations. I look forward to serving on this committee for a second year in order to ensure that underserved communities continue to receive culturally and linguistically appropriate services."
“New York City’s human service nonprofits continue to create opportunity pathways for our residents and families, helping workers advance in their careers, teaching students new skills, and making sure New Yorkers in need find a place to call home. We owe them both our gratitude and concrete commitments to make it easier to do business with the city. Mayor de Blasio’s Nonprofit Resiliency Committee demonstrates the impact government can have when it partners closely with nonprofits to shift policies, rethink how programs are implemented and make critical administrative reforms. There’s more work to be done to secure our human services sector, but the Resiliency Committee’s efforts have already helped to make contracting more efficient and to ensure that tax payer dollars are well spent," said Council Member Helen Rosenthal, Chair of the Contracts Committee.

About the Nonprofit Resiliency Committee
The Nonprofit Resiliency Committee is co-chaired by Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Dr. Herminia Palacio and Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives Richard Buery. The Mayor’s Office for Contract Services helps coordinate the Committee with support from the Mayor’s Office of Operations and Office of Management and Budget. Committee members include nonprofit executive directors, philanthropy leaders and members of academia who were invited to represent the diversity and range of New York City’s human service sector. The Committee is charged with identifying, designing and launching solutions to support the sector in the areas of administrative processes, service and program design and organizational infrastructure. For more information on the Committee, click here.