Founded in 1978 by the New York Community Trust, the Long Island Community Foundation (LICF) discharges its roles as a charitable, not-for-profit organization, which links donor to the full continuum of charitable organizations within the New York City, its surrounding communities, as well as the entire nation (Ochs, 2015). The Long Island Division was established to offer economical alternatives to private foundations and commercial gift funds to the residents of Nassau and Suffolk County. Since its inception, the LICF has granted a total of above $155 million the not-for-profit organizations across the U.S. from hundreds of fund sources established by families, businesses, and individuals (LICF, 2016). The foundation adopted a system that identifies both current and future communal needs, strengthens its nonprofit sector, and encourages philanthropy; hence, through the foundations generous donors, the agency builds a perpetual endowment that helps address the abovementioned needs. This paper thereby highlights the role of LICF in details but dwells much on the health care delivery functions.
According to Arens (2013), LICF provides a responsible and personalized financial stewardship and philanthropic advisory services that promote efficient, meaningful, and easy for the foundations donors. The ultimate goal of the foundation is to deliver a stewardship that donors deserve and to guarantee that their assets distributed and invested wisely. The most common fields of fund investment include health, education, arts, environment, community developments, hunger, technical assistance, youth programs, and human services. In simple terms, LICF ensures that donors feel the worthiness giving back to the populace. Its investments have led to the formation of the ERASE Racism, Long Island Fund for Girls and Women, Sustainable Long Island, and the Early Care Institute (Ochs, 2015).
The LICF nonprofit sector accounts for a significant portion of the Long Island jobs and payrolls. This segment is also one of the fastest growing section of the LICF economy. For instance, as the New York State Labor Department reports, the Nassau-Suffolk employment coverage of the insurance of unemployment increased from 1.1 million to 1.2 million over a single decade (Ochs, 2015). This increment represented a gain of approximately 1.4%. As such, the overall employment within the not-for-profit enterprises augmented from 100,080 to 132,641, translating to an increase of about 33%. In these regards, by 2000, the non-profit division accounted for 8.5% of the bi-county employments, but this grew to approximately 11% by 2010. Essentially, the not-for-profit sector is literally dominated by the healthcare providers, civil associations, religious organization, and social service agencies (Arens, 2013). Collectively, this segment generated an annual payroll of approximately $6.5 billion by 2010, which was a double figure of their level a decade before. Considerably, the health care sector alone accounted for above 81% of the total payroll expenditure.
According to the 2010 records, approximately 93,500 people under employment by the health care industries, which were under the domination by not-for-profit entities (Molly & Jane, 2009). An estimated 59,200 jobs in the surgical and general medical hospitals accounted for about 0.67 of the overall employment. There was a wide variation in the average annual wages amongst nonprofit healthcare providers. They ranged from as low as $29,100 for the substance abuse and residential mental health facilities employees to as high as approximately $66,800 for the employees in the general surgical and medical hospitals. Tables 1 and 2 below display the employments and payrolls in LICFs health care sector in 2010 versus 2000.
Table 1: Long Island's Employment in Healthcare Sector; 2010 versus 2000
Table 2: Long Island Health Care Payrolls; 2010 versus 2000
With regards to the core roles of LICF in the health care sector, the agency's primary purpose is to develop the speciality disease management initiatives, alongside the cost management programs for people with health complexities or certain problematic health conditions (LICF, 2016).
Currently, the Foundation focuses on working with the sponsors, provider organizations, self-funded employers, payers, research organizations in order to manage the care provision of people who qualify to benefit from its programs. As well, the LICF conducts parallel research and alternative methods of better healthcare approaches (Molly & Jane, 2009). The FICF designs, develops, implements, and operates programs that aid an efficient care for the high-cost individuals. Moreover, the agency collaborates with sponsors, well-respected providers, healthcare provision networks to eliminate unnecessary costs and implement the best outcomes; hence, enhance patients' outcomes across all health-related programs.
As a division within the New York Community Trust (NYCT), the Long Island Community Foundation, in 2015, hit news headlines when it announced eighteen new non-profit grants, summing up to $0.41 million. These LICF grants were directed to three particular activities, including (i) supporting affordable homes; (ii) support counselling workshops for the U.S. veterans and their families; and (iii) for science improvement programs on the East End. On 14th December 2016, the Long Island's Community Foundation announced a $0.56 million in the final round of grants, aimed at helping 24 nonprofit groups across the island. At this time when many Long Island community members felt uncertain about what awaited in the future, the Long Island Community Foundation stayed committed to ensuring that the regions they supported remained the beacons of opportunity for all, unitary acceptance, and economic prosperity (Ochs, 2015). During that period, the community development corporation of Long Island gave a $20,000 grant to support the community development in the building of affordable rental houses in the village of Hempstead (Molly & Jane, 2009). As well, the Family Community Life Center, through LICF, donated $20,000 for the public outreach campaign towards promoting a mixed-use development of the hamlet of Riverhead.
On the health care and community health concerns, the Family and Children Association allocated $25,000 for the patient navigation program through which persons struggling suffering from opioid addictions were to be linked with their families for appropriate support and treatment. Furthermore, the Northwell Health Foundation donated $50,000 to support education and mundane dental services to the low-income patients at the Dolan Family Health Center. More to that, the Association for Mental Health and Wellness contributed $25,000 aimed at improving the effectiveness and training of the veteran peer-outreach activities (Arens, 2013).
Regardless of these charitable roles of LICF, some operational and funding constraints may confront the nonprofit community. These limitations may thereby call for the intervention of either State or Federal government, or both (Arens, 2013). As such, there is a federal oversight agency that focuses on the nonprofit community. It collects data, processes the existing data, and performs relevant research to instil the federal policies with respect to the nonprofit sector. The urgency also coordinates the wider government initiatives, including volunteerism and social innovation, hence informs the nonprofits about effective and efficient organizational management (Ochs, 2015). This federal oversight agency can also intervene into the nonprofit sector by giving low-interest loans to the state or directly to the particular charitable foundation such as LICF, thereby helping in the maintenance of cash-flow during economic recess. During economic turndowns, the nonprofits may be at the greatest risk; hence foundations such as LICF play a very significant role of stabilization through making more grants available to the charitable health facilities or organizations (Molly & Jane, 2009).
In conclusion, the LICFs nonprofit foundation accounts for a very significant portion of the bi-county economy. It offers services that directly impacts the Long Islands health care and quality of life. The foundation has been very effective in discharging its roles as a charitable, not-for-profit organization, which links donor to the full continuum of charitable organizations within the U.S., particularly in the New York City and its surrounding communities. The LICF provides a very responsible and personalized economic stewardship and philanthropic advisory services that promote efficient, meaningful, and easy for the foundation's donors. The primary objective of these endeavors is to deliver a charitable system that donors deserve, hence guarantee them that their assets are distributed and invested wisely. Some of the most common fields of fund investment include health, education, arts, environment, community developments, hunger, technical assistance, youth programs, and human services. However, a significant portion of its charitable funds or grants has been directed to the health care sector, where it benefits the health facilities, families, and individuals with certain health conditions as discussed above.
References
Arens, D. A. (2013). What do the neighbors think now? Community residences on Long Island, New York. Community Mental Health Journal, 29(3), 235-245.
LICF (2016). Long Islands Community Foundation Announces $560,000 in Final Round of Grants. Retrieved on 24th February 2017, from http://www.licf.org/NewsEvents/ViewArticle/tabid/96/ArticleId/53/Long-Island-s-Community-Foundation-Announces-560-000-in-Final-Round-of-Grants.aspx
Molly, F. S. & Jane, G. G. (2009). An Overview of the Nonprofit and Charitable Sector. Congressional Research Service, November 17, 2009.
Ochs, A. (2015). Whats the Long Island Community Foundation Up to? Retrieved on 25th February 2017, from http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/new-york/2015/5/19/whats-the-long-island-community-foundation-up-to.html
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