Case #B Sojourner Family Peace Center http://familypeacecenter.org/ Mission Sojourner Family Peace Center s ( Sojourner ) mission is to transform lives impacted by domestic violence. The agency s primary goals are to ensure the safety of victims of family violence and to provide a pathway out of violence for victims and abusers through opportunities to make positive and lasting changes for themselves and their children. Sojourner Family Peace Center is the largest nonprofit provider of domestic violence prevention and intervention services in Wisconsin, serving thousands of clients each year. Sojourner provides an array of support aimed at helping families affected by domestic violence achieve safety, justice, and well-being. History and Background Dating back to its original founding in 1975, Sojourner Family Peace Center has been a leader in providing not just care and counseling but education to those that are survivors of domestic abuse and violence. Officially incorporated in 1978 under the name of Sojourner Truth House, it opened the first shelter for battered women in Milwaukee. Finding its quarters too small, Sojourner purchased its second location in 1980. In the same year, the Agency published Survival: A Handbook for Battered Women. In 1981, they established a 23-week program in response to help abusers change their destructive behaviors. Sojourner organized the second national conference on domestic violence also in 1981. In 1986, the City of Milwaukee Police Department implemented a mandatory arrest policy for domestic violence battery incidents and designated Sojourner to oversee and operate the 24-hour domestic violence hotline. In 1993, Sojourner participated in a collaborative five-year domestic violence study, entitled the Safe at Home Violence Against Women Prevention Project, sponsored by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The program targets abuser intervention and education. Programs and services continued to expand including all parties involved in domestic abuse (abuser, victims, and children). By 2009, the bed space for the emergency shelter increased from 37 to 42. Sojourner is set to move into its new and expanded, one stop facility in October 2015. Sojourner is a vital part of the overall domestic violence movement within the United States. To understand the underpinnings of domestic violence the following is provided: Definition - Domestic violence and emotional abuse are behaviors used by one person in a relationship to control the other. Partners may be married or not married; heterosexual, gay, or lesbian; living together, separated or dating. Examples of abuse include - name-calling or putdowns; keeping a partner from contacting their family or friends; withholding money; stopping a partner from getting or keeping a job; actual or threatened physical harm; sexual assault; stalking; intimidation. 1
Violence can be criminal and includes physical assault (hitting, pushing, shoving, etc.), sexual abuse (unwanted or forced sexual activity), and stalking. The violence takes many forms and can happen all the time or occasionally. ANYONE CAN BE A VICTIM! Victims can be of any age, sex, race, culture, religion, education, employment, or marital status. Although both men and women can be abused, most victims are women. Children in homes where there is domestic violence are more likely to be abused and/or neglected. Most children in these homes know about the violence. Even if a child is not physically harmed, they are more likely to have emotional and/or behavior problems. While most often thought of as a personal matter between two people and/or various members of a family unit, domestic violence has a broad reach throughout the entire community, including the economy. Sojourner, since inception, has not only been providing direct services to victims and their families but they also assist businesses in understanding the economic impact of the issue and help with instances where domestic violence spills over into the workplace. Key Personnel and Budget Carmen Pitre (Ms. Pitre s bio is presented in full due to her extensive background in domestic violence and her national reputation.) Carmen Pitre is the Executive Director of Wisconsin s largest service provider for families dealing with domestic violence, Sojourner Family Peace Center. With a multi-million dollar annual budget, Pitre leads a staff that provides crisis housing, system advocacy, and individual support to thousands of women, men and their children. Today, she draws on decades of work in the DV field to transform the lives of many. She has been a leader in the effort to improve the way the community supports families impacted by domestic violence. This commitment led Pitre to launch the creation of a new Sojourner Family Peace Center that follows the international model of a Family Justice Center. Being constructed at 619 W. Walnut Street, Pitre believes that bringing partners together to co-locate services and work more closely together, our system will be more effective and efficient. Pitre is the recent past Chair of the City of Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault and is an appointed member of the State of Wisconsin Department of Justice Crime Victim Rights Board. In addition, she is a member of the Office of Justice Assistance Violence Against Women Advisory Committee and a founding member of the VAWA Human Trafficking Sub- Committee. She has served on the Medical College of Wisconsin Violence Prevention Initiative Steering Committee. Pitre was integral in the merger of Sojourner Truth House and the Task Force on Family Violence in 2009 when she became Co-Executive Director of the new agency, Sojourner Family Peace Center. Before the merger, Pitre was the Executive Director of the Task Force on Family Violence from 2002 to 2009. Prior to that leadership role, Pitre served as the Director of the First Judicial 2
District Judicial Oversight Demonstration Initiative and the Coordinator of the Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. Pitre has received the following professional awards: 2013 Sacajawea Award from Professional Dimensions, the Business Journal 2012 Women of Influence Award, 2008 WCADV Changer Makers Award, 2002 Wisconsin Humane Society Kindness Award, 2000 I Am My Sisters Keeper Award and the 1999 Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence Other Systems Ally Award, 1999 Governors Award for Significant Accomplishment in Domestic Violence Award. Pitre is a 1984 graduate of the University of Southwestern Louisiana, Bachelor of Arts program. She comes from humble beginnings that include surviving abuse as a child. Jack Leff is the finance director at Sojourner and has held this position for approximately three years. Before coming to Sojourner, he had a long and successful career at Verizon Wireless as well as several other for profit enterprises. Jack brings a strong business sense to the organization and assists in providing translation of the outcomes/impacts into financial terms that businesses can better understand. Current budget for the Agency is approximately $4 million. Client issue Sojourner is seeking to engage both the greater Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin s business communities in ending domestic violence. Understanding the cost of domestic violence on businesses and the overall economy is a critical component to engaging businesses in this discussion. The costs are many including but not necessarily limited to: Absences and/or time taken off by employees Lack of productivity while on the job Abuse that happens in the workplace Retention/turnover issues Sojourner is therefore seeking to development a framework that provides the economic cost of domestic violence on businesses. In essence, the Organization is seeking a way to explain the social impacts of domestic violence as well as the outcomes of the services and education provided by Sojourner in a way that make sense to seasoned financial business professionals and therefore will engage them into developing workplace solutions and ultimately a stronger connection to Sojourner Family Peace Center. Sojourner s Fall 2014 newsletter provides a snapshot of some of the overall impacts of domestic violence. Reasons for Needing the Framework In late 2014, Sojourner broke ground on the future site of the Sojourner Family Peace Center scheduled to open in October/November 2015. The new facility will be a unique partnership between Sojourner and Children s Hospital of Wisconsin. Upon the opening of the new Peace Center, families impacted by domestic violence and child abuse will have integrated resources available all under one roof. 3
The state of Wisconsin spends over $8 million a year to protect children from abuse and over $670 million annually to repair the damage done by abuse. These figures only represent the state s costs associated with child protection. The costs to the state and municipal governments is a larger figure when the cost of police, hospital costs, aid provided to victimized women unable to work due to abuse, incarceration costs of the abuser, etc., are added together. Nationally the costs associated with domestic violence approach $6 billion annually. 1 The State of Wisconsin-Annual Budget includes $200 million to supervise 3,000 offenders located in just two zip codes in the City of Milwaukee. This equates to $66k+ per each offender. The above quoted costs are costs that are assignable and easily tracked, such as direct medical and mental health services. However, there are other costs that are not as easily tracked and managed those being associated with the loss of productivity by employees who experience some sort of domestic violence. Having the ability to provide the CFO s/ceo s of the local and state business community impact that they can truly understand, i.e., the cost to their businesses, will go a long way to engage the business community to understand the true impact of domestic violence. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) Strengths Sojourner has a long history within the Greater Milwaukee area. Sojourner has a strong national reputation and involved in various highly regarded research white papers on the subject of long-term abuse and its impact on society. The recent partnership with Children s Hospital of Wisconsin is providing Sojourner a stronger profile within the domestic abuse movement. Weaknesses/Challenges/Threats Approximately 1 out of every 3 or 4 women will be the victim of abuse. This statistic has not significantly changed in decades. Domestic violence has been seen to be a self-perpetuating process. The son sees his father abuse the mother; the son gets to majority and begins to abuse his wife or significant other. The government s approach to the issue is to incarcerate and rehabilitate which as seen above is a costly endeavor. Businesses do not see this as their problem they view it as a social service issue paid for by government funds. 1 http://www.ncadv.org/files/wisconsin.pdf 4
The U.S. considers domestic violence as a crime between two people whereas internationally domestic violence is considered a human rights issue. While domestic violence is traditionally the man as the abuser and the woman as the abused, domestic violence includes the opposite relative to the abuser and abused. Elder abuse is on the upswing and with the ageing of the baby boomers, many of whom are still in the work force, the cost to businesses will continue to increase. Wisconsin like most of the United States is experiencing an ever-increasing ethnic population. Some of these populations have cultures that require more education relating to the equality of women. Opportunities Milwaukee, as well as Wisconsin, has a thriving economy and the time is ripe to educate the business community about the costs of domestic violence. Governments are seeking ways to reduce the cost of government and are getting significant pressure from the business community to reduce taxes. Providing a direct link to the business community of the public cost of domestic violence and what they can do to reduce the cost of government would reduce the cost to their businesses since taxes would not have a need to increase to cover the costs associated. Data exists that provides for the costs to businesses but no one has effectively summarized it in a way that will reach the CFO s where it counts their checkbooks. Call for proposals Because of Sojourner s desire to create a framework to quantify the cost of domestic violence to the business community, the client has issued an RFP for consulting services. You are one of the six competing firms that have been asked to provide them with useable take-a-ways which will enable Sojourner to approach the business community with impact results they can understand. Sojourner sees this a three-part analysis: Reviewing the research already conducted which is in the public domain Analyzing the research Putting it in a framework that is easily digestible for CFOs The parameters of the RFP are as follows: How best to engage the business community and make it realize that it has a huge stake in the costs of domestic violence. How to best communicate with the CFO community This is critical to the RFP. The method of analysis for program professionals about the cost is very different that the method of analysis completed by CFOs. 5
The former (program professionals) will tend to see the cost in terms of the cost to the abused or children of the abused so more of an intrinsic cost. The latter (CFOs) will tend to see the cost in dollars and cents While the two are not mutually exclusive, they are very different almost as if they were two different languages. It is essential that the intrinsic cost be translated to hard dollars and cents. Hard suggestions and clear take-a-ways. This is not a what if presentation. (Sojourner expects to be able to use materials provided by the competing firms as part of their planned communications to the business community.) Firms that provide ancillary documents as part of their presentations will have an edge. How to effectively use social media to transmit information How the data can be easily updated and documents/media revised, as needed, by Sojourner staff. Information to be provided in June 2015 Various documents will be made available to the consulting firms by June 2015. Documents that will likely be provided will include, but not necessarily limited to: Links to existing research on the subject matter Data associated with domestic violence including its costs broken down to the level available Links to white papers produced by Sojourner Current financial statements of Sojourner Annual Reports (past three years) Agency Program Brochures Judging criteria Each proposal will be judged on the following criteria: a. Simplicity of the model designed b. Most effective translation of the social impacts to the financial impacts c. How easily the data can be updated by Sojourner staff d. True take-a-ways, including graphics of the costs, executive summaries, etc. e. All required items are addressed ************************************************ Note This case will clearly require front-end research by those selected to work on this case. Sojourner is seeking a way to engage the business community and believes that a group of college students majoring in accounting/finance/ais can provide the organization the necessary tools to create the necessary bridge between the social impacts and the financial impacts. 6