Nonprofit Ad Campaign:
Connecticut has the money; fund community nonprofit services.
(Hartford, CT) — The Connecticut Community Nonprofit Alliance has launched a paid online and social media campaign featuring nonprofit human service providers in three separate videos (linked below) urging lawmakers and the Governor to support long-underfunded programs.
Community-based nonprofits contract with the state to provide a wide range of behavioral, developmental, community justice, shelter and other human services to thousands of people across the state every day.
The General Assembly and the Governor have approved some increases in recent years, but after two decades of underfunding, nonprofits today have 32 percent less buying power than they did in 2007.
This year, nonprofits are seeking a $186 million increase. In two separate videos, nonprofit staffers talk about the need for their services and enough funds to continue to provide them.
“Many of our clients are homeless…they are the same clients who are showing up to our programs Monday through Friday, and they are at the door even before we open because they’re cold, they need meals,” Tim Strong, Program Coordinator for Sound Community Services says. “Please give us the money that we need to get these people off the street and give them the tools to be successful.”
Luciano Mastrangeli is a Learning & Development Partner for Oak Hill, who trains staff to provide day and residential services for people with developmental disabilities. “It’s really hard to find people to do this work because why work with people with intellectual disabilities when they can go to McDonalds and get the same pay, if not more,” Mastrangeli says. “We’re asking people to go into a group home, but they can’t even afford to live in their own home.”
In another video, Heather LaTorra, President & CEO of Marrakech, and Luis Perez, President & CEO of Mental Health Connecticut, community nonprofits that provide mental health and addiction services funding increases in recent years have begun to help, “but still doesn’t pay the cost of services.”
“Connecticut has the money, we need your support,” LaTorra and Perez say.
The videos will run through the end of the General Assembly session in May on social media and in digital advertising statewide.
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