December 9, 2025 • 54 mins
Turning Crisis into Success: The Inspiring Journey of Rising Ground with Alan MucatelJoin me for an insightful @SilverDisobedience episode with Alan Mucatel, CEO of Rising Ground, one of New York's largest human services organizations. Discover how Alan lead a team to turn around an organization on the brink of collapse to become a leading provider of social services in New York City. Learn about his motivations, the challenges faced, the turnaround strategies employed, and the unique values that make Rising Ground stand out. Whether you're interested in non-profit management, social services, or inspiring leadership journeys, this episode is packed with valuable lessons and heartwarming stories. Don’t miss out on understanding how persistence, accountability, and community focus have sculpted a stronger future for many New Yorkers. Subscribe and stay informed!
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I’m Dian Griesel and in November of 2017 I began blogging as @SilverDisobedience on my website and @SilverDisobedience on Instagram Facebook and @DianGriesel X Career-wise, I am a perception analyst, counselor, hypnotherapist, author of 16 books and a Wilhelmina model. For 30 years, via owning an investor & public relations firm, while being in private practice, I have helped my clients to achieve greater understanding as to how perceptions impact everything we do whether personally or professionally. A couple of years ago I added a podcast. Episodes are unscripted, with plenty of no-holds-barred revelations from fascinating, accomplished guests living diverse lives. Intimate stories about work, play, psychology, relationships, pop culture, trends, B.S. + more are unpacked through thought-provoking questions that spark honest revelations, pivotal moments, and unguarded insights — stunning even the boldest guests with their own “aha” truths. ✨
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diangriesel/
This episode was recorded in collaboration with The Manhattan Center, New York City, New York
Show Run: 00:00 Introduction to Rising Ground01:17 Meet Alan Mucatel: The Turnaround Specialist03:29 Joining Rising Ground: The Initial Challenges05:52 Facing Financial and Operational Crises08:36 Rebuilding and Restructuring12:51 The Path to Recovery and Growth20:15 Rising Ground's Unique Approach and Services28:06 Introduction to Rising Ground's Services28:31 Child Welfare and Family Stabilization28:51 Supporting Vulnerable Populations29:25 Comprehensive Support and Partnerships31:20 Hiring Philosophy and Practices36:36 Key Traits for Success at Rising Ground40:26 Advice for Aspiring Social Entrepreneurs47:17 Funding and Financial Structure50:29 Final Thoughts and Call to Action
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hello everybody. Rising Ground.
Rising Ground is one of New York's largest and most
impactful Human Services organizations.
This wasn't always the case. It's had its ups and downs like
most good organizations have experienced.
But when Alan Mukatel join Rising, Rising Ground, I always
(00:27):
want to call it Rising Stars because it's really an
organization of a lot of rising stars.
But it's Rising Ground. When he joined Rising Ground as
CEO, well, he walked into a crisis.
Finances weren't quite the way they needed to develop, deliver
all the programs they wanted to do.
So the organization was facing avery uncertain future.
(00:47):
And it's an organization that New York City really needs.
So today, we're going to be talking with Alan about how he
turned it around, how he gathered people, rallied them,
and got this back to where it istoday, which I'm going to tell,
let him tell you, because wow, is it impressive.
(01:08):
So thank you, Alan for joining. Diane, thank you for having me.
I really appreciate it. It is really my pleasure.
So I'd like to know a little bitabout you before we get into
rising ground because I want to know why did you go this route
in life? Well, I'm a native New Yorker
(01:29):
and I love my city. That is really a genesis of so
much for me and I have chosen towork in the nonprofit Human
Services field since the very beginning of my career.
I went to Business School and when I was leaving Business
School, I realized that whateverdirection most people were
(01:51):
flowing, it just wasn't working for me.
I deeply believe in, I guess oneanalogy would be I want
everybody to have a place at thetable and to be part of the
community that I'm part of and to to benefit together from all
that we each can offer. And so that has always been a
motivator for me. And I've been very, very
fortunate to have a really wonderful career that's led to
(02:15):
this point today. Wait a second, we have to go
backwards a little before we go forwards.
Where do you think that motivation originated from?
What's what's within you or whatis within your environment?
Well, I, that's very, that's a great question.
I, it's maybe not so easy to figure out exactly, I'm sure,
but I, I grew up in a, in a household that was very caring
(02:38):
and loving and I, I know that I benefited from that in many,
many ways. I, I had, I went to New York
City public schools. I grew up in a New York City
housing project. And yet I had so many
opportunities presented to me that I worked hard, of course,
and I, I was a good student and all those things, but there were
(02:59):
so many opportunities presented to me along the way.
I think that I realized that that's the way it should be for
everybody. And that went, I'm actually
going to quote our own, our own model a little bit.
You know, when folks have hope and opportunity, we're all able
to thrive. And even if life has various
challenges, which it does for every single person.
(03:20):
So I I think some of it just came from just good fortune and
then watching what was happeningaround me as well.
Wow. Now at some point you came to
Rising Ground. How did that come about?
Were you recruited? Were you just looking and found
it? Well, for the.
(03:40):
You need a turn around specialist.
You know, for for folks who are of a certain age, there was an
expression. I got my job through the New
York Times. I don't know Diane, but.
I can't relate. To that, OK, so that was the ad
that the New York Times used to have.
And back then, of course, was before exactly 100%.
(04:02):
So you would just go and you would cut out the, you know, you
would cut out the little AD and then you would start calling,
right? And I got every single job I've
ever had through the New York Times.
So here's my so funny. Because I actually think they
should bring that back because working with so many people who
are looking for jobs and they'relike, I don't even know where to
go. I'm like, yeah, it's a shame the
(04:24):
New York Times doesn't still have that 2 inch thick, you
know, help wanted section well. I hope somebody from the New
York Times is watching this and I just got a great promo for
them and they're going to call me up and say I want you to be
there a spokesperson. But it is true.
I got all my jobs, The New York Times, and there was an ad for
the organization used to be called Leak and Watts after its
original founders from 1831. We can get into that part if you
(04:47):
want at some point. But I had recognized that the
the organization I had worked inHuman Services in several years
before coming here. I had taken a position for 10
years, even though I lived in New York City.
I commuted to New Jersey and worked for a wonderful
organization that at the time was called Cerebral Palsy of
North Jersey. I thought to myself, oh, I'm
(05:08):
going to go do this. They offered me a job as the
executive director, so it was a promotion.
Yeah, organization. I was feeling great about that.
And I thought, oh, I'll just go there for two years.
I want to go back to New York City, to the place I live, I
love. And I stayed there for a full
decade. And then I realized there is
still New York is beckoning me. I need to come back.
(05:28):
And when I was looking for work,there was an ad for Leak and
Watts, which I had remembered from my prior work before CPNJ
and so. And I didn't know the challenges
they were facing. I only knew them as another
organization that was having a big impact and doing some
interesting work. But I didn't.
I really didn't know what I was stepping into.
(05:51):
Huh. So you step into it and what's
your first reaction? Day 1-2 and three.
So first was probably getting used to things.
Second, you're starting to dig in a little.
And 3rd, you're saying, oh, my God, yeah.
So, executive director at a hugeorganization with lots of money
(06:13):
for a long time, you know. Looking for I haven't looked for
I've been here for 18 years, so I haven't looked for a job in a
very long time. But one of the things I do know
as somebody who even in has hired people, you know, the
whole hiring process, you're about to get married, right?
You're going to marry this organization that you're going
(06:34):
to work in or they're going to get married to you.
They're hiring you as a colleague.
And no matter how good a job I think you do in terms of
researching and trying to figureout, it's really an imperfect
process, right? And so I took a job really
motivated by what I had understood about the
organization of the people I met, who the members of the
(06:55):
board of directors and some key staff members who I thought I
want to be with these folks. And I didn't really fully
honestly appreciate some of the challenges that the organization
felt, was sorry, not felt, but was experiencing.
And I'm not so sure that the organization itself really,
really knew what what the situation had been.
(07:16):
And so I don't I don't want to convey like as if there was a
deceptive component to it. I just don't think it was.
There wasn't enough bubbling up in on the surface through that
process. I have to.
Believe that wholeheartedly. You know, I, I think that's an
interesting thing for any organization.
When you bring like I've always,you know, I've grown fairly
(07:36):
large businesses, you know, well, small, you know, 60
employees, but large for me. And you know, when I would bring
in someone who wasn't home grown, they often came with a
totally different perspective onand perceptions of where I was
going right or wrong. And I always embrace that.
(07:57):
I'm like, wow, OK, I don't have that experience of a mega
agency. So you learn differently. 100% I
mean, there's, there is so much to be gained first of all from
people growing up in organizations and their
experiences and and their, theirinstitutional knowledge.
All that is valuable, equally valuable is what somebody new
(08:20):
coming to a space can bring. And so I think a thriving
organization holds space for both type of individuals and
that's how organizations grow and advance further along the
way. So in my case, in this
situation, there were a lot of pressures at, at then Leek and
(08:41):
Watts. There were, there were lots of
signs externally, but I don't think anybody was in the
position to, to really piece together the full circumstance
and and that's what I went aboutdoing.
And how did, how did that look? Did you have to start with
fundraising first and say, OK, before I've got this vision of
(09:05):
where things can go, but I need some money.
You know, is it a chicken and anegg or, oh, I actually need some
people so I can convince the funds, you know, the money that
I've got it, I've got it all together here.
We just need to keep it going like what comes.
First, OK, so and you know, it's18 years and so some of those
(09:25):
things, I'm sure memory memories, as you know, we all
our memories, we don't lose our memory, but our, our own vision
of things do change. So I'll try to be, I of course,
want to be as honest about what I recall and what I experienced
as I can be. But here's a couple things that
happened when I got there. So as I was, I was coming one
day a week for about four monthsbefore I actually started to
(09:47):
give a nice transition to the place that I had been leaving.
I'd been there for a decade. So I did not make an abrupt
change and I was coming once a month.
And during that several month period, I started to to learn
different things. For example, I worked in, walked
into my first sort of senior leadership meeting and a person
in the leadership team stood up and said, why did you want to
(10:08):
take this job? Not hey, why were you interested
in us? But they said it in this tone of
making me aware that all was notwell, right and with examples of
ways in which things were not well. 80% of our programs were
in some form of not just corrective action status with
the varying funding sources, butlike a heightened level of
(10:30):
scrutiny. The quality is corrective.
Action status mean. So it can mean different things
in different types of work, but we are, the Human Services world
is a highly regulated world as well.
It should be, right? We're responsible for peoples
lives. People should be paying
attention not only to how we're spending public dollars, for
(10:52):
sure. We should also be paying
attention to what is the qualityof that work.
How are people interacting with the people we serve?
Are we delivering, You know, whether it's life safety
situations like how quickly somebody can evacuate from a
building in time if that's wherethey live, but it could be also,
are you seeing the person as frequently you're supposed to be
seeing them? Is the work that you're doing
(11:13):
with somebody actually supportive of who they are and
where they want to go? So we should be scrutinized
heavily and we are. And when you get these audits
and reviews that occur, there's always things that external
auditors are going to see that go like, oh, you can do this
better, you need to fix that. That's perfect.
That's the way it should be. And good organizations use the
(11:35):
information and feedback we're getting from external reviews
and our own reviews to make things better.
You ask something about what makes organizations good.
And I'm going to go back to to this question about what I saw
when I got here. But really it's not that
organizations, human service organizations or any other
organization. It's not that an organization is
(11:55):
has to always be performing at 100%.
Frankly, no place performs at 100% all the time.
It's not possible. Human beings are fallible.
The question is, what do you do when something is not 100%?
What do you do when something goes wrong?
How do you quickly do? You.
How quickly do you acknowledge that you have a problem, and
(12:18):
then what do you do to fix it? That is the magic sauce.
It's. So true.
I've said that for years. You know what we're going to
screw up. We may screw up royally, but
it's going to be how we recover that what you know we build our
legacy on. Can we fix it?
Can we own it? Fix it and change whatever we
(12:40):
need to do so it doesn't happen again.
Diane, preach. You're in the right, you're in,
you're in my, you're in my, in my, in my faith right now.
We're in the same, we're in the same place.
So anyway, when I got there, 80%of our programs were in some
form of very high level of acknowledge problem by external
forces, number one. Number two, we had just lost New
(13:03):
York City had canceled a big portion of the organization's
contracts. When I was getting there, 170
people were losing their jobs ofa huge number.
I it was just happening as I wasgetting there.
Whenever we were out in the public, people will say things
to me like you guys are not good.
And then they would start to unload on me these stories about
(13:25):
things that were not good about what we were doing.
And then financially, the organization had literally
depleted whatever reserves it had.
It was in the financial tailspin.
So all these things were happening.
Oh, and by the way, it was it was the financial crisis of up
to what was that 2008, 2008, 2009?
(13:47):
I just lost my. You know, when I saw the year
you went, I always say to people, the only thing that
might put me in life through PTSD is the year 2008, 2009.
If you want like let's just Fastforward through that.
We lost, we literally lost 60% of our business in 2 1/2 months.
(14:10):
Yeah, I could not have. And all of a sudden, no employee
wanted to leave. I could not have really from
that, from all these ways I could.
I mean, by the way, in the end, I feel like it made the best
move in my life taking this job here.
But in that moment, if you were like, Oh my God, he totally
(14:30):
flubbed this. He made the wrong choice at the
wrong time. He left a really cushy, I don't
mean cushy as him, but like a really successful 10 years
someplace else at a place that Ilove.
I like. This was a dumb move.
Well, now you're branded as the ultimate turn around nonprofit
turn around specialist. I appreciate that label and it's
(14:52):
not just me, by the way, and we're going to, I hope we can
talk about it. Definitely not just about me,
but So what I did when you askedthe question, how did you know
where to turn first? You said fundraising, whatever.
I didn't know where to turn. Literally, there was something
going wrong in every single space.
Some people that I realized, some of the people I thought
(15:13):
that I can hitch my wagon to, who I were impressed with that I
met actually had to go. I had to actually fire some
people who I thought were going to be my partners in this place.
So there was, there was lots of it was, it was a constant series
of things. So what I did, I went around and
just started talking to people. I talked to people in government
(15:36):
that were funding us. I talked to community leaders, I
talked to staff and anytime I talked to somebody I just said
to them, oh, can you just tell me somebody else I should, you
mentioned so and so should I go talk to them?
I was, I've never done anything like that.
It was the equivalent of a full 360.
It wasn't that I, I didn't plan to do it.
And it turned out, by the way, at some point I was keeping
record. I had spoken to maybe about 300
(15:58):
and 53175 people during the course of time.
And so I acquired for that period of time an understanding
of the organization that was particularly rich and I was able
and I had a really the the boardchair, a wonderful man, his name
is Cross and Sebolt, I put a plug in for him.
(16:21):
He, I went to him at one point because we had gotten it from
one of our funding sources. They produced what they actually
called the scorecard the equivalent of a of your report
card from, from school and it had letters on it that you would
(16:41):
not want to bring home to your mother, right.
So, and the organization was very defensive about it.
And I went with him and I said to him, we need to talk to the
board about this. And at my, my very first, first
board meeting, I said to them, look, this is the scorecard.
I, I know you have. We, we as an organization have
(17:02):
problems with how the government, what are some of the
things the government in this case was doing or thought about
us. But when our grades are so low,
they're not going to listen to us when our grades are an A and
AB and we then say to them, well, what you did here is wrong
or this could be better, then they are more willing to listen
(17:24):
to us, right? You have to have you have to
have credibility. And so I said at this very first
meeting, I was like, this is notgoing to be fun.
What we have to do here. And if any of you as board
members and they had my board chairs backing are up for what's
coming next, great. If not, this is a moment that
(17:47):
maybe you should leave the board.
And a couple people were alreadyleaving the board.
A couple people left at that moment.
But the people who stayed, like the staff who stayed were like,
this is not the place that it needs to be.
We can get to a better place. And so the board, key staff
members, it became this sort of OK rallying cry.
(18:12):
We're going to get this place tosomeplace stronger and better.
And over time also by the way, that very agency that gave us
that failing scorecard maybe about two years later.
I'm a little bit off. By the time the commissioner of
that Organism, that agency actually when he they were doing
a transition to a new new leadership as a new
(18:32):
administration and his number two person was looking for a job
someplace. He recommended.
He recommended to us because he,to his credit, saw the
trajectory the organization was taking.
And so that was one example early on that said, oh.
(18:56):
We're going in the right direction.
Things can change. And when we opened, for example,
we were opening some group homesfor people with developmental
disabilities in communities. We were converting all
properties that had other programs that had been
shuttered. And people would say to us, we
don't want these people here. This is what happened.
(19:16):
And it didn't matter that I stood up in front of them and
said, we're new, we're different, you got to give us a
chance. I could.
Appreciate that their experiencebefore that time was not
positive. They didn't.
They didn't get the callbacks when something happened they
nobody listened to. Whatever they experienced is
what they experienced. And we had to just continue to
(19:38):
acknowledge those things and then prove over time that the
place was different than had been in those in those ways.
And there were a lot, a lot of people on staff and in
communities that had thought that this place could do well or
joined at various points along its trajectory upwards.
(19:59):
And that became. The motivation that became the
sort of the, the strength that brought us forward really,
really. And then I all my job was to do
was to harness their energy and their goodwill.
That's what that's where things then started to to manifest
itself in really big ways. Now you said we were different
than anyone else. How are how is Rising Ground
(20:21):
different than other organizations in New York?
What are your differentiators? Oh, that's an interesting
question. So in a couple ways, in several
ways we're the same as other hard working human service
organizations doing really important work in in New York
City or across the country, right.
There's there's common themes about what we're about and but
(20:44):
then there are ways, I guess I think that that rising ground is
particularly different. One of them comes out from this
experience of being an organization that had really
been in a dark moment to where it is today, I mean today versus
then where we're not, we haven'twe've been on this trajectory of
(21:04):
of growth for the past 18 years that has been unabated.
You know it's. Really remarkable when you think
about New York City and the ups and downs New York has had over
the past 18 years. It is remarkable and we have, we
are in so many different ways regarded as a very strong
(21:24):
provider of the various different services and we can
get into the discussion about all the different work that we
do. We are a place that has in
several different examples been the initiator of things, but
more more often one of the more common experiences.
We might be the organization that might not be the first to
do something, but oddly later on, not so oddly later on,
(21:45):
become the place. We're like a steady Eddy.
We once we take something on, weare very thoughtful and we do
it. We do it well.
And part of it comes from this experience, which is what I ties
back to this conversation we're having up to this point.
Embedded, I think in our cultureis the experience of having
really not been the strongest place that could be.
(22:09):
And instead of being out there and being a bit of self
promoting, we were very and havebeen for many years, very self
reflective. So, so that when things go
wrong, we spend the time and we do what needs to do and sorry,
(22:29):
we spend the time to correct what's happening and do what we
need to do. And so we're only now after many
years, starting to invest a little bit more about promoting
ourselves and, you know, speaking a little bit more
boldly. I do think though, in the kind
of work that we do in Human Services work, humility is kind
(22:50):
of a bit of a prerequisite. Well, that.
Well, not only that, you know, my biggest lessons in life and
certainly in any work we're not learned when I felt like I was a
rock star, you know, when everything was going great, You
know, when everything's going great, you just kind of look at
(23:12):
it as wow, this is wonderful. You know, you're not even
thinking necessarily about what can go wrong, which is why I do
a lot of crisis management now, you know, because it's when
they, when those moments you learn the most are when things
all of a sudden come to a screeching halt.
Something changes and you have to say how I'm either going to
(23:33):
drown here, that's one possibility, or I'd prefer to
swim. So how am I going to learn to do
that? You know, almost in 0.
Time and I don't know whether individuals who have joined us
in these leader years in leadership roles will ever
understand and I don't mean theyhave to, but you'll ever
(23:55):
understand that that that has been a motivator the experiences
of the past have been a motivator that have sort of set
a certain tone for who we are. So I think one of the things
that. That's a really good point.
I think a lot of people and I, Ihear a lot of executive talk
about it as an issue today that,you know, good, bad or otherwise
(24:18):
people walk into an organizationand assume everything's always
been great and don't necessarilyunderstand what it took to get
to a level. And therefore that, you know,
everybody still needs to like push up the proverbial sleeves
and, you know, keep their nose to the grinder to keep it going
because it at some point it doesn't work if everybody
(24:39):
doesn't keep bringing that attitude, no matter how well the
everything's working, in my opinion.
No, I couldn't. I, I, I, we are.
We are again in agreement here because as much as we've made
progress and change to today, tomorrow's another day.
We got to keep going. This is always the task.
There are some other issues. Coming some other organization
(25:00):
trying to get your money that you're trying to get, somebody
trying to, you know, look better, stronger, whatever.
It's life today. There are 2000 people who work
at Rising Ground. Oh my gosh.
We're providing staff. There's about 100 or so
different programs operating outof 140 different locations
across New York City in additionto people being in people's
(25:22):
homes and in community connecting with folks every day.
And I, I feel remarkably privileged to be associated with
this organization. Every day we're doing tremendous
work and every day somewhere in that space we're not doing we're
not doing tremendous work and aslong as.
I wouldn't believe you if you said otherwise, Alan.
(25:44):
I mean, it, it's just life. It happens and it's all.
How are you going to communicateand get through it?
That's right. And as long as you move
continually appreciate those twothings.
And that that's not even just true about Human Services.
I was, in fact, yesterday was meeting with a new board member
who's in the banking field, and we were almost having a similar
(26:07):
type of conversation and he was saying exactly the same thing.
This is the very nature. I mean, I think of course it's
different in Human Services because somebody's actual life
is, you know, we are entrusted with a very important task.
But seriously, it's the same thing everywhere.
And it means something all the time.
So as long as you can recognize that even if there's a like we
(26:31):
did pulled something off today and we got some recognition for
it today, at the very same time,there's something else that we
better turn our eyes on and fix fast.
And so that is part of our culture.
When you ask what I think sets us apart, I actually believe
that that understanding is extremely prevalent here.
(26:53):
I'm not saying it doesn't exist in other places, but in our
case, because of where we came from, I think it occupies a even
higher part of of our culture. The other things that separate
us, I'd say is there's such diversity of the services that
we do that I that puts us in a particularly different category,
(27:15):
obviously. Scope on that what?
What are the kinds of services you offer?
Totally Let me just start by just saying one thing like when
I think of like when people ask like, well, what is rising
ground about so and especially if they told you we changed our
name from leak and Watts. So I my quick little way that I
say it, we are about helping people to move upward and
forward in their lives. That's that rising part by
(27:37):
providing them with a foundationfrom which to grow.
That is the ground. That's a.
Grow. You have a career in branding
too. That's really good.
That's. Really good short explanation.
Fantastic. Well, I'm really glad you said
that because we hired a marketing manager here this past
year. I told you it was part about
getting ourselves out there. And when she sees this and you
(28:00):
tell her that I have a career inbranding, I, she's never going
to live this down. So I'm going to, I'm going to
milk. I'm going to milk this for as
much as I can. I can get out of it.
Really should because you know, really what I've specialized for
over 30 years is trying to give companies their, you know, 1530
45 and one minute sound bite andyou just gave one of the best
I've ever heard. No, it's no BS.
(28:22):
Straight forward Alan. That is solid.
Great. So and so I'm just taking a
little bit further and then you ask what what services we have
and I won't I won't name them all because it's really vast.
But we do a lot of work in the child welfare space.
So that would be foster care andthen working with families in a
preventive services. So families that have challenges
to ensure that their child does not enter foster care or even if
(28:45):
there were other challenges thatwouldn't lead to foster care,
but need help in other ways. So child welfare and family
stabilization. We do a lot of work in the
intimate partner violence or domestic violence space.
We do a lot of youth developmentwork.
We're one of the largest providers of supports to runaway
and homeless youth in New York City.
We have community mental health work.
We support people with intellectual and developmental
(29:07):
disabilities. We're supporting runaway and I
mentioned running homeless youth, but we also support
unaccompanied migrant children. The array of work that we're
doing is so vast. And so that is another.
The combination of what those things are is another
distinguishing factor for us. And I'd say the third
distinguishing factor for us is we try very hard to do 2 things
(29:30):
with that, that, that vastness #1 is if somebody comes to us
and they need some others level of assistance or support other
than the way they came to us in the 1st place.
We try hard not only to make them available to, to avail them
of those supports here at RisingGround, but we also have a
really great partnership with lots of other organizations.
And if we're not the right placeto support them, we are very
(29:52):
quick and very easy to send themto the place where they can get
the help that we need. I think that's another very
important factor about who we are and then we're.
Going to find who can. Very much so.
Very much so. And and then the other part is,
I think we try hard these types of services, they're each
different. You know, running a preschool
(30:13):
for kids with special education needs is just very different
than running a transitional independent program for runaway
homes. Absolutely.
They're just different. Everything about almost
different. That's a big breath.
But there are things that are common in that work and what I
think we people, how we approachpeople, how we communicate, how
(30:39):
we listen to them, how we make their needs, desires,
aspirations, centre centred in whatever help we way we're
helping them. Those are very common things.
And so one of the things we try hard to do is to learn from
those various aspects of who we are as an organization.
That is not the easiest task, but it's something.
(30:59):
I think that is something we tryhard to do and that is a
distinguishing factor. Well, if you were speaking to
someone today, if someone came in for an interview and said,
you know, Alan, I, I gone through everything I know all
about rising ground. I really want to work with an
organization like yours. What would be the ways you would
(31:23):
question them to figure out their intention possibly or even
maybe discourage them? Because I don't think what you
do is for everybody. That is really a funny thing
that you just said to me that I would.
Sometimes people have told me asan interviewer that I do more to
to dissuade somebody from working there than not and well.
(31:44):
I think that would be important to you.
We, we only met during this call, but you have a compelling
infectious personality. I want to apply to rising ground
right now and say, Alan, let me come work with you.
You know, so it you would attract people to be near you
(32:06):
that may have no clue what theirday is going to involve.
And when you're dealing with a foster kid or a one run away,
it's going to be a heck of a lotdifferent than the joy and glory
you're feeling with Alan. So I think that's where your
discouragement. That's why I asked the question.
Well, you're very gracious and and I appreciate what you just
(32:27):
said. And and I and I do feel honored
that anybody has or would be inspired to come work here at
Rising Ground because I have contributed something to their
that that idea. So and I don't treat that own it
likely a fact. Own it.
(32:50):
Yeah, I have to make sure my mother listens to this podcast.
I really do. So who is my #1 fan?
So I still enjoy watching. Yeah, but.
So what would you say to someonetoo and either encourage them or
weed them out? Yeah, no.
So, you know, listen, I, I don't.
(33:10):
And of course, and I know. Obviously there's layers, I'm
just imagining if you were. If I am not right, I am not
making those hires. You're 100% correct.
And one of the things I think wetried hard to do is to try to
put people in situations. So we really do want people to
connect to the work before we make those decisions.
We try to use, you know, competency based hiring to
(33:32):
understand less about the experiences they've had, but how
they approach challenges and problems and problem solving to
see if they are the right fit. And so how we approach the
question side of things. We also, by the way, here and we
use often a lot of panel interviewing.
So let's say I'm making a hire, nobody who I ever hire just
(33:55):
interviews with me. They always interview with a
panel of other people because that's going to get different
questions or different I approaches in case I didn't do a
very good job. And I can't do tell you how many
times that I have sent a bunch of folks to panels and when they
came back, the Pat I met sat down to meet with the panels.
They're like, Alan, really didn't see what you saw.
(34:18):
I'm like, oh gosh. I've been there, I've been there
part, you know, and that's for all kinds of reasons.
Sometimes you just connect with someone's personality.
Sometimes you just want the rolefilled, you know, sometimes
you're just hopeful. I mean, there's a zillion
things, you know, if, if, when you're in a people business and
you're in a position to hire, you want to believe the best in
(34:40):
the person sitting in front of you.
So it, it does create a filter that you have to think twice.
And that's why those panel factors can be really great for
anyone, you know. All all true, all true.
And you're right and but, but not everybody.
I listen. I think sometimes you meet
somebody and you just, I, I wishthere was a always a thing that
(35:00):
you could just say, but sometimes it's just a gut
feeling and you just know when you're like, I can feel like I
can see, you know, at this point, this is a, there's such a
wonderful team of people in the leadership level here.
And that's the positions that I'm the one who would be
interviewing for or I'm invited to participate in panels as
(35:21):
well. Even if I'm not the hiring
manager, sometimes I'm invited to participate in in decisions
like that. And so, and we are fortunate now
as a place that has a good reputation as a kind of provider
that we are in the city, people at leadership levels or even not
just at leadership levels, they know who we are.
(35:41):
We are a desired place to come to work.
And so I think we do attract a lot of a lot of folks even I
should say though still it is a,it is a, it is a hard market for
hiring. We have lots of direct support
work that is at the very front lines where we have some of
those positions do not pay as they really should to recognize
the importance of the work that they are.
(36:03):
That is a serious problem in ourfunding streams.
And so, you know, there it's a, it's a different situation.
But my point simply was going tobe that you have to just spend
the time to try to get at that little something that tells you,
this is the person that I want to be with as we continue every
day and to content to I want to I want to be in partnership with
(36:25):
them as we continue to do this work that they're going to
contribute something to our teamthat's going to help to keep
moving us in that better direction.
Are there traits or characteristics you that stand
out for you favorably or negatively?
Well, I think some of them are some of the some of the values
(36:49):
that we actually have here at Rising Ground.
One of them is tenacity. The people who we support are
facing significant challenges intheir lives, some of them just
specific to them and some that have to do with the nature of
(37:10):
our society, the systems that they're interacting with, the
inherent inequities in our world.
You have to, if you want to do this work, you have to have the
strength to persevere. You have to keep pushing
(37:32):
forward. You have to help somebody to see
their capacity to be tenacious. You have to not take no when you
know there is the possibility that a yes can come.
This is a this is 1 characteristic.
Second characteristic that I think of is service.
(37:54):
We are in a service business. If you don't ultimately believe
that the person who we're assisting is the driver of what
should happen, this is the wrongbusiness for you.
Two other characteristics, this notion of accountability, which
(38:19):
ties back, by the way, to the very thing I talked, we talked
about in terms of how this organization has changed, right?
It required us to own as organizationally the things we
were doing wrong. But accountability for
everything like whether you're working in our finance and HR
department or HR department, or whether you're working on the
front lines supporting a runawayand homeless youth, or whether
(38:43):
or not you're making dinner in aresidence for people with
development disabilities, you need to own what you're doing
all day long and. That means.
Of course you should own it whenyou've done well and I did
something great and people should say you did something
great or that was not the best Allen in that moment.
(39:08):
And there's really nothing wrongwith that because you're not
going to get, you are not going to get the best Allen or the
best Diane 24/7. It just does not happen.
And so owning it is the other characteristics of that sense
that whether or not people can, and if you can somehow figure
that out in the way people answer questions in an
interview, you can sometimes hear some of that.
(39:29):
That then is very, to me is veryattractive.
And the last part, I think is about communication, your
ability not only to engage, but first is to engage the person
that you're supporting or to engage with your colleagues to
explain to to. And however that is, is that
(39:51):
you're able to get the message out about why something, you
know, what you need, what has tohappen, what whatever, so that
otherwise things are not going to move forward as they need to.
So those are, they happen to be our values, but they also happen
to be the characteristics that if you would ask me, we should
have those would be them. Extremely well articulated and
(40:15):
outlined it. It would create a incredible
business plan for a strong organization if those were
followed. In light of that, what would you
say to someone who said, you know what, I live in Kansas,
some little town in Kansas and Iknow this place could have some
(40:39):
things that are better for the people that are arriving here,
people that need help, the localcommunity.
What would you tell them about starting something today?
I mean, you've been around a while.
You're 100 year old organizationfor the past 20 years.
You've turned it around, you know, and made it, you know,
change the name, made it more successful, viable, added
(41:01):
employees. But what would if you went back
to your start up, you know, start up days?
So a, a couple of different thoughts pop into my mind in
response to what you're saying. You know, on one level I do.
It's more recently I've come to realize that part of what I have
or part of that I do have an entrepreneurial component.
(41:22):
I, I never have thought about that because I typically would
have thought about entrepreneurswho I have deep respect for as
people who start businesses and grow them from a concept, you
know, some idea and make something new happen.
That, though, has never been part of my journey.
So I, you know, the truth is I took over an organization that
was already of a significant size.
I took over an organization thathad been a very long time.
(41:44):
So I don't have that aspect about what to say to somebody in
Kansas who was saying something like, oh, I want to start
something like this. There's an element to that that
I maybe might not be the best person to.
I think of an entrepreneur in some ways.
I think it's a totally misused phrase, but I think of it as the
person who is Idea, Spark, Hustle, Grind and knows how to
(42:12):
surround themselves with people that can really help make their
vision materialize and figure out whether it's that they have
to go raise money, you know, from investors or donors.
It makes no difference. You have to figure out the game.
OK, this is very true by the way.
And one of the things I definitely am is I, I can grind
(42:33):
through anything. Yeah, that is an interesting
characteristic. And so I, I can, I can see those
things. But in your point to, you know
in this sort of scenario what you were asking and I don't want
to not answer that question because I think it's.
No, I want you to. Answer Yeah.
You know, I first, I wouldn't, Iwould say, is there something
about what you want to have happen in this place that it
(42:58):
doesn't already exist? Like a lot of people love to
start something new just for thesake of starting new.
And that is a complete disservice.
In the case of Human Services, that is a complete disservice.
And often things become the new bright, shiny light and
resources are attracted there. Maybe even celebrity attention
(43:20):
is attracted there. You know, social media
gravitates to it. And the question is, did that
really? Because if we're really focused
on the issue and the people who need the end assistance, did
having somebody else do the exact same thing really help
(43:40):
move the needle? If it did, it's because it
didn't exist already or it wasn't doing well.
Those are fine reasons. Excellent point.
Excellent point. Otherwise, you're a me too in a
crowded field, and in fact you could be damaging existing good
things because it takes a lot ofmoney to start something up.
Well, let let not only that, butyou were correct.
(44:02):
I that's exactly, I'm in the same space.
But also, you know, so many of the people we are supporting, we
are supporting marginalized individuals, right?
And in addition to those challenges, because they are
marginalized individuals, the work that we do is fundamentally
(44:23):
undervalued, right? Social workers are not paid what
they should be. People who are doing direct
support work and taking care of a person with developmental
disabilities is not being paid arational wage, not only a living
wage, but a rational wage considering the such the
(44:47):
important work that they do. So we have a fundamental problem
in our society that we do not actually value first the
individuals and then do not value the work.
And so the last thing we need issome other like let's go to the
next bright shiny thing. So that's that personal kind of
(45:08):
piece on on that side of it. But assuming that somebody has
said, Oh no, no, this is an unmet need here and there is
nobody else who is doing it. Or if there is somebody, I'd
say, I want you to go and help make them better at what they do
would be the first place. Bring those talents, those
energy, that capacity that you have and make that that that's
(45:29):
happening already in your town or your community, make that
better. That would be my number one
thing I would say to them. But if the answer is like, OK,
it doesn't exist, I would say a couple of things.
Well, or another thing I was going to say was we're very, one
of the things I think we do verywell is we play very nice in the
sandbox. We partner with colleague
organizations all the time. We form coalitions with other
(45:51):
organizations around a whole host of issues.
We have found founded collaborations that are exists
outside of rising ground to helpbetter the fields that we are
that we are operating in. So we would be happy for
somebody who said to us, hey, can we learn from you?
Happy to do those sorts of things like, you know, how did
(46:13):
you stand up such and such, Do you have a policy and blah,
blah, blah, like all those kindsof things.
I feel like we are not just about our work, but we're about
our field. So happy to help folks in that
way as well. And that may include, you know,
answering questions about how you set some of some other thing
up. But the truth of the matter is,
if you're in some small town in Kansas, we are a organization
(46:38):
with a budget of close to $215 million with 2000 people working
in the largest city of New York.So much of what our experience
is may not be transferable in the direct way.
Now in the inspirational way totally, but in the direct way,
(46:58):
size, scale, experience might wemight not be.
I think we need to be a little bit humble about how we offer to
assist folks because we may not be the best folks for them.
But happy to share our to talk and and answer direct questions
and provide that kind of assistance if it.
Was are you funded by New York City, by the state, by grants,
(47:23):
by donations? What what how does your budget
get put your? The question to that is, yes,
all of the all of the above, about half about funding comes
from New York City. We get some direct funding from
New York State and we also get funding from the federal
government. So all three, we also do direct
(47:43):
like fee for service work. So if somebody's coming for our
community mental health services, then whether they have
Medicaid or if they want to billtheir insurance company like we
get funded in a fee for service manner in some other parts of
our work. And then we we have, we are very
fortunate. We have an array of individuals
(48:05):
of foundations and corporate entities that support our work.
We're continue to try to bolsterour fundraising efforts and the
fundraising piece, why is that so important even if we're
mostly government funded? Couple of reasons, Hey, I
already made the comment that says where the work we're doing
is fundamentally not is under isunder appreciated and
(48:28):
underfunded. So we're looking for resources
to help bridge the gap that we have often, often we work in
environments where it's a cost reimbursement situation.
So if the most you could make isthe dollar, but it turns out
that you only, you know, it's hard to always make the dollar,
you wind up only making $0.97 and therefore you now have to
fill the extra $0.03. So that's always a challenge for
(48:49):
us. But when we want to launch new
programs, we want to make innovations and corrections and
improvements to the work that we're doing.
We're relying very heavily on onthe very general great
generosity of a large number of people.
And so fundraising is another part of how we bring in we're
able to do what we do. Now, is Rising Ground A
organization of New York City like of the government?
(49:13):
Or are you independent but funded by taxpayers?
Great question. So we are a nonprofit.
The tax code is 5O1C3. That's what means that if
somebody gave us money, we wouldthey can get a tax deduction for
their dollars. It also means that whatever
resources we bring in are not distributed out to shareholders
(49:37):
like in a corporation for profitcorporation, and that the monies
we bring in must be used for their intended purposes in the
delivering of services and the furtherance of our mission.
So we have contracts with City, New York City, NY State, and the
federal government, and that's how we get particular services
(49:59):
paid for and delivered. Just to be clear, if somebody is
paying for us, let's say New York City is paying for foster
care services and the federal government is paying for Early
Head Start services. We can't use the funds that we
get for foster care by New York City to pay for the work that we
do in Early Head Start for the federal government and vice
versa. We must use those services for
(50:21):
the contracts that we are required to deliver.
Got it. You know, the time on these
interviews always goes way too quick.
Alan, do you have parting words you would like to share over the
next couple of minutes for what people should know about Rising
ground, community, service, anything?
(50:44):
Well, first of all, again, just grateful for the opportunity to,
to, to even speak about the workthat I've done in the work of
this organization. I believe deeply in this, in
this place. I I think that we are trying to
make the communities that we areworking in that's across New
York City and Westchester County, like many other
organizations across the United States, We're trying to make
(51:07):
better, stronger communities, better, stronger families.
Individuals have opportunities to to to succeed in and to grow.
And I think that is very, very important work.
And we need friends. We like all these other
organizations. We need people who are dedicated
to this work to come work for us.
We need people in government whounderstand the value of this
(51:28):
work and elected officials who want to advance and support this
kind of work. And then we need friends and
donors who pay attention to the value of the kind of work.
Not only I want them of course, to give us to to send donations
our way of of course, or to other organizations.
It's important that people are involved in their communities,
volunteering, all that that works whether it's with us or
(51:50):
not with us. But for people to appreciate the
importance of helping our neighbors is not only about
helping them, but is also makingit a better society for which in
which we will all live. So that analogy, I talked about
wanting everybody to have a place at the table.
We will. We all live a better life when
everybody has a better place at the table.
(52:12):
It's a better meal to start. And so I think in any way,
whether you're an employee, a government official, elected
official, a community member, any way in which you can embrace
the notion of the kind of work that places like Rising Ground
does, that would be my parting message.
Do it, Lean in. We need you.
Just out of curiosity, you said employees, Do you also have
(52:35):
volunteers, people who volunteerat Rising Ground?
We have a small volunteer program.
It hasn't been as big in recent years.
It was bigger before COVID and then things got scaled back and
we haven't yet been able honestly to invest in it in the
kind of way. I, I firmly believe if you're
going to run a volunteer program, you need to do it the
right way. You need people who can make
(52:55):
sure that the the, the assignments that somebody has is
meaningful and that they are connected and attentive.
And until we can do that the best possible way, we are
limited in what we do volunteer wise.
We do do a lot of work, sometimes corporate volunteers.
So when an organization wants todo something is a collective
that is our easiest thing to pull off.
(53:16):
But individual volunteers is nota space that we do a lot in
right now. Very interesting.
Well, I have been speaking with Alan Mukutel from Rising Ground
and this has been truly a really, really inspiring
conversation. I learned a lot.
I enjoyed every minute of it. It went too fast.
(53:37):
Thank you, Alan. Thank you.
I really appreciate my time withyou.
Thank you. I'm Diane Gorsell.
This has been the Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics
podcast. I'm sitting in beautiful
Manhattan center. You notice the lighting's a
little different today. I had a little glitch setting
something up here, so hopefully it'll look OK on on the final
(53:58):
edit. But I want to thank everyone for
tuning in. Thank you, Alan.
Please check out Rising Ground. Hit subscribe.
Follow what Alan and Rising Ground are doing because it's
definitely worth staying attunedto and focusing on.
So thank you. Hit subscribe.
Alan, we're going to move over to the green room.
(54:18):
Thank you everybody.
Hello everybody. Rising Ground.
Rising Ground is one of New York's largest and most
impactful Human Services organizations.
This wasn't always the case. It's had its ups and downs like
most good organizations have experienced.
But when Alan Mukatel join Rising, Rising Ground, I always
(00:27):
want to call it Rising Stars because it's really an
organization of a lot of rising stars.
But it's Rising Ground. When he joined Rising Ground as
CEO, well, he walked into a crisis.
Finances weren't quite the way they needed to develop, deliver
all the programs they wanted to do.
So the organization was facing avery uncertain future.
(00:47):
And it's an organization that New York City really needs.
So today, we're going to be talking with Alan about how he
turned it around, how he gathered people, rallied them,
and got this back to where it istoday, which I'm going to tell,
let him tell you, because wow, is it impressive.
(01:08):
So thank you, Alan for joining. Diane, thank you for having me.
I really appreciate it. It is really my pleasure.
So I'd like to know a little bitabout you before we get into
rising ground because I want to know why did you go this route
in life? Well, I'm a native New Yorker
(01:29):
and I love my city. That is really a genesis of so
much for me and I have chosen towork in the nonprofit Human
Services field since the very beginning of my career.
I went to Business School and when I was leaving Business
School, I realized that whateverdirection most people were
(01:51):
flowing, it just wasn't working for me.
I deeply believe in, I guess oneanalogy would be I want
everybody to have a place at thetable and to be part of the
community that I'm part of and to to benefit together from all
that we each can offer. And so that has always been a
motivator for me. And I've been very, very
fortunate to have a really wonderful career that's led to
(02:15):
this point today. Wait a second, we have to go
backwards a little before we go forwards.
Where do you think that motivation originated from?
What's what's within you or whatis within your environment?
Well, I, that's very, that's a great question.
I, it's maybe not so easy to figure out exactly, I'm sure,
but I, I grew up in a, in a household that was very caring
(02:38):
and loving and I, I know that I benefited from that in many,
many ways. I, I had, I went to New York
City public schools. I grew up in a New York City
housing project. And yet I had so many
opportunities presented to me that I worked hard, of course,
and I, I was a good student and all those things, but there were
(02:59):
so many opportunities presented to me along the way.
I think that I realized that that's the way it should be for
everybody. And that went, I'm actually
going to quote our own, our own model a little bit.
You know, when folks have hope and opportunity, we're all able
to thrive. And even if life has various
challenges, which it does for every single person.
(03:20):
So I I think some of it just came from just good fortune and
then watching what was happeningaround me as well.
Wow. Now at some point you came to
Rising Ground. How did that come about?
Were you recruited? Were you just looking and found
it? Well, for the.
(03:40):
You need a turn around specialist.
You know, for for folks who are of a certain age, there was an
expression. I got my job through the New
York Times. I don't know Diane, but.
I can't relate. To that, OK, so that was the ad
that the New York Times used to have.
And back then, of course, was before exactly 100%.
(04:02):
So you would just go and you would cut out the, you know, you
would cut out the little AD and then you would start calling,
right? And I got every single job I've
ever had through the New York Times.
So here's my so funny. Because I actually think they
should bring that back because working with so many people who
are looking for jobs and they'relike, I don't even know where to
go. I'm like, yeah, it's a shame the
(04:24):
New York Times doesn't still have that 2 inch thick, you
know, help wanted section well. I hope somebody from the New
York Times is watching this and I just got a great promo for
them and they're going to call me up and say I want you to be
there a spokesperson. But it is true.
I got all my jobs, The New York Times, and there was an ad for
the organization used to be called Leak and Watts after its
original founders from 1831. We can get into that part if you
(04:47):
want at some point. But I had recognized that the
the organization I had worked inHuman Services in several years
before coming here. I had taken a position for 10
years, even though I lived in New York City.
I commuted to New Jersey and worked for a wonderful
organization that at the time was called Cerebral Palsy of
North Jersey. I thought to myself, oh, I'm
(05:08):
going to go do this. They offered me a job as the
executive director, so it was a promotion.
Yeah, organization. I was feeling great about that.
And I thought, oh, I'll just go there for two years.
I want to go back to New York City, to the place I live, I
love. And I stayed there for a full
decade. And then I realized there is
still New York is beckoning me. I need to come back.
(05:28):
And when I was looking for work,there was an ad for Leak and
Watts, which I had remembered from my prior work before CPNJ
and so. And I didn't know the challenges
they were facing. I only knew them as another
organization that was having a big impact and doing some
interesting work. But I didn't.
I really didn't know what I was stepping into.
(05:51):
Huh. So you step into it and what's
your first reaction? Day 1-2 and three.
So first was probably getting used to things.
Second, you're starting to dig in a little.
And 3rd, you're saying, oh, my God, yeah.
So, executive director at a hugeorganization with lots of money
(06:13):
for a long time, you know. Looking for I haven't looked for
I've been here for 18 years, so I haven't looked for a job in a
very long time. But one of the things I do know
as somebody who even in has hired people, you know, the
whole hiring process, you're about to get married, right?
You're going to marry this organization that you're going
(06:34):
to work in or they're going to get married to you.
They're hiring you as a colleague.
And no matter how good a job I think you do in terms of
researching and trying to figureout, it's really an imperfect
process, right? And so I took a job really
motivated by what I had understood about the
organization of the people I met, who the members of the
(06:55):
board of directors and some key staff members who I thought I
want to be with these folks. And I didn't really fully
honestly appreciate some of the challenges that the organization
felt, was sorry, not felt, but was experiencing.
And I'm not so sure that the organization itself really,
really knew what what the situation had been.
(07:16):
And so I don't I don't want to convey like as if there was a
deceptive component to it. I just don't think it was.
There wasn't enough bubbling up in on the surface through that
process. I have to.
Believe that wholeheartedly. You know, I, I think that's an
interesting thing for any organization.
When you bring like I've always,you know, I've grown fairly
(07:36):
large businesses, you know, well, small, you know, 60
employees, but large for me. And you know, when I would bring
in someone who wasn't home grown, they often came with a
totally different perspective onand perceptions of where I was
going right or wrong. And I always embrace that.
(07:57):
I'm like, wow, OK, I don't have that experience of a mega
agency. So you learn differently. 100% I
mean, there's, there is so much to be gained first of all from
people growing up in organizations and their
experiences and and their, theirinstitutional knowledge.
All that is valuable, equally valuable is what somebody new
(08:20):
coming to a space can bring. And so I think a thriving
organization holds space for both type of individuals and
that's how organizations grow and advance further along the
way. So in my case, in this
situation, there were a lot of pressures at, at then Leek and
(08:41):
Watts. There were, there were lots of
signs externally, but I don't think anybody was in the
position to, to really piece together the full circumstance
and and that's what I went aboutdoing.
And how did, how did that look? Did you have to start with
fundraising first and say, OK, before I've got this vision of
(09:05):
where things can go, but I need some money.
You know, is it a chicken and anegg or, oh, I actually need some
people so I can convince the funds, you know, the money that
I've got it, I've got it all together here.
We just need to keep it going like what comes.
First, OK, so and you know, it's18 years and so some of those
(09:25):
things, I'm sure memory memories, as you know, we all
our memories, we don't lose our memory, but our, our own vision
of things do change. So I'll try to be, I of course,
want to be as honest about what I recall and what I experienced
as I can be. But here's a couple things that
happened when I got there. So as I was, I was coming one
day a week for about four monthsbefore I actually started to
(09:47):
give a nice transition to the place that I had been leaving.
I'd been there for a decade. So I did not make an abrupt
change and I was coming once a month.
And during that several month period, I started to to learn
different things. For example, I worked in, walked
into my first sort of senior leadership meeting and a person
in the leadership team stood up and said, why did you want to
(10:08):
take this job? Not hey, why were you interested
in us? But they said it in this tone of
making me aware that all was notwell, right and with examples of
ways in which things were not well. 80% of our programs were
in some form of not just corrective action status with
the varying funding sources, butlike a heightened level of
(10:30):
scrutiny. The quality is corrective.
Action status mean. So it can mean different things
in different types of work, but we are, the Human Services world
is a highly regulated world as well.
It should be, right? We're responsible for peoples
lives. People should be paying
attention not only to how we're spending public dollars, for
(10:52):
sure. We should also be paying
attention to what is the qualityof that work.
How are people interacting with the people we serve?
Are we delivering, You know, whether it's life safety
situations like how quickly somebody can evacuate from a
building in time if that's wherethey live, but it could be also,
are you seeing the person as frequently you're supposed to be
seeing them? Is the work that you're doing
(11:13):
with somebody actually supportive of who they are and
where they want to go? So we should be scrutinized
heavily and we are. And when you get these audits
and reviews that occur, there's always things that external
auditors are going to see that go like, oh, you can do this
better, you need to fix that. That's perfect.
That's the way it should be. And good organizations use the
(11:35):
information and feedback we're getting from external reviews
and our own reviews to make things better.
You ask something about what makes organizations good.
And I'm going to go back to to this question about what I saw
when I got here. But really it's not that
organizations, human service organizations or any other
organization. It's not that an organization is
(11:55):
has to always be performing at 100%.
Frankly, no place performs at 100% all the time.
It's not possible. Human beings are fallible.
The question is, what do you do when something is not 100%?
What do you do when something goes wrong?
How do you quickly do? You.
How quickly do you acknowledge that you have a problem, and
(12:18):
then what do you do to fix it? That is the magic sauce.
It's. So true.
I've said that for years. You know what we're going to
screw up. We may screw up royally, but
it's going to be how we recover that what you know we build our
legacy on. Can we fix it?
Can we own it? Fix it and change whatever we
(12:40):
need to do so it doesn't happen again.
Diane, preach. You're in the right, you're in,
you're in my, you're in my, in my, in my faith right now.
We're in the same, we're in the same place.
So anyway, when I got there, 80%of our programs were in some
form of very high level of acknowledge problem by external
forces, number one. Number two, we had just lost New
(13:03):
York City had canceled a big portion of the organization's
contracts. When I was getting there, 170
people were losing their jobs ofa huge number.
I it was just happening as I wasgetting there.
Whenever we were out in the public, people will say things
to me like you guys are not good.
And then they would start to unload on me these stories about
(13:25):
things that were not good about what we were doing.
And then financially, the organization had literally
depleted whatever reserves it had.
It was in the financial tailspin.
So all these things were happening.
Oh, and by the way, it was it was the financial crisis of up
to what was that 2008, 2008, 2009?
(13:47):
I just lost my. You know, when I saw the year
you went, I always say to people, the only thing that
might put me in life through PTSD is the year 2008, 2009.
If you want like let's just Fastforward through that.
We lost, we literally lost 60% of our business in 2 1/2 months.
(14:10):
Yeah, I could not have. And all of a sudden, no employee
wanted to leave. I could not have really from
that, from all these ways I could.
I mean, by the way, in the end, I feel like it made the best
move in my life taking this job here.
But in that moment, if you were like, Oh my God, he totally
(14:30):
flubbed this. He made the wrong choice at the
wrong time. He left a really cushy, I don't
mean cushy as him, but like a really successful 10 years
someplace else at a place that Ilove.
I like. This was a dumb move.
Well, now you're branded as the ultimate turn around nonprofit
turn around specialist. I appreciate that label and it's
(14:52):
not just me, by the way, and we're going to, I hope we can
talk about it. Definitely not just about me,
but So what I did when you askedthe question, how did you know
where to turn first? You said fundraising, whatever.
I didn't know where to turn. Literally, there was something
going wrong in every single space.
Some people that I realized, some of the people I thought
(15:13):
that I can hitch my wagon to, who I were impressed with that I
met actually had to go. I had to actually fire some
people who I thought were going to be my partners in this place.
So there was, there was lots of it was, it was a constant series
of things. So what I did, I went around and
just started talking to people. I talked to people in government
(15:36):
that were funding us. I talked to community leaders, I
talked to staff and anytime I talked to somebody I just said
to them, oh, can you just tell me somebody else I should, you
mentioned so and so should I go talk to them?
I was, I've never done anything like that.
It was the equivalent of a full 360.
It wasn't that I, I didn't plan to do it.
And it turned out, by the way, at some point I was keeping
record. I had spoken to maybe about 300
(15:58):
and 53175 people during the course of time.
And so I acquired for that period of time an understanding
of the organization that was particularly rich and I was able
and I had a really the the boardchair, a wonderful man, his name
is Cross and Sebolt, I put a plug in for him.
(16:21):
He, I went to him at one point because we had gotten it from
one of our funding sources. They produced what they actually
called the scorecard the equivalent of a of your report
card from, from school and it had letters on it that you would
(16:41):
not want to bring home to your mother, right.
So, and the organization was very defensive about it.
And I went with him and I said to him, we need to talk to the
board about this. And at my, my very first, first
board meeting, I said to them, look, this is the scorecard.
I, I know you have. We, we as an organization have
(17:02):
problems with how the government, what are some of the
things the government in this case was doing or thought about
us. But when our grades are so low,
they're not going to listen to us when our grades are an A and
AB and we then say to them, well, what you did here is wrong
or this could be better, then they are more willing to listen
(17:24):
to us, right? You have to have you have to
have credibility. And so I said at this very first
meeting, I was like, this is notgoing to be fun.
What we have to do here. And if any of you as board
members and they had my board chairs backing are up for what's
coming next, great. If not, this is a moment that
(17:47):
maybe you should leave the board.
And a couple people were alreadyleaving the board.
A couple people left at that moment.
But the people who stayed, like the staff who stayed were like,
this is not the place that it needs to be.
We can get to a better place. And so the board, key staff
members, it became this sort of OK rallying cry.
(18:12):
We're going to get this place tosomeplace stronger and better.
And over time also by the way, that very agency that gave us
that failing scorecard maybe about two years later.
I'm a little bit off. By the time the commissioner of
that Organism, that agency actually when he they were doing
a transition to a new new leadership as a new
(18:32):
administration and his number two person was looking for a job
someplace. He recommended.
He recommended to us because he,to his credit, saw the
trajectory the organization was taking.
And so that was one example early on that said, oh.
(18:56):
We're going in the right direction.
Things can change. And when we opened, for example,
we were opening some group homesfor people with developmental
disabilities in communities. We were converting all
properties that had other programs that had been
shuttered. And people would say to us, we
don't want these people here. This is what happened.
(19:16):
And it didn't matter that I stood up in front of them and
said, we're new, we're different, you got to give us a
chance. I could.
Appreciate that their experiencebefore that time was not
positive. They didn't.
They didn't get the callbacks when something happened they
nobody listened to. Whatever they experienced is
what they experienced. And we had to just continue to
(19:38):
acknowledge those things and then prove over time that the
place was different than had been in those in those ways.
And there were a lot, a lot of people on staff and in
communities that had thought that this place could do well or
joined at various points along its trajectory upwards.
(19:59):
And that became. The motivation that became the
sort of the, the strength that brought us forward really,
really. And then I all my job was to do
was to harness their energy and their goodwill.
That's what that's where things then started to to manifest
itself in really big ways. Now you said we were different
than anyone else. How are how is Rising Ground
(20:21):
different than other organizations in New York?
What are your differentiators? Oh, that's an interesting
question. So in a couple ways, in several
ways we're the same as other hard working human service
organizations doing really important work in in New York
City or across the country, right.
There's there's common themes about what we're about and but
(20:44):
then there are ways, I guess I think that that rising ground is
particularly different. One of them comes out from this
experience of being an organization that had really
been in a dark moment to where it is today, I mean today versus
then where we're not, we haven'twe've been on this trajectory of
(21:04):
of growth for the past 18 years that has been unabated.
You know it's. Really remarkable when you think
about New York City and the ups and downs New York has had over
the past 18 years. It is remarkable and we have, we
are in so many different ways regarded as a very strong
(21:24):
provider of the various different services and we can
get into the discussion about all the different work that we
do. We are a place that has in
several different examples been the initiator of things, but
more more often one of the more common experiences.
We might be the organization that might not be the first to
do something, but oddly later on, not so oddly later on,
(21:45):
become the place. We're like a steady Eddy.
We once we take something on, weare very thoughtful and we do
it. We do it well.
And part of it comes from this experience, which is what I ties
back to this conversation we're having up to this point.
Embedded, I think in our cultureis the experience of having
really not been the strongest place that could be.
(22:09):
And instead of being out there and being a bit of self
promoting, we were very and havebeen for many years, very self
reflective. So, so that when things go
wrong, we spend the time and we do what needs to do and sorry,
(22:29):
we spend the time to correct what's happening and do what we
need to do. And so we're only now after many
years, starting to invest a little bit more about promoting
ourselves and, you know, speaking a little bit more
boldly. I do think though, in the kind
of work that we do in Human Services work, humility is kind
(22:50):
of a bit of a prerequisite. Well, that.
Well, not only that, you know, my biggest lessons in life and
certainly in any work we're not learned when I felt like I was a
rock star, you know, when everything was going great, You
know, when everything's going great, you just kind of look at
(23:12):
it as wow, this is wonderful. You know, you're not even
thinking necessarily about what can go wrong, which is why I do
a lot of crisis management now, you know, because it's when
they, when those moments you learn the most are when things
all of a sudden come to a screeching halt.
Something changes and you have to say how I'm either going to
(23:33):
drown here, that's one possibility, or I'd prefer to
swim. So how am I going to learn to do
that? You know, almost in 0.
Time and I don't know whether individuals who have joined us
in these leader years in leadership roles will ever
understand and I don't mean theyhave to, but you'll ever
(23:55):
understand that that that has been a motivator the experiences
of the past have been a motivator that have sort of set
a certain tone for who we are. So I think one of the things
that. That's a really good point.
I think a lot of people and I, Ihear a lot of executive talk
about it as an issue today that,you know, good, bad or otherwise
(24:18):
people walk into an organizationand assume everything's always
been great and don't necessarilyunderstand what it took to get
to a level. And therefore that, you know,
everybody still needs to like push up the proverbial sleeves
and, you know, keep their nose to the grinder to keep it going
because it at some point it doesn't work if everybody
(24:39):
doesn't keep bringing that attitude, no matter how well the
everything's working, in my opinion.
No, I couldn't. I, I, I, we are.
We are again in agreement here because as much as we've made
progress and change to today, tomorrow's another day.
We got to keep going. This is always the task.
There are some other issues. Coming some other organization
(25:00):
trying to get your money that you're trying to get, somebody
trying to, you know, look better, stronger, whatever.
It's life today. There are 2000 people who work
at Rising Ground. Oh my gosh.
We're providing staff. There's about 100 or so
different programs operating outof 140 different locations
across New York City in additionto people being in people's
(25:22):
homes and in community connecting with folks every day.
And I, I feel remarkably privileged to be associated with
this organization. Every day we're doing tremendous
work and every day somewhere in that space we're not doing we're
not doing tremendous work and aslong as.
I wouldn't believe you if you said otherwise, Alan.
(25:44):
I mean, it, it's just life. It happens and it's all.
How are you going to communicateand get through it?
That's right. And as long as you move
continually appreciate those twothings.
And that that's not even just true about Human Services.
I was, in fact, yesterday was meeting with a new board member
who's in the banking field, and we were almost having a similar
(26:07):
type of conversation and he was saying exactly the same thing.
This is the very nature. I mean, I think of course it's
different in Human Services because somebody's actual life
is, you know, we are entrusted with a very important task.
But seriously, it's the same thing everywhere.
And it means something all the time.
So as long as you can recognize that even if there's a like we
(26:31):
did pulled something off today and we got some recognition for
it today, at the very same time,there's something else that we
better turn our eyes on and fix fast.
And so that is part of our culture.
When you ask what I think sets us apart, I actually believe
that that understanding is extremely prevalent here.
(26:53):
I'm not saying it doesn't exist in other places, but in our
case, because of where we came from, I think it occupies a even
higher part of of our culture. The other things that separate
us, I'd say is there's such diversity of the services that
we do that I that puts us in a particularly different category,
(27:15):
obviously. Scope on that what?
What are the kinds of services you offer?
Totally Let me just start by just saying one thing like when
I think of like when people ask like, well, what is rising
ground about so and especially if they told you we changed our
name from leak and Watts. So I my quick little way that I
say it, we are about helping people to move upward and
forward in their lives. That's that rising part by
(27:37):
providing them with a foundationfrom which to grow.
That is the ground. That's a.
Grow. You have a career in branding
too. That's really good.
That's. Really good short explanation.
Fantastic. Well, I'm really glad you said
that because we hired a marketing manager here this past
year. I told you it was part about
getting ourselves out there. And when she sees this and you
(28:00):
tell her that I have a career inbranding, I, she's never going
to live this down. So I'm going to, I'm going to
milk. I'm going to milk this for as
much as I can. I can get out of it.
Really should because you know, really what I've specialized for
over 30 years is trying to give companies their, you know, 1530
45 and one minute sound bite andyou just gave one of the best
I've ever heard. No, it's no BS.
(28:22):
Straight forward Alan. That is solid.
Great. So and so I'm just taking a
little bit further and then you ask what what services we have
and I won't I won't name them all because it's really vast.
But we do a lot of work in the child welfare space.
So that would be foster care andthen working with families in a
preventive services. So families that have challenges
to ensure that their child does not enter foster care or even if
(28:45):
there were other challenges thatwouldn't lead to foster care,
but need help in other ways. So child welfare and family
stabilization. We do a lot of work in the
intimate partner violence or domestic violence space.
We do a lot of youth developmentwork.
We're one of the largest providers of supports to runaway
and homeless youth in New York City.
We have community mental health work.
We support people with intellectual and developmental
(29:07):
disabilities. We're supporting runaway and I
mentioned running homeless youth, but we also support
unaccompanied migrant children. The array of work that we're
doing is so vast. And so that is another.
The combination of what those things are is another
distinguishing factor for us. And I'd say the third
distinguishing factor for us is we try very hard to do 2 things
(29:30):
with that, that, that vastness #1 is if somebody comes to us
and they need some others level of assistance or support other
than the way they came to us in the 1st place.
We try hard not only to make them available to, to avail them
of those supports here at RisingGround, but we also have a
really great partnership with lots of other organizations.
And if we're not the right placeto support them, we are very
(29:52):
quick and very easy to send themto the place where they can get
the help that we need. I think that's another very
important factor about who we are and then we're.
Going to find who can. Very much so.
Very much so. And and then the other part is,
I think we try hard these types of services, they're each
different. You know, running a preschool
(30:13):
for kids with special education needs is just very different
than running a transitional independent program for runaway
homes. Absolutely.
They're just different. Everything about almost
different. That's a big breath.
But there are things that are common in that work and what I
think we people, how we approachpeople, how we communicate, how
(30:39):
we listen to them, how we make their needs, desires,
aspirations, centre centred in whatever help we way we're
helping them. Those are very common things.
And so one of the things we try hard to do is to learn from
those various aspects of who we are as an organization.
That is not the easiest task, but it's something.
(30:59):
I think that is something we tryhard to do and that is a
distinguishing factor. Well, if you were speaking to
someone today, if someone came in for an interview and said,
you know, Alan, I, I gone through everything I know all
about rising ground. I really want to work with an
organization like yours. What would be the ways you would
(31:23):
question them to figure out their intention possibly or even
maybe discourage them? Because I don't think what you
do is for everybody. That is really a funny thing
that you just said to me that I would.
Sometimes people have told me asan interviewer that I do more to
to dissuade somebody from working there than not and well.
(31:44):
I think that would be important to you.
We, we only met during this call, but you have a compelling
infectious personality. I want to apply to rising ground
right now and say, Alan, let me come work with you.
You know, so it you would attract people to be near you
(32:06):
that may have no clue what theirday is going to involve.
And when you're dealing with a foster kid or a one run away,
it's going to be a heck of a lotdifferent than the joy and glory
you're feeling with Alan. So I think that's where your
discouragement. That's why I asked the question.
Well, you're very gracious and and I appreciate what you just
(32:27):
said. And and I and I do feel honored
that anybody has or would be inspired to come work here at
Rising Ground because I have contributed something to their
that that idea. So and I don't treat that own it
likely a fact. Own it.
(32:50):
Yeah, I have to make sure my mother listens to this podcast.
I really do. So who is my #1 fan?
So I still enjoy watching. Yeah, but.
So what would you say to someonetoo and either encourage them or
weed them out? Yeah, no.
So, you know, listen, I, I don't.
(33:10):
And of course, and I know. Obviously there's layers, I'm
just imagining if you were. If I am not right, I am not
making those hires. You're 100% correct.
And one of the things I think wetried hard to do is to try to
put people in situations. So we really do want people to
connect to the work before we make those decisions.
We try to use, you know, competency based hiring to
(33:32):
understand less about the experiences they've had, but how
they approach challenges and problems and problem solving to
see if they are the right fit. And so how we approach the
question side of things. We also, by the way, here and we
use often a lot of panel interviewing.
So let's say I'm making a hire, nobody who I ever hire just
(33:55):
interviews with me. They always interview with a
panel of other people because that's going to get different
questions or different I approaches in case I didn't do a
very good job. And I can't do tell you how many
times that I have sent a bunch of folks to panels and when they
came back, the Pat I met sat down to meet with the panels.
They're like, Alan, really didn't see what you saw.
(34:18):
I'm like, oh gosh. I've been there, I've been there
part, you know, and that's for all kinds of reasons.
Sometimes you just connect with someone's personality.
Sometimes you just want the rolefilled, you know, sometimes
you're just hopeful. I mean, there's a zillion
things, you know, if, if, when you're in a people business and
you're in a position to hire, you want to believe the best in
(34:40):
the person sitting in front of you.
So it, it does create a filter that you have to think twice.
And that's why those panel factors can be really great for
anyone, you know. All all true, all true.
And you're right and but, but not everybody.
I listen. I think sometimes you meet
somebody and you just, I, I wishthere was a always a thing that
(35:00):
you could just say, but sometimes it's just a gut
feeling and you just know when you're like, I can feel like I
can see, you know, at this point, this is a, there's such a
wonderful team of people in the leadership level here.
And that's the positions that I'm the one who would be
interviewing for or I'm invited to participate in panels as
(35:21):
well. Even if I'm not the hiring
manager, sometimes I'm invited to participate in in decisions
like that. And so, and we are fortunate now
as a place that has a good reputation as a kind of provider
that we are in the city, people at leadership levels or even not
just at leadership levels, they know who we are.
(35:41):
We are a desired place to come to work.
And so I think we do attract a lot of a lot of folks even I
should say though still it is a,it is a, it is a hard market for
hiring. We have lots of direct support
work that is at the very front lines where we have some of
those positions do not pay as they really should to recognize
the importance of the work that they are.
(36:03):
That is a serious problem in ourfunding streams.
And so, you know, there it's a, it's a different situation.
But my point simply was going tobe that you have to just spend
the time to try to get at that little something that tells you,
this is the person that I want to be with as we continue every
day and to content to I want to I want to be in partnership with
(36:25):
them as we continue to do this work that they're going to
contribute something to our teamthat's going to help to keep
moving us in that better direction.
Are there traits or characteristics you that stand
out for you favorably or negatively?
Well, I think some of them are some of the some of the values
(36:49):
that we actually have here at Rising Ground.
One of them is tenacity. The people who we support are
facing significant challenges intheir lives, some of them just
specific to them and some that have to do with the nature of
(37:10):
our society, the systems that they're interacting with, the
inherent inequities in our world.
You have to, if you want to do this work, you have to have the
strength to persevere. You have to keep pushing
(37:32):
forward. You have to help somebody to see
their capacity to be tenacious. You have to not take no when you
know there is the possibility that a yes can come.
This is a this is 1 characteristic.
Second characteristic that I think of is service.
(37:54):
We are in a service business. If you don't ultimately believe
that the person who we're assisting is the driver of what
should happen, this is the wrongbusiness for you.
Two other characteristics, this notion of accountability, which
(38:19):
ties back, by the way, to the very thing I talked, we talked
about in terms of how this organization has changed, right?
It required us to own as organizationally the things we
were doing wrong. But accountability for
everything like whether you're working in our finance and HR
department or HR department, or whether you're working on the
front lines supporting a runawayand homeless youth, or whether
(38:43):
or not you're making dinner in aresidence for people with
development disabilities, you need to own what you're doing
all day long and. That means.
Of course you should own it whenyou've done well and I did
something great and people should say you did something
great or that was not the best Allen in that moment.
(39:08):
And there's really nothing wrongwith that because you're not
going to get, you are not going to get the best Allen or the
best Diane 24/7. It just does not happen.
And so owning it is the other characteristics of that sense
that whether or not people can, and if you can somehow figure
that out in the way people answer questions in an
interview, you can sometimes hear some of that.
(39:29):
That then is very, to me is veryattractive.
And the last part, I think is about communication, your
ability not only to engage, but first is to engage the person
that you're supporting or to engage with your colleagues to
explain to to. And however that is, is that
(39:51):
you're able to get the message out about why something, you
know, what you need, what has tohappen, what whatever, so that
otherwise things are not going to move forward as they need to.
So those are, they happen to be our values, but they also happen
to be the characteristics that if you would ask me, we should
have those would be them. Extremely well articulated and
(40:15):
outlined it. It would create a incredible
business plan for a strong organization if those were
followed. In light of that, what would you
say to someone who said, you know what, I live in Kansas,
some little town in Kansas and Iknow this place could have some
(40:39):
things that are better for the people that are arriving here,
people that need help, the localcommunity.
What would you tell them about starting something today?
I mean, you've been around a while.
You're 100 year old organizationfor the past 20 years.
You've turned it around, you know, and made it, you know,
change the name, made it more successful, viable, added
(41:01):
employees. But what would if you went back
to your start up, you know, start up days?
So a, a couple of different thoughts pop into my mind in
response to what you're saying. You know, on one level I do.
It's more recently I've come to realize that part of what I have
or part of that I do have an entrepreneurial component.
(41:22):
I, I never have thought about that because I typically would
have thought about entrepreneurswho I have deep respect for as
people who start businesses and grow them from a concept, you
know, some idea and make something new happen.
That, though, has never been part of my journey.
So I, you know, the truth is I took over an organization that
was already of a significant size.
I took over an organization thathad been a very long time.
(41:44):
So I don't have that aspect about what to say to somebody in
Kansas who was saying something like, oh, I want to start
something like this. There's an element to that that
I maybe might not be the best person to.
I think of an entrepreneur in some ways.
I think it's a totally misused phrase, but I think of it as the
person who is Idea, Spark, Hustle, Grind and knows how to
(42:12):
surround themselves with people that can really help make their
vision materialize and figure out whether it's that they have
to go raise money, you know, from investors or donors.
It makes no difference. You have to figure out the game.
OK, this is very true by the way.
And one of the things I definitely am is I, I can grind
(42:33):
through anything. Yeah, that is an interesting
characteristic. And so I, I can, I can see those
things. But in your point to, you know
in this sort of scenario what you were asking and I don't want
to not answer that question because I think it's.
No, I want you to. Answer Yeah.
You know, I first, I wouldn't, Iwould say, is there something
about what you want to have happen in this place that it
(42:58):
doesn't already exist? Like a lot of people love to
start something new just for thesake of starting new.
And that is a complete disservice.
In the case of Human Services, that is a complete disservice.
And often things become the new bright, shiny light and
resources are attracted there. Maybe even celebrity attention
(43:20):
is attracted there. You know, social media
gravitates to it. And the question is, did that
really? Because if we're really focused
on the issue and the people who need the end assistance, did
having somebody else do the exact same thing really help
(43:40):
move the needle? If it did, it's because it
didn't exist already or it wasn't doing well.
Those are fine reasons. Excellent point.
Excellent point. Otherwise, you're a me too in a
crowded field, and in fact you could be damaging existing good
things because it takes a lot ofmoney to start something up.
Well, let let not only that, butyou were correct.
(44:02):
I that's exactly, I'm in the same space.
But also, you know, so many of the people we are supporting, we
are supporting marginalized individuals, right?
And in addition to those challenges, because they are
marginalized individuals, the work that we do is fundamentally
(44:23):
undervalued, right? Social workers are not paid what
they should be. People who are doing direct
support work and taking care of a person with developmental
disabilities is not being paid arational wage, not only a living
wage, but a rational wage considering the such the
(44:47):
important work that they do. So we have a fundamental problem
in our society that we do not actually value first the
individuals and then do not value the work.
And so the last thing we need issome other like let's go to the
next bright shiny thing. So that's that personal kind of
(45:08):
piece on on that side of it. But assuming that somebody has
said, Oh no, no, this is an unmet need here and there is
nobody else who is doing it. Or if there is somebody, I'd
say, I want you to go and help make them better at what they do
would be the first place. Bring those talents, those
energy, that capacity that you have and make that that that's
(45:29):
happening already in your town or your community, make that
better. That would be my number one
thing I would say to them. But if the answer is like, OK,
it doesn't exist, I would say a couple of things.
Well, or another thing I was going to say was we're very, one
of the things I think we do verywell is we play very nice in the
sandbox. We partner with colleague
organizations all the time. We form coalitions with other
(45:51):
organizations around a whole host of issues.
We have found founded collaborations that are exists
outside of rising ground to helpbetter the fields that we are
that we are operating in. So we would be happy for
somebody who said to us, hey, can we learn from you?
Happy to do those sorts of things like, you know, how did
(46:13):
you stand up such and such, Do you have a policy and blah,
blah, blah, like all those kindsof things.
I feel like we are not just about our work, but we're about
our field. So happy to help folks in that
way as well. And that may include, you know,
answering questions about how you set some of some other thing
up. But the truth of the matter is,
if you're in some small town in Kansas, we are a organization
(46:38):
with a budget of close to $215 million with 2000 people working
in the largest city of New York.So much of what our experience
is may not be transferable in the direct way.
Now in the inspirational way totally, but in the direct way,
(46:58):
size, scale, experience might wemight not be.
I think we need to be a little bit humble about how we offer to
assist folks because we may not be the best folks for them.
But happy to share our to talk and and answer direct questions
and provide that kind of assistance if it.
Was are you funded by New York City, by the state, by grants,
(47:23):
by donations? What what how does your budget
get put your? The question to that is, yes,
all of the all of the above, about half about funding comes
from New York City. We get some direct funding from
New York State and we also get funding from the federal
government. So all three, we also do direct
(47:43):
like fee for service work. So if somebody's coming for our
community mental health services, then whether they have
Medicaid or if they want to billtheir insurance company like we
get funded in a fee for service manner in some other parts of
our work. And then we we have, we are very
fortunate. We have an array of individuals
(48:05):
of foundations and corporate entities that support our work.
We're continue to try to bolsterour fundraising efforts and the
fundraising piece, why is that so important even if we're
mostly government funded? Couple of reasons, Hey, I
already made the comment that says where the work we're doing
is fundamentally not is under isunder appreciated and
(48:28):
underfunded. So we're looking for resources
to help bridge the gap that we have often, often we work in
environments where it's a cost reimbursement situation.
So if the most you could make isthe dollar, but it turns out
that you only, you know, it's hard to always make the dollar,
you wind up only making $0.97 and therefore you now have to
fill the extra $0.03. So that's always a challenge for
(48:49):
us. But when we want to launch new
programs, we want to make innovations and corrections and
improvements to the work that we're doing.
We're relying very heavily on onthe very general great
generosity of a large number of people.
And so fundraising is another part of how we bring in we're
able to do what we do. Now, is Rising Ground A
organization of New York City like of the government?
(49:13):
Or are you independent but funded by taxpayers?
Great question. So we are a nonprofit.
The tax code is 5O1C3. That's what means that if
somebody gave us money, we wouldthey can get a tax deduction for
their dollars. It also means that whatever
resources we bring in are not distributed out to shareholders
(49:37):
like in a corporation for profitcorporation, and that the monies
we bring in must be used for their intended purposes in the
delivering of services and the furtherance of our mission.
So we have contracts with City, New York City, NY State, and the
federal government, and that's how we get particular services
(49:59):
paid for and delivered. Just to be clear, if somebody is
paying for us, let's say New York City is paying for foster
care services and the federal government is paying for Early
Head Start services. We can't use the funds that we
get for foster care by New York City to pay for the work that we
do in Early Head Start for the federal government and vice
versa. We must use those services for
(50:21):
the contracts that we are required to deliver.
Got it. You know, the time on these
interviews always goes way too quick.
Alan, do you have parting words you would like to share over the
next couple of minutes for what people should know about Rising
ground, community, service, anything?
(50:44):
Well, first of all, again, just grateful for the opportunity to,
to, to even speak about the workthat I've done in the work of
this organization. I believe deeply in this, in
this place. I I think that we are trying to
make the communities that we areworking in that's across New
York City and Westchester County, like many other
organizations across the United States, We're trying to make
(51:07):
better, stronger communities, better, stronger families.
Individuals have opportunities to to to succeed in and to grow.
And I think that is very, very important work.
And we need friends. We like all these other
organizations. We need people who are dedicated
to this work to come work for us.
We need people in government whounderstand the value of this
(51:28):
work and elected officials who want to advance and support this
kind of work. And then we need friends and
donors who pay attention to the value of the kind of work.
Not only I want them of course, to give us to to send donations
our way of of course, or to other organizations.
It's important that people are involved in their communities,
volunteering, all that that works whether it's with us or
(51:50):
not with us. But for people to appreciate the
importance of helping our neighbors is not only about
helping them, but is also makingit a better society for which in
which we will all live. So that analogy, I talked about
wanting everybody to have a place at the table.
We will. We all live a better life when
everybody has a better place at the table.
(52:12):
It's a better meal to start. And so I think in any way,
whether you're an employee, a government official, elected
official, a community member, any way in which you can embrace
the notion of the kind of work that places like Rising Ground
does, that would be my parting message.
Do it, Lean in. We need you.
Just out of curiosity, you said employees, Do you also have
(52:35):
volunteers, people who volunteerat Rising Ground?
We have a small volunteer program.
It hasn't been as big in recent years.
It was bigger before COVID and then things got scaled back and
we haven't yet been able honestly to invest in it in the
kind of way. I, I firmly believe if you're
going to run a volunteer program, you need to do it the
right way. You need people who can make
(52:55):
sure that the the, the assignments that somebody has is
meaningful and that they are connected and attentive.
And until we can do that the best possible way, we are
limited in what we do volunteer wise.
We do do a lot of work, sometimes corporate volunteers.
So when an organization wants todo something is a collective
that is our easiest thing to pull off.
(53:16):
But individual volunteers is nota space that we do a lot in
right now. Very interesting.
Well, I have been speaking with Alan Mukutel from Rising Ground
and this has been truly a really, really inspiring
conversation. I learned a lot.
I enjoyed every minute of it. It went too fast.
(53:37):
Thank you, Alan. Thank you.
I really appreciate my time withyou.
Thank you. I'm Diane Gorsell.
This has been the Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics
podcast. I'm sitting in beautiful
Manhattan center. You notice the lighting's a
little different today. I had a little glitch setting
something up here, so hopefully it'll look OK on on the final
(53:58):
edit. But I want to thank everyone for
tuning in. Thank you, Alan.
Please check out Rising Ground. Hit subscribe.
Follow what Alan and Rising Ground are doing because it's
definitely worth staying attunedto and focusing on.
So thank you. Hit subscribe.
Alan, we're going to move over to the green room.
(54:18):
Thank you everybody.
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