iFunds: What Are They and How Are They Changing the Community?

The OCCF was looking for a way to fulfill the wishes of their donors without a specific organization or charity in mind - enter iFunds. On this episode, we're sitting down with OCCF's Kelley Barnes, Oklahoma Dental Foundation's John Wilguess and Hilltop Clinic's Clarissa Watkins to find out what iFunds are and how they're making a difference in the community. 

Visit occf.org to learn more!

Transcript

Dan Martel 0:31

The Oklahoma City Community Foundation was looking for a way that the wishes of their donors could be met when they did not have a specific organization or charity in mind to support. The Foundation came up with an initiative called iFunds. Hello, I'm Dan Martel. Welcome back to the pod. Today we're going to be talking about iFunds. What are iFunds? Well, there are three categories. The Service for Elderly iFund supports grants to help our older citizens stay safe and well in their homes. The Opportunities for Children iFund supports grants that provides children access to services and opportunities. The Access to Health are iFund supports grants to provide basic and preventative healthcare, including mental and dental care to individuals in need. An iFund provides an easy way for anybody to make a gift of $25 or more. When combined with gifts from others, it can have a real impact on the lives of so many.

Today we have Kelley Barnes who is the Vice President of Community Engagement with the Oklahoma City Community Foundation. John Wilguess, the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Dental Foundation, who is a recent recipient of an iFund grant and Clarissa Watkins, the Director of Outreach and Development for Hilltop Clinic, also located here in Oklahoma City and also so a recent recipient. We'll discuss how these grants have impacted both of these organizations and how organizations throughout the metro can apply to these grants. Let's get right to it. First of all, I want to welcome Kelley Barnes back to the program. Kelley, welcome back. Good to have you again.

Kelley Barnes 1:57

Thank you for having me Dan.

Dan Martel 1:58

So, Kelley, if we look at Oklahoma City, we find that so many of our own citizens are in need of basic health care, hot meals, things like that. A lot of us take things like that for granted. I'm glad we're here talking about iFunds today. The first question I have is very simple. What is an iFund and what are they intended to do?

Kelley Barnes 2:15

Sure. In 2010, the Trustees adopted a grant making program around some restricted funds that did not have the traditional community program element of activities like we have with the Margaret Annis Boys Trust, right? There's a certain program element to those things. This was mostly around some funding of some grant activities where we had pooled some money, either from donors that had made some special instructions in their fund agreements or from a Charitable Organization Endowment Fund that maybe the focus was on children and it went out of business. We pooled some of those funds together and the trustees voted to do three different granting activities, Opportunities for Children, Access to Health Care and Elderly Services. It really was an efficient way for us to deploy some money in the community around those three areas.

Dan Martel 3:13

This is really interesting. How do your donors usually help fund this type of initiative?

Kelley Barnes 3:18

When a donor comes to the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, they generally not always, but they generally have an idea of maybe things that they want to fund. They do those things in their fund agreement, and they make those grants year after year and eventually the donor passes away or they don't have successor advisors for the funds and maybe the organizations that they were funding have gone away. The Community Foundation has been around a long time. We looked at some of those restricted funds and pooled them together in the areas that made sense. The areas that bubbled up were children. Florida Knight was the donor for Opportunities for Children. It was really around enrichment opportunities for children with disabilities, foster care and really programs for children who wouldn't otherwise have an opportunity to participate. Florida Knight was really specific about that. We take a great deal of pride at the Community Foundation in the way that we steward our donor’s intentions in perpetuity when we absolutely can. This is just one way that we continue to do that after the donor is gone after their decision making has passed.

Dan Martel 4:38

Which is interesting because it sounds like a donor can get very, very specific as to where they want to leave their impact. In this case you had mentioned earlier that there are three basic categories. Are there specific times of the year that you grant or allow people to apply for these types of grants or can they go in at it all at the same time?

Kelley Barnes 4:58

So certainly, there are definite grant cycles they are annual. Access to Health Care just passed. Opportunities for Children will go to the OCCF trustees at their May meeting. We kind of stagger them throughout the year and sometimes it changes, but it's always on our website what the opportunities and the deadlines and the dates are for the entire process of the grant, starting with the information meeting and all of that kind of good stuff.

Dan Martel 5:28

So, Kelley if somebody's interested in one of these particular areas under iFunds, they can go to the www.occf.org/ifunds and find out everything they need to know about Access to Health Care, Opportunities for Children and Services for the Elderly.

Kelley Barnes 5:42

Sure. Our grant guidelines are always posted. They can look at the awards that were made the prior year and a little description about those awards.

Dan Martel 5:51

Oh, that's great so they have a better understanding.

Kelley Barnes 5:52

And the amount so they can kind of follow along with us what we're doing and where we're making some investments.

Dan Martel 5:58

That's great. Kelley, one of the things I'm interested in knowing is, when we talk about these three basic categories, you know, Opportunities for Children, what would a charitable organization be out there that might fall into that category? Then what might fall into something under health care, then something for the elderly?

Kelley Barnes 6:18

Certainly. Opportunities for Children, part of the guidelines that we try to adhere to is funding for preschool readiness. A good example would be Oklahoma Children's Theater.

Dan Martel 6:33

Oh, Lyn Adams. We've had her on the program before.

Kelley Barnes 6:35

She has been a partner of the Oklahoma City Community Foundation for years. She has been a great mentor to other organizations in the community that are fostering literacy programs or theater programs for children. That's really what she does, is bring literacy programs to preschool aged children. They do it through fun and engaging things such as children's theater and opportunities for them to be on stage and to read a book and to talk about what they've learned. Lyn Adams is a great example of an Opportunities for Children partner over the years. She's just done an outstanding job in many of our granting areas, but Opportunities for Children is certainly one of them.

Dan Martel 7:27

Well, that's just one, absolutely. In terms of Services for the Elderly?

Kelley Barnes 7:34

So that iFund is really geared around helping seniors stay in their homes. A good example of that would be Rebuilding Together. They go into a senior's home and perhaps puts bathroom bars in the shower facility or perhaps puts a ramp up to the front door in case they're bound by wheelchair or have difficulty walking by themselves. Whatever we can do to partner with organizations that are helping seniors stay in their homes is the objective of that grant program.

Dan Martel 8:12

Sure. I wanted to ask you one more question. If there's an organization that is not chosen for one of the, iFunds, are they allowed to re-apply?

Kelley Barnes 8:20

Absolutely. It is a competitive process, and we get a lot of things, a lot of wonderful applications that we just can't fund. I would encourage everyone to read the grant guidelines and please attend the information meeting where we kind of kick-off the grant cycle. It's really important. It's a great time to ask questions to see if your program is really a good fit with the guidelines and with the donor intent.

Dan Martel 8:50

Well, if there's a particular organization that was a recipient of one of the iFunds are they allowed to apply for the same type of grant for their organization like the following year?

Kelley Barnes 9:03

They are. We tend to not want to give multiple year grants or fund the same project or organization year after year because sustainability is an important component of what we look at.

Dan Martel 9:18

Absolutely. Is there a committee that overlooks this and decides? How does that process work?

Kelley Barnes 9:22

Absolutely. We have committees for all of our grant programs that consist of some OCCF Trustees, some community members, some are experts in the area of the grant content. We rely on them to help us cull through the grants, and they take that really seriously. Then it goes to the Oklahoma City Community Foundation Trustees for final approval.

Dan Martel 9:49

That's great. This past year, I saw where the Foundation gave out more than $729,000 to this initiative. That's a lot of money in the community.

Kelley Barnes 9:58

It is. We're getting back in the swing of things. We saw a pause in a lot of our program areas due to COVID. We didn't do some grants for a while. We had not very many applications in some of our areas, and it's great to see programs getting back in action, responding to community need. It's really enriching to hear about people being in person again. I think we have something like 31 applications for the Opportunities for Children this grant cycle, which is probably an all-time high number of applications for that particular area.

Dan Martel 10:36 

That's great. I think that is outstanding. Hopefully, a lot of these organizations are going to receive future grants from the Oklahoma City Community Foundation. If you're a donor and you want to create an impact and have a love for children or elderly people or people that are in need of health care that you know of or if you're an organization that is seeking to get help in one of those areas, www.occf.org/ifunds. Kelley, thank you again for being on Creating Impact Through Giving and for the valuable information on iFunds. You know, people can truly make a difference in our community. One might just consider a charitable gift to one of the Foundations iFunds. Thanks again.

Kelley Barnes 11:15

Thank you.

Dan Martel 11:20

Now we want to bring in John Wilguess. John is the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Dental Foundation and has recently been a recipient of one of the latest rounds of iFund grants that have been distributed. John, welcome.

John Wilguess 11:30

Thanks very much. Glad to be here.

Dan Martel 11:32

Glad you are here. John, first of all before we get into the iFund Access to Health Care Grant, I want to ask a little bit about the Oklahoma Dental Foundation. Tell us a little bit about what you all do.

John Wilguess 11:40

Sure. Well, our mission is pretty simple. We are working to build partnerships across the state to be able to improve oral health for all Oklahomans. We really think that the partnership piece is the most important part of what we do. In fact, we've almost redefined our mission and have come to understand that we actually are most successful in providing dental care and fulfilling our mission by helping other organizations fulfill theirs. By doing that, what we do is work with prison diversion programs like Remerge here in Oklahoma City. We actually take our mobile dental program to their program so that the ladies who are a part of that don't have to go anywhere. They don't have to worry about anything. They show up to where they're supposed to be. We provide dental care for them for the time that they are there. We help fulfill the mission of getting those ladies taken care of in an appropriate way. Then we are successful in helping serve the population as well.

Dan Martel 12:30

Man, that is outstanding. You all received an iFund Access to Health Care grant recently, tell us about that.

John Wilguess 12:37

This is one that we are really, really excited about because it is about helping veterans. Last year we also received a grant for this purpose. We were able to expend all of the funds in just about three months. What happens as far as veterans go, they receive zero dental benefits unless they have been 100% disabled during their time of service. That means if it's 99%, they still get zero dental benefits. The VA is not able to help them. There really are no other dental resources. We see so many folks across the state who have come to be a part of a variety of programs. The Dale Graham Center down in Norman, or with D-DENT which is a great program here in Oklahoma City that helps identify veterans and adults with disabilities and tests them on their ability to pay. So long as they really hit that category of being unable to access any dental care any other way, they're on their list.

We go to the office of D-DENT, we park our mobile unit there for a week at a time. We take in all of the veterans that we possibly can, provide them as much service as we can. Generally, what we're seeing is that we have to take care of getting almost all of their teeth extracted. The vast majority of them really need to have dentures. D-DENT then has another extended program, which is fantastic that helps acquire dentures for those folks. If we can get them to a place where all of their teeth have been extracted and they're ready for that.

Dan Martel 14:05

I'm assuming then that you work with local dentists that volunteer their time, or how does that work?

John Wilguess 14:10

Yes and no. That's a really great question. The uniqueness of our program is that we also work very closely with the OU College of Dentistry. We have dental students for two weeks at a time during their externship. It's the fourth-year dental students. They're about to graduate. We put them out across the state of Oklahoma in our mobile clinics, which gives them an opportunity to see people who are not likely to ever cross the doors of a regular dental practice. Then they get a sense of what it is to help people when they start practicing, they understand that people get into situations that largely are not of their own making. It changes the way they think about how they're going to practice. Our primary workforce, and it's a workforce development process for us, are the fourth-year dental students under the observation of a dental preceptor. They work together to be able to help all of those patients that we see generally 10 to 12, maybe 15 a day, just depending on how fast they can go through the patients and what those patients need.

Dan Martel 15:07

It sounds like they're getting quite the education and the experience by doing that too. That's excellent.

John Wilguess 15:11

It is. When they see a patient and have a chance to talk to that person about why they're there, why it was so hard for them to get dental care, it changes what they think about their own practice when the time comes.

Dan Martel 15:24

That is outstanding. That's interesting. I had no idea. That's fantastic. How important is it then for an organization like Oklahoma Dental Foundation, your organization to receive grants like an iFund grant?

John Wilguess 15:36

For us, it's absolutely vital. Number one because we think partnerships are the most important thing for what we do. Yeah, we're providing dental care and that is really life changing for a lot of people, but we couldn't possibly do this by ourselves. It requires that there have been folks who are generous and understand the strategy of trying to overall improve the health of our community. The Oklahoma City Community Foundation, and the idea of the iFund grants is that they are investing in us. You are literally providing us these resources almost to get in on the ground floor to prove that we can do the work that we have said in our grant proposal. Then to be able to prove that out over time, which then builds a great deal of confidence. Not only for the folks who are reviewing our applications, but most importantly, if I can go to another potential funder and say, the Oklahoma City Community Foundation has invested in us, they've trusted us, they see what we can do, that gives them a great deal of confidence to move forward with us as well. It's really an incredible part of just the overall building of an arc of support for us as we look for ways to help certain populations in our community.

Dan Martel 16:42

So, you guys are making a difference in the communities that you serve then.

John Wilguess 16:47

We are. We do so by going into places generally where there are no good resources. When talk about the veterans, one of the things that's...and we do it right here in Oklahoma City, and you look around and you say, oh, there are lots of dentists in Oklahoma City and they should be fine. That's absolutely true, except that so many of them have really limited abilities to get to places, especially as they get older. Dan in 2021, and so far in 2022, the thing that we saw that just astounds us is that the veterans that we saw, we are having to dismiss them from our program for dental care at a rate that exceeds anything that I have seen in the 11 years that I've been at the Oklahoma Dental Foundation.

We're dismissing them because their other underlying health problems are so bad that we can't even fill the cavities in their teeth or even begin to do any kind of cleaning. We see folks with blood pressure that is well above stroke level. What we have to do is work with our partner then to get them over to the hospital and get them checked immediately and try and take care of that. We ran into a female veteran and she had a sore in the back of her mouth and it turned out to be oral cancer.

Dan Martel 18:10

But you're saving lives at the same time. I mean, you're getting people early treatment.

John Wilguess 18:13

It's incredible. Well, the dental program ends up being not just about dental care, it becomes the first touch that a lot of people have with basic health care coming out of the pandemic time. It really puts not only the dental students in a unique position, but it puts us in a weird place too because then we have to have an obligation to go back and to help pick up those folks that we had to say, we can't help you right now. We help get them better. We come back, we finish out the work and conclude all of the treatments that we can with them. It's incredibly helpful. It's heartwarming to us to know that we're connecting them again to other resources and finding other places for them to go.

Dan Martel 18:53

Absolutely. Well, you know, the, the name of this podcast is Creating Impact Through Giving. I know the Oklahoma City Community Foundation has been helping create impact to organizations like Oklahoma Dental Foundation and so many others for since 1969. That's been a long time, more than 50 years. John, thank you for being with us today. John Wilguess, the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Dental Foundation. John, we certainly enjoyed having you on the podcast.

John Wilguess 19:22

Appreciate it, Dan. My pleasure. Thank you.

Dan Martel 19:26

Now I want to bring in Clarissa Watkins, who is the Director of Outreach and Development for the Hilltop Clinic. Clarissa. Welcome on the podcast. Appreciate it.

Clarissa Watkins 19:34

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Dan Martel 19:36

We are glad you were here. Tell us a little bit about the Hilltop Clinic. What kind of services do you all provide?

Clarissa Watkins 19:41

Yeah, so we are a nonprofit pediatric clinic in Southwest Oklahoma City, and we see kids who are uninsured or who have SoonerCare. We want to provide a high-quality medical home for kids who might have a difficult time finding that elsewhere.

Dan Martel 19:54

Okay. We're here talking about iFunds today and I wanted to ask how you heard about the Oklahoma City Community Foundation’s iFund grants.

Clarissa Watkins 20:04

In my position of doing outreach and development, I'm always looking for what funding opportunities there are out there. We do have sort of a relationship with Oklahoma City Community Foundation. They actually came and toured our clinic a few months ago and told us that this would be opening soon that we should apply. As soon as it opened, I was like, oh, got to get on that.

Dan Martel 20:28

How long has Hilltop Clinic been around?

Clarissa Watkins 20:30

So, we are part of Christ Community Health Coalition, and it was incorporated in December of 2014. For about five years we operated a once a week free clinic for kids, once a month for adults. Then in November of 2020, we opened the pediatric clinic full-time; Monday through Friday, 8:30 to 4:30. That is what Hilltop Clinic is. Hilltop Clinic the way it is, has been open just a little over a year.

Dan Martel 20:59

All right, fairly new recipient then to one of the iFunds at the Community Foundation. Let me ask this question, in order for a patient to receive services from Hilltop, do they have to prove any kind of financial need? How does all that work?

Clarissa Watkins 21:15

Any child that would like to receive services in our clinic, we will first ask if they've applied for SoonerCare. Now with Medicaid expansion, more people qualify than they think, and so we will also ask when was the last time that they applied because maybe they applied two years ago and were denied, but now they qualify. Then sometimes people will say they have applied or they already know they won't qualify because the child was not born in the United States and therefore does not qualify for SoonerCare. Then they are considered an uninsured patient.

Dan Martel 21:49

Looking at your website, one of the things I noticed that I'm sort of intrigued by, it says that you also provide spiritual support. Right? Tell me a little about how that works.

Clarissa Watkins 22:00

Yeah. We are a faith-based organization. We are Christian. It doesn't mean that all of our patients...we don't require anybody to be believers. We will see everybody, but we do take opportunities to pray with families. We really believe in whole person care. This child, isn't getting a lot of sleep and it can be a lot of different reasons. Our doctor takes time to really talk with the family about what's going on in the home and all of these other factors that are going into a child's care.

Dan Martel 22:31

Wow. That's excellent. I think that's an incredible service that you all provide. One of the things I'm curious about, you guys have been around for a little over a year you mentioned earlier, how do people find out about you? How do they know you exist?

Clarissa Watkins 22:45

Yeah. A lot of it is word of mouth. Somebody comes in, has a great experience and they say, oh, I'm going to tell my sister so she can bring all her kids and all my friends and everybody that lives on my street. That's how a lot of people come in. Then we also just have like normal advertising, like our Google Ads and our social media. Then we go to a lot of events where we know that children will be and pass out flyers and things like that.

Dan Martel 23:09

All right. Hilltop clinic was a recipient of one of the Access to Health Care iFunds. Tell me a little bit about the grant.

Clarissa Watkins 23:16

Yes, we are so excited about this. It's really going to help us bring in more uninsured patients to our clinic. It'll help pay for COVID tests, strep tests as well as other materials and things that are needed for seeing patients.

Dan Martel 23:35

All right. Clarissa Watkins, thanks for being here today. I hope that you guys can continue to do the great things in the community that you're doing. We look forward to hearing a lot of good things to come from the Hilltop Clinic. Thanks again for being with us.

Clarissa Watkins 23:47

Yes. Thank you so much for having me. This was great.

Dan Martel 23:51

That about wraps it up for today. I want to thank all of you for listening, and I hope we've brought you some good information when it comes to applying for iFunds Grants through the Oklahoma City Community Foundation. Join us next month when we'll be talking about meeting the needs of charitable organizations throughout Oklahoma City. We'll be talking about how organizations can set up an endowment through the Community Foundation and how that endowment grows over the years and helps those organizations reach their financial goals. We will be speaking with Jennifer Meckling, who heads up the Foundation's Charitable Organization Endowment program. We'll have two special guests who head up some of the city's well-known nonprofit organizations.

I want to thank Kelley Barnes, John Wilguess and Clarissa Watkins for being our guests today. We look forward to having you back with us next month until then I'm Dan Martel, and we'll see you again on Creating Impact Through Giving.