| By Dave Burgess,
Billings Business editor
Western Business News
A Billings-based nonprofit is raising its profile and joining
the ranks of local organizations with active foundations building
financial endowments. Youth Dynamics Inc. serves between 800
and 1,000 kids a year through personnel and offices across
much of Montana.
YDI celebrated its 25th anniversary in June last year in
a recently purchased 12,000-square-foot building on Lewis
Avenue in Billings. Previously, YDI’s headquarters had
less than half as much space, and it was leased. The move
was a milestone.
“I think it made a statement,” said Peter Degel,
YDI’s executive director. It showed “that we are
here to stay.”
Indeed, since Degel took the lead role at YDI several years
ago, the agency has grown substantially. The organization’s
annual budget four or five years ago was about $3 million.
At the time, YDI had about 40 on staff and about 62 therapeutic
foster parents, Degel said. It has since opened offices in
Lame Deer, Great Falls and Boulder and also bought three group
homes in Billings.
Today, YDI has 130 to 140 regular staff people, another
100 part-timers and about 130 treatment parents. And, the
budget this year is a little more than $8 million.
As it has grown, YDI also has sought to increase awareness
of the organization as a premier provider of behavioral health
services for Montana youth and families.
“We made a decision some years ago to get the word
out,” Degel said.
Part of that effort is made through a newly invigorated foundation.
The foundation’s general objective is to give YDI the
resources to serve more families and to decrease YDI’s
reliance on public funding.
“What we are trying to do from a business standpoint
is diversify. It makes us more stable and strengthens what
we do because it makes us more stable programmatically and
financially,” Degel said.
The foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, had existed
for two years virtually in name only, according to Dick Timm.
Few people knew about the organization and that it had a foundation.
“By networking with businesses the word is getting out
there,” he said.
Timm started in March 2006 as YDI’s foundation and
development director. He has been in financial services 11
years and has done a lot of estate planning and youth development
work, he said. He is excited about production of a marketing
DVD that in a few minutes tells the story of YDI and includes
testimonials.
“That will help put YDI on the map,” Timm said.
“It’s going to be really neat to just pop this
video in.”
Timm said he is working on potential relationships with
major Montana corporations, but in December he could not name
names. One partnership with a Montana business that Timm could
announce was struck in October with Bozeman Watch Co. The
arrangement calls for a $38 donation with sales of Bozeman
Watch Co.’s 150 Schofield watches.
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“Each of our watch models
is partnered with a local nonprofit in some way,” said
John Bailey, marketing manager at Bozeman Watch Co. The limited-edition
Schofield watches retail for $5,700 each and are available
only directly from the company.
In typical Montana fashion, donations from businesses are
often in-kind. For instance, when YDI bought a shelter in
Bozeman called Big Sky Youth Center, the structure needed
work. Members of the Southwest Montana Building Industry Association
picked up the cost of renovation including materials and labor.
Cash is great, but the builders’ in-kind support was
invaluable, Timm said: “We didn’t have to take
those dollars out of our budget.”
Timm is also working on individual giving and is looking
for people, such as business owners, who have assets for sale.
“One issue you have in a job like this is identifying
people who would be candidates for planned giving,”
Timm said. “A husband and wife don’t get up in
the morning and say, ‘Hey, let’s give some money
away today.’ ”
But, when he talks to them about estate planning that also
benefits YDI, about possible tax advantages and creating an
income stream, they always respond well, he said. To find
potential donors, Timm is actively networking, notably with
real estate agents.
“It’s maybe not about getting Realtors to give
cash, but referrals are like gold,” he said.
Bill Stene, with Stu Henkel Realty, is a real estate agent
as well as a member of the YDI foundation board. Stene said
that the more he knows about the kind of planned giving Timm
is talking about, the more he thinks it could work for real
estate clients. He has talked to two clients about the potential
of a planned gift. “It’s another avenue to get
a tax break and income” while donating to the foundation,
Stene said.
Donna Bliss of Bliss in Montana realty has also talked with
Timm about planned giving to YDI and has referred clients.
Bliss said she sees it as an option for clients who do not
want to continue to own their investment properties.
And, there could be a lot of those people around. During
the next 20 to 30 years, $20 trillion to $30 trillion are
gong to change hands as the population ages, Timm said. The
expectation of a huge transfer of wealth gives encouragement
to start working with these people on a plan that benefits
them as well as builds the YDI foundation endowment.
“The timing is right to start to build,” Timm
said.
Something else he has found that appeals to people and companies
he asks for support is that YDI works exclu-sively in Montana.
“Of the major agencies in Montana that provide these
services, we are probably the only one that works exclusively
with Montana kids and families,” Timm said. “We
focus on Montana.”
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