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City Voices is on the threshold of becoming or not becoming what the IRS calls a 501c3. This is an official designation for the corporate status of a tax-exempt non-profit. It doesn't seem like much, maybe just a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense, but to me and the mental health community, it is not. We would in effect become the first-ever non-profit corporation in the history of New York City that was founded by the mentally ill and governed by the mentally ill and administrated by the seriously mentally ill.
The IRS could deny us this status due to my personal spending behavior with the organization's money. The IRS does not want to see money borrowed from City Voices in our books because that is a “red flag” in terms of “proper business etiquette” for a charitable organization, which is what we are now and what all companies become before and if they transition to 501c3.
I made these errors and I admit to them. Our board of directors is very happy to shift a lot of blame on me for anything that goes wrong. Still, I received not nearly enough help from anyone and not even from those who had an obligation to provide it. Do you think it is fair to be scolded for hiring and firing someone, for example, because the person hired produced no results? That is how I was treated when I fired a bookkeeper who others approved of. To me, it was cut and dry, a simple matter of someone not doing their job. To others, I was seen as someone that no one could work with because of my temperament, attitude and disrespectful personality.
Still, the show goes on and we have done a lot since the fall 2007 edition. We have:
**met with local politicians and made ourselves more known in the community surrounding our office;
**organized our biggest Mental Health Comedy Show ever for an audience of 200 people with mental illness;
**done our first-ever donor-drive with 3,000 donation requests mailed and brought in about $1,000 so far;
**maintained a steady group of three volunteers, one of whom graduated and is now seeking our help to search for a job that she can do with the skills she has gained through our training program;
**thrown several house parties to raise money for the organization and to keep the mental health consumer community vigorous and connected;
**submitted many grant proposals and though most have rejected us, there is others that we are waiting on;
**the New York State Office of Mental Health has taken an interest in helping us to maintain our programming;
**covered various mental health community events such as forums with the new Commissioner of Mental Hygiene that you can read about in this edition and a housing forum to increase mental health housing units that you can also read about as well as many others;
**done our first investigative journalism report on Mid Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Center after a patient there contacted us about a problem and it has already generated concern from the institution that immediately withdrew their subscription to New York City Voices and blocked access to our website in their library; and
**added new features to our beautiful website that allow for easy surfing and an easy way for people to donate money or to buy ads and subscriptions: www.nycvoices.org.
Yes, I and others have made mistakes in running City Voices, Inc, and we have had failure. Still, we have also had great successes and the community appreciates our work. We hope to continue making an impact for our peers to help build community, reduce isolation and create achievers from wasted dreamers.