Presidents Report: To Our Members, Friends and Allies

Dave Byrom, PhD, NCMHPC President

It has been a roller-coaster year for the National Coalition as we have been engaged in a process of establishing workable goals and activities within the limited resources of a membership-based organization, while envisioning wider plans and ambitions we can realize when we are able to grow our organization into a national, grassroots movement to preserve and protect privacy, access and choice in mental health care.

No surprise there, as we have been taking this ride for years, from the early, giddy days of Hilton Hole and the first national conferences, to Rescue Health Care Day, to the Inform American Campaign. Our members and supporters know that while each “crest” of our ride has brought us closer to our goal of bringing quality mental health care “to the table” through education and outreach to professionals, politicians, grassroots organizations and the general public, we have also had to ride the “trough” as well, continually looking to our base of supporters to volunteer time and money to keep us going.

So let’s review the highs, the lows, and the plans to meet the “next wave” to fulfill our mission and mandate from our members.

PRIVACY CAMPAIGN

Throughout the first part of this year, most of our efforts were directed to the Privacy Campaign. To date, the Privacy Legal Defense Fund has raised almost $40,000. In addition, many board members have contributed time and energy to work with the Medical Privacy Coalition, including strategy sessions, media contacts and moral support. This has been our most tangible and most visible project and priority for the past year. Along with other sponsoring groups, we have been doing an effective, praiseworthy job.

This Campaign has afforded us some most useful opportunities for educating and publicity on the broader issues of the Inform America Campaign, and of overall systemic health care reform needs and the strategic actions required. The Privacy Legal Defense Campaign has also facilitated excellent networking and coalition-building opportunities.

FINANCIAL APPEAL

While the payoffs of the Privacy Campaign have been substantial and have contributed to our larger mission, it has not put bread on the table. Over the last few months we were increasingly concerned with decline in operating funds, despite the successes we have had in ongoing education and liaison work. As a result, we launched an appeal for funds that resulted in increased financial support from many of you.

Thanks so very much to each of you who have personally responded with donations—and who have encouraged others to also donate. Our urgent appeal for financial support over the past two months is very real, and must continue! We rely exclusively on the financial support of members, and from the few individuals and nonprofit organizations that you, our members, recruit as contributors.

THE NEXT WAVE

We must now build a sound business infrastructure that will provide the reliable operational capacity and financial viability to support fully carrying out our campaigns and the rejuvenation of those of us “in the trenches,” and the inspiriting of others. Our campaigns are multi-year endeavors, which cannot rely exclusively on the efforts of volunteers

Our organization must move away from sole reliance upon individuals who have neither time, money, and, frankly, expertise, to move the Coalition to a truly national, grassroots movement for quality mental health. We are one of the few “at the table” speaking for quality mental health care when activists get together to address need for healthcare reform. We need the backing of a grassroots constituency if we are ever to move beyond discussion to advocacy, especially in the political arena.

We continue to have much to be proud of! We are genuine citizen-activists who preserve and forward our nation’s experiment with democracy. We are continuing the National Coalition as the unique, essential and distinguished public interest organization it is, and has been, since its courageous founding only 12 years ago.

We now have an opportunity to raise funds, to reduce operating costs, and to use the money available to implement this business plan. We need your support to accomplish this. Everyone who can, please help us to carry out our vital and essential work!

CONCLUSION

We still need all of you to keep doing all you are able. Most of us have the desire to win, the deep abiding passion in achieving what is in the public’s best interest—to preserve quality mental health and substance abuse services in public and private sectors, and to protect these services in solidly reformed systems of financing and delivery accessible and affordable to all people. This is, of course, exactly one and the same as the best interest of all health care practitioners and facilities. And, of course, precisely what is in the best interests of our nation.

When we all look at the fact that we are all consumers of health care, then the only work is collective action, and then activism is simply doing what is so clear: putting the fact that “the personal is political” into action. Stay with us in the struggles to do just this: putting our passions, our values, our ideas and visions for genuine reforms and preservation of high quality into action, making this a genuine working reality in America.

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