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Challenges for a New Leader

Over the 150 years since its founding as a shelter for Gold Rush orphans, the Edgewood Center for Children and Families gradually evolved into a social service agency providing mental health treatment programs for San Francisco Bay Area children and families in need. When Nancy Rubin took the helm as Edgewood's Executive Director in 2001, the organization had just experienced a series of failed leadership transitions from the 40-year tenure of the agency's previous executive director. Both internal and external challenges abounded. The board of directors lacked clear governance rules, was attempting to make operational decisions for the agency, and was highly resistant to change. The agency's services, while still providing an adequate level of care, had stagnated under the leadership turmoil and there was little innovation. In addition, public mental health funding was experiencing significant cuts at both the state and federal level, meaning less money and more regulation at the county and city levels where Edgewood operates. Significant adjustments were needed if Edgewood wanted to escape its internal organizational struggle and regain its position as a high-quality service provider.

Demonstrating considerable patience and determination, Rubin orchestrated a major transformation of the agency that was reflected in refocused and strengthened programs, as well as a new role as community advocate and participant in public policy issues. To achieve these successful changes, Rubin solicited extensive participation from board members, staff, and community partners. She engaged board members and staff in an 18-month long strategic planning process to rethink the agency's service delivery, mission, and purpose. Though significant board turnover occurred during this time, the restructured board supported the new directions picked to strengthen the agency, and represented a much better mix of fundraisers and issue experts.

In addition to collaboration between board and staff members, the strategic planning process solicited significant input from the community, ultimately gathering the opinions of several hundred internal and external stakeholders through focus groups, interviews, and online surveys. Questions centered around Edgewood as a place to work and Edgewood as a place to work with, and attempted to better determine the service needs in the community. The feedback was both reassuring and stinging - although services were considered reasonably strong, Edgewood was not perceived as sitting at the right tables where decisions were made. A new mission statement - Strengthen children, youth, and families through service, training, advocacy, and research (STAR) - helped to update and refine the agency's focus.

A New Mission

The new mission emphasized the interdependency and importance of all four areas. "We realized," as Rubin explains, "that we couldn't provide our services without training, we couldn't sustain services without advocacy, and we couldn't do really good services and try to influence the field without research." Rubin brought to Edgewood a background in and wealth of knowledge about the public arena. Her interests and experience helped guide the agency in the new path suggested by the revised mission statement. In late 2003, Edgewood created the position of Senior Policy and Planning Associate. This position was filled by Sandra Santana-Mora, who is now the agency's first-ever Director of Government Relations.

An Emerging Advocate

In February 2004, Edgewood found its first opportunity to define what its advocacy would look like as it got involved with the campaign to pass California Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act. This ballot initiative proposed levying a 1% tax on all personal incomes over $1 million to create a fund designated for mental health services. Santana-Mora co-chaired the San Francisco Prop 63 Campaign Committee, a position where her hard work demonstrated Edgewood's commitment to the cause to other mental health providers, advocates, and private citizens in the coalition.

In addition to Santana-Mora's participation in community education efforts, she encouraged staff to help with signature collection efforts during their volunteer (non-work) time to get the measure on the ballot. To motivate staff participation in the Prop 63 campaign, as well as subsequent efforts to prevent funding cuts in specific mental health programs, Santana-Mora tried to illustrate the direct connections between advocacy and the day-to-day realities of their jobs. To create a coordinated agency effort, she "provided training on signature gathering, set up advocacy stations in each campus, and sent out all-agency emails explaining what we were trying to accomplish and asking staff to sign letters. Staff started paying attention and felt they could participate." Direct comments by several staff members of their appreciation of Edgewood's growing involvement in advocacy work, as well as the increasing volume of letters signed by staff, demonstrated the mounting success of Santana-Mora and Rubin's effort to transform agency culture.

Reaping the Benefits of Advocacy

Edgewood's emerging role as a mental health advocate has also been well-received outside the agency. Positive reaction by partnership organizations in the community has encouraged continued participation in public policy initiatives. After statewide passage of Prop 63, Edgewood was approached by two counties to help create implementation plans, which are necessary to receive Prop 63 funds. The agency also worked with the Mental Health Association of San Francisco to protest the allocation formula for funds awarded from the Prop 63 account.

Santana-Mora also strives to establish Edgewood as the "go-to place in terms of mental health advocacy in San Francisco." To realize this goal, she continues to work hard to engage staff in advocacy issues, noting that "the new emphasis on advocacy is bringing program staff closer to the policy process and helping them understand the importance of raising their voices in this arena." In addition to greater staff participation, she hopes to promote more direct advocacy by the board of directors, especially by using their personal contacts to increase legislative success.

Santana-Mora also spends significant time building relationships with officials at City Hall and the State Capitol, and is developing legislator-specific policy agendas to use at the city level. "I want to figure out how many people we serve per district, to be able to provide statistics on constituents in each district and then to develop an issue that is of interest to our agency and to this [city] supervisor."

Above all, Santana-Mora believes that connecting policy and programs is critical for Edgewood's success in the future: "I think it's great that the agency is making the connection, realizing that maybe for an operational problem, there is a policy solution. In the past we did not think of things this way, but mental health funding has changed so dramatically in the past 15 years, we are going to have to get more and more creative."