THE YEAR 2009 IN REVIEW

From the President:

The year 2009, was most likely the most challenging year at ForSight Vision since it was founded in 1932, as York’s Blind Centre and at the height of the Great Depression.  Have we not given the past year or so its own name – the Great Recession?

As we worked our way through 2009, we did so with one guiding principle in mind.  How could we cut our expenses but maintain our level of services?  By the end of the year it was obvious that we had managed to do both.

One of the enduring frustrations I have is to educate funding sources to the real needs of our agency and most nonprofit agencies.  The need is to fund wages, benefits and overhead costs.  ForSight Vision is a service business – our product is the services we provide to those that we serve.  Not surprisingly then, our critical costs are our personnel.  It’s no different than say, accounting services where you purchase the expertise of accountants and CPA’s.  So often our funding sources are willing to support “bricks and mortar” projects like a computer or agency brochure.  But the agency’s real need is for funds to support the staff that provides the much-needed services we offer.  Last year, we were forced to lay off staff and reduce salaries and benefits to those that remained.  It was a difficult and agonizing time.

If our agency is built around the staff we have, there is no greater testament to the quality of our staff then when I look back at the job they did last year.  Without exception, every single person accepted the measures we took and performed admirably.  They were true professionals in every sense of the word.  They rose to the challenge of meeting our goal to maintain services and actually added a couple of new programs.  They went about their work with positive attitudes and good spirits.  While we were not rich in financial assets or income last year, we were rich with out most valuable asset – our staff.

We also survived the economic crisis with the help of our Board of Directors.  They oversaw the steps we took and gave advice and counsel on how we should handle the economic storm around us.  They deliberated with calmness and assurance that we would meet our challenges.

Finally, I want to extend my thanks to our donors who choose to support us this past year.  Surely many, if not all, of our donors faced their own set of financial downturns.  That these people and organizations would still support our work says so much about the caring community we live in.

Now we move ahead.  We have stabilized our financial situation.  We are beginning to work our strategic plan and its objectives.  We plan to again offer our Kid’s Sight program of free examinations and glasses.  We are working on updating our website to Web 2.0.  We will be working to achieve accreditation from the Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations and its Standards of Excellence program.  We are working on developing programs for children who are blind and their parents.  If we learned anything in the past year or two, we learned that at our agency, dedicated people – staff, Board and donors – can and do make a difference in the lives of others no matter how dire the circumstances.