Hello friends,
It’s my honor to announce that Mobile Care Chicago was chosen as one of the organizations to receive a Yield Open Giving award of $2,000,000. The awards, granted by MacKenzie Scott, are meant to bolster community organizations that make tangible, lasting change in their communities but often get overlooked because of their small size. We’ve been around for 24 years, but we are a small organization and it’s true that many philanthropic opportunities specifically box out organizations like ours. Thousands of lives will be transformed because of MacKenzie Scott’s generosity, and I dare say that the scale of her giving, and the method of her philanthropy, will affect our ability to help each other years from now in ways we can’t yet imagine.
An award like this isn’t a beginning or an end. We’re only able to qualify for this award because our Board and contributors give us the resources we need to focus on the least-celebrated, but most impactful thing we do: follow-up. Chronic disease mitigation is a long-term proposition, visiting with people frequently over many years, supporting parents as they learn about diseases, co-morbidities, medications, and treatment plans. Parents need to advocate for their children at their school, in extracurricular activities, to other parents and at restaurants. Working with parents is incredibly rewarding, uplifting, and time consuming. It’s also the most impactful way to create long-lasting change, and that type of education is not covered by Medicaid for either medical or dental care.
The average patient currently stays with Mobile Care Chicago for over seven years, and is seen many times a year. Some families have been with us for over 20 years now. That’s amazing! It’s also something that, without you, we could not have prioritized these past 24 years.
Our clinics and programs are shaped by the stories and experiences of our patient families. We end each year with a survey we send out to 10% of our total patient base to get their impression on what is working well, where we can make improvements, and any services they persistently lack access to. Every three years, we do a larger version of the same thing to ground our strategic plan. Those conversations and surveys aren’t just considered in our planning process—they are the reference point for how we make investments and adaptations, and how we determine whether we are successful.
And, because they know us best, our patient families constantly prompt us to innovate. We will launch a new Strategic Plan on July 1 that will challenge us to invest $4.7 million into things that our patient families have requested. There are many individual items in that plan, which I’ll write about in the coming months, but some of the major initiatives will be:
- Expanding our food allergy clinic, and asthma clinic appointments for young adults
- Growing our dental clinic capacity in Chicago, and launching a Lake County Dental Van
- Building out a Mobile Community Health Incubator, to teach other community-based organizations how to launch mobile units
- Adding communication tools to make it easier for people to get resources and make appointments across all of our services
- Creating greater connection points between our patients and the 45+ community-based partner organizations we work with so our patients don’t have to assume the exhaustive burden of trying to figure out which resources are credible and free of charge
The Yield Award gives us a powerful launching point to achieve the things our patients request, and we are thrilled that this award will not only help more people get access to asthma and dental care, but it will also add depth to the services available. I also plan to work with our Board of Directors to set aside a reserve, the first in our organization’s history, so that continuity of care for our patients isn’t jeopardized during the economic moments that communities rely on us most.
This award would not have been possible without you, and the accomplishment of our strategic plan won’t be possible without you, either. We’ve been given an incredible down payment on the expansions that will bring allergy, dental, and asthma care to children who need it. The Yield award represents 42% of the investment our Strategic Plan calls for. The remainder will be our task to achieve.
Lastly, but not least importantly, none of our work would be possible without the efforts of the Mobile Care Chicago staff. I count myself lucky to work with people who are a tireless source of good in our neighborhoods. Over 80% of Mobile Care Chicago staff live in an area served by our mobile clinics, so what we’re doing is, literally, close to home, and people treat it that way. The primary way we enroll new patients is through word of mouth, and in our most recent survey, 100% of patient families said they would recommend our mobile clinic to a neighbor or friend. Thank you to the staff for creating clinics that people love to visit—and thank you again to our Board and contributors for giving us the resources needed to be national leaders in what we do!
Warmly,
Matt Siemer
Executive Director
