Keith Burwell, President and CEO
Toledo Community Foundation
Ohio Senate Ways and Means Committee Hearing
November 5, 2013
Chairman Schaffer, Vice Chair Peterson, Ranking Member Tavares, Members of the Ways and Means Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
I am Keith Burwell, President and CEO of Toledo Community Foundation, and it is a pleasure to represent our foundation, which serves Northwest Ohio, as well as other community foundations across Ohio. I plan to share a few stories about the difference this tax credit will make.
At the Toledo Community Foundation, like all Ohio community foundations, we work to increase foundation dollars available to our communities and citizens and serve as an infrastructure to attract charitable gifts that might otherwise go outside our state. Ohio community foundations increase access to the resources communities need to succeed, funding critical issues and providing support that is hard for government to provide.
One such example was the huge disparities in birth outcomes that existed in Lucas County. There were very few resources in LucasCounty targeted to helping pregnant women who were at most risk for low birth weight babies. The Toledo Community Foundation conducted research and discovered that some inner city neighborhoods in Central Toledo had low birth weight rates as high as 18%. We took a leadership role with a call to action,then requested and funded proposals to address these low birth weight rates in Lucas County. As a result, in 2007, a coalition of medical care and supportive services geared toward positive birth outcomes was created, and, today, the Lucas County Initiative to Improve Birth Outcomes is thriving, as are many more babies born to pregnant women at risk in our community. The Hospital Council of Northwest Ohio serves as the HUB for the project, working with care coordinators to use a web-based system to track their clients’ progress and outcomes.
Area providers began enrolling low income pregnant women in targeted zip codes with history of high rates of low birth weight babies in 2007. From 2007 to August 2013, 1,275 women have enrolled in our initiative’s program. Of the 829 babies who were born, 722 were born at healthy birth weights. Not only are more babies born healthy, the medical cost savings are significant. Program enrollment helps keep babies from being in the neonatal intensive care unit, at the cost of about $6,000 per day. If these 722 infants had been born pre-term and spent just one day in a NICU unit, the cost would have been $4.3 million. Babies born at low birth weight have increased risk for short and long-term physical and developmental problems. Medical costs for pre-term/low birth weight babies in their first year of life are approximately $41,610 compared to $2,830 for healthy, full-term babies. Because of the community foundation’s investment, these babies have been born with healthy birth weights and are not suffering the long-term health impacts that accompany low birth weight. This tax credit will help us create other programs to address similar critical community needs.
And this is not the only such example I could cite. Indeed, in Chairman Schaffer’s district, the Fairfield County Community Foundation provided funds for a new playground that included accessibility for disabled students at the West Elementary School. And, in Senator Peterson’s district, the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio supported the start-up of The Gallia Community Foundation Fund which undertook a specific economic development project of creating a business incubator.
In Senator Tavares’ district, The Columbus Foundation supported the introduction of the Benefit Bank in Ohio. Ohio Benefit Bank is a web-based, counselor-assisted program that helps Ohioans apply for and receive benefits including health coverage, energy assistance, food assistance and tax help.As ofJuly2013, it had leveraged $971 million and served 461,000 people in 308,000 households. More than 4,200 trained counselors are helping individuals and families across Ohio at more than 1,200 OBB sites.
In Toledo, the Toledo Community Foundation expanded this initial creation of the Ohio Benefit Bank to move to a “Mobile Benefit Bank” taking volunteers from behind desks to walking and working in the neighborhoods of Toledo to reach the elderly or young who could not travel to an Ohio Benefit Bank location.
Without those charitable dollars, none of these community investments would have been made, we would not have these success stories. The transfer of wealth taking place across our state as well as the new wealth developed through our state’s natural resources stand as reasons for creating the tax credit. This tax credit will provide an opportunity for Ohio to retain resources for the current and future prosperity of our citizens.Thank you for this opportunity to talk about Senate Bill 211 today; I hope you will support it and am happy to answer any questions.