This historic charity was created in 1917 to help veterans get on their feet after they came home from World War I. For decades ICD did a lot of really good work helping injured veterans get back to their lives and helping unemployed veterans getting the training they needed to find work. Many U.S Presidents, corporate leaders and famous celebrities visited ICD and praised the charity for its good work.
Like many charities though, as the years went by, ICD lost its focus on its original mission and veterans. By the time I joined the board almost 100 years after it had been created, ICD wasn’t helping any veterans. Instead, it had branched into all kinds of different services: drug and alcohol rehab, a methadone clinic, speech therapy, school programs, pregnancy tests, etc. for all kinds of different people: teenagers, mothers, the elderly, drug addicts, alcoholics, the unemployed, etc. Technically, ICD was still a charity but the vast majority of its money came from contracts with the government for delivering various services to different folks. It seemed that ICD would provide whatever service the government would pay it for.
Because of this “business model”, ICD had very few donors and raised very little money. To me it felt like more of a company that was paid by the government to provide various services to a low income population. Just when I had decided to resign from the board because I didn’t feel like I was contributing anything, New York State drastically reduced its payments to ICD. These cuts made ICD insolvent. In response, the ICD board decided to close down almost all of ICD’s programs and to fire almost all of ICD’s employees. Without any programs, employees or a business plan, ICD decided to sell its one remaining asset: its building which had been ICD’s home for many decades. The ICD Board sold the building – for around $27 million — and moved into small offices with a skeleton staff. Now ICD had a lot of money in the bank but no business plan, no charitable mission, no management team and no idea what to do next. As one of the few charity guys on the board, who knew how to raise money and earn the trust and support of donors, I thought I might be able to help.
I proposed that ICD should get back to its roots and start helping veterans again. After the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were now millions of veterans in America that really needed help in many ways. American veterans had a broad range of health problems and challenges and many needed vocational training too. ICD had a lot of experience and resources that could really help the veteran community. Maybe it was fate that 100 years after it was started, ICD had the opportunity to get back to its original mission.
I loved the idea but most of the board did not. The ICD Board decided to instead, develop new programs that the government might fund. At the time, both the New York State and the Federal government were still willing to pay a lot for vocational training in low income neighborhoods so that’s what the ICD board decided to do. They even voted to change the name of this 100-year-old charity from ICD: International Center for the Disabled to ICD: Institute for Career Development. I must say I was shocked when they did that.
I couldn’t believe this was the best option – or even would be considered – by a non-profit board for a charity. But it does kind of show how some charities will do just about anything to stay “in business.” How a charity that helped crippled and disfigured veterans get back on their feet transforms into a business that charges students for vocational training I’ll never understand. What a sad ending – I thought — for what was once a very historic, storied and respected charity that used to help a lot of people. A commercial, vocational training institute didn’t feel like much of a charity to me so I wished them well and left.
