The Alano Club of Portland has been the leading source of Twelve-Step recovery support services for recovering alcoholics, addicts, and their families in Portland for over sixty years. More than ten thousand visitors find hope, healing, and solutions in our rooms each month. Our services are provided free of charge—any person with the desire to achieve sobriety is welcome in our center. The no-cost structure of Club services makes ours one of the most accessible and accessed treatment resources in Portland. The Club’s services are firmly rooted in the Twelve-Step recovery model, which has brought long-term sobriety and a return to civic and personal responsibility to millions of recovering addicts and alcoholics worldwide. From humble beginnings, the Twelve-Step philosophy has found widespread acceptance today among both recovering people and the professional medical community. In fact, it is now estimated that more than 95% of all in-patient treatment programs incorporate the Twelve-Step philosophy into their treatment curriculum.
The Twelve-Step model practiced at the Alano Club of Portland is also considered an “evidence-based practices” approach to treatment by leading governmental public health institutes like the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), both of whom currently list the Twelve-Step model as one of only a handful of approved evidence-based treatment practices. NIDA also made clear the importance of the Twelve-Step approach in their Diagnosis and Treatment of Drug Abuse in Family Practice publication, wherein they state, “almost every addict will need a combination of professional counseling plus attendance at a self-help group to maintain sobriety.” Another prominent governmental organization, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), drew a similar connection when they posited in the recent publication Treatment Improvement Protocol #41 that “treatment group therapy should be conducted in a manner that increases the complementary relationship between professional treatment groups and Twelve-Step programs.” Ample medical and academic research conducted during the past two decades has drawn similar connections between long-term sobriety and Twelve-Step programs.
The Club achieves its recovery support mission by owning and operating the largest and most diverse support center of its kind for recovering alcoholics and addicts in Oregon, and one of the largest nationwide. On average we host over one hundred recovery meetings a week and welcome more than ten thousand visitors each month. The Club’s reach and scope of work has greatly expanded over the years. Initially chartered in 1947 to support members of Alcoholics Anonymous and their families, the Club today is a leading landmark on Portland’s recovery landscape and serves a far wider spectrum of people, providing sixteen distinct recovery programs addressing specific addictive disorders ranging from alcoholism to drug addiction to gambling and many more. We also host meetings tailored to specific populations—such as gay men, lesbians, youths, and sexually diverse youths—and meetings which are gender-specific.
In 2007, the Alano Club of Portland concurrently celebrates its 60th anniversary and sees its landmark facility cross the century threshold. Even as we celebrate these milestones, we are faced with a daunting roster of critical capital improvements and preventative maintenance projects imperative to the long-term sustainability of this life-saving community resource. At the heart of the matter are two simple facts: first, our facility was originally designed to function as a residential estate, not a thriving community enterprise hosting more than ten thousand visitors each month, and second, the Alano Club of Portland was founded in part on the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, which, among other things, place a premium on the principles of self-sufficiency and self-reliance. With few exceptions, the Club has drawn exclusively on the resources of its members and recovery groups to meet its operating budgetary needs. This is always a challenge (though one we have consistently met), as many of our patrons are unable to provide any financial support due to their own economic hardships. For sixty years, this approach has adequately provided for the day-to-day operations of the Club, but it has not been sufficient to fund improvements and major repairs.
The criticality of these pending projects and the acknowledgement that we must become more proactive and strategic in our approach to fundraising (if we are to continue to effectively serve the thousands of people who rely on our organization for their life-long recovery needs) has fueled a year of diligent planning, preparation, and re-organization. In the past year, the Club has overhauled its identity through the creation of a new logo, tagline, and collaterals. It has launched a new website with the capacity to process donations and membership dues, and has initiated an aggressive membership drive (this will be an annual event going forward) which increased Club dues-paying members by 30%. The Club has also entered into a profit-sharing partnership with Powell’s Books, and has conducted detailed donor research and prospecting that ultimately led to a precedent-setting year of fundraising. All of this has provided a strong foundation for the Club’s most ambitious fundraising effort to date, the Alano Club of Portland Century Campaign: Building a Foundation for the Future.
The goal of our burgeoning Century Campaign is to restore and preserve our vital recovery center so that it will continue to be safe and available for those in need in years to come. The capital improvements and updates needed to restore, maintain, and increase the utility of our facility include: dry rot repairs to impacted exterior surfaces; new front landing steps and railing (bringing both up to code); structural repairs to the front porch and columns; repair and resheathing of the flat roof system; replacement of the building’s non-functioning storm water drainage system; a professional exterior paint job to ensure the integrity of new repairs and exposed wood surfaces; comprehensive remodeling of the blighted basement community room (our largest meeting space); complete remodeling of five distressed bathrooms; complete remodeling of the kitchen and community café space; new floor coverings in recovery meeting rooms and common areas; new furniture designed to room specifications (to maximize seating capacity); resurfacing of deteriorating back parking lot; replacement of distressed rear stairs; repairs to rear stairwell walls and ceiling; and landscaping improvements.
The Club has drawn upon the in-house expertise of its members, staff, and board directors to move the Century Campaign from concept to action. The nucleus of our campaign committee includes Shawn Stevens of New Castle Remodeling (a seasoned remodeling firm specializing in historic remodeling, with a green orientation in terms of materials and design); Stewart P. Jones, a long-time property owner and building consultant in northwest Portland who aided the Club in processing a professional housing exam and in reviewing project proposals; and Brett Schultz of Brett Schultz Architecture (a highly regarded local architecture firm that will be assisting the Club on both interior and exterior design issues and building code compliance.) The campaign is managed by the Club’s Executive Director, Brent Canode, who has served in a variety of leadership positions with political and civic organizations over the past decade and who will manage the day-to-day operations of the campaign. Steven Haines, an executive with Xerox, Corp., is chairing the campaign and provides strong, board-level leadership.
Our phase-one capital budget is $270,000, which includes a $20,000 cost-overrun allowance. The total project budget, including a phase-two endowment campaign, is $490,000. Our early fundraising efforts among Club patrons has already been the most successful internal fundraising drive in recent Club history, with secured pledges and commitments totaling $127,300. Of this total, individual donations account for $84,500 (including gifts from 100% of the Board). In-kind contributions of labor, materials and services are in place with a value of $22,800. And most recently, the Swigert Foundation approved our first grant application for $40,000 ($20,000 is for capital and $20,000 for our endowment). In early 2007, grant applications will be submitted to Meyer Memorial Trust, Oregon Community Foundation, Collins Foundation, Wessinger Foundation, the Jackson Foundation, and the Wheeler Foundation. The remaining balance of phase-one funds will be raised through individual donors from the larger recovery community.
Following completion of the capital phase, the Club will immediately embark on a phase-two endowment-building effort, titled The Alano Club of Portland Century Campaign: Funding a Foundation for the Future. The Club recently approved the transfer of its current endowment to the Oregon Community Foundation’s Endowment Partners Program, one of the nation’s highest-performing investment programs for endowments. The Club’s endowment, now titled The Alano Club of Portland Century Fund, has a balance of $80,000, which includes a recent $20,000 gift from The Swigert Foundation. Our endowment fundraising goal is $220,000 over three to five years, for an end balance of $300,000. Upon conclusion of the endowment phase, the corpus of the Century Fund will generate adequate annual interest income to fund the Club’s ongoing facility maintenance needs. A targeted list of endowment prospects has already been developed, and will continue to grow as fundraising activity intensifies. The success of our endowment phase will ensure the sustainability of our landmark resource and will make basement-to-rafters campaigns at the Club a relic of the past. |
