On Giving Day, MPTF Is Asking For Assist To Proceed Serving to These In Want – Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Right this moment is Giving Day on the Movement Image & Tv Fund – a day on which it celebrates the a hundred and first anniversary of its founding. However on this Giving Day, the MPTF is sending out an pressing name in order that it may proceed to assist trade professionals in want.

By the top of this yr, MPTF’s Covid-related bills can have topped $9 million because the begin of the pandemic, pushing its money reserves into “the vital zone.” So it’s asking the trade to “step up,” both by donations or by volunteering.

“We’d like to see the common trade employee commit somewhat bit of cash each month to creating certain that this place is round once they want us sooner or later, or when the individuals who work on the set with them want us sooner or later,” MPTF president and CEO Bob Beitcher informed Deadline. “Individuals shouldn’t simply assume that this place goes to be right here ceaselessly as a result of it’s solely right here due to the generosity of trade members, and it may’t be only a few tremendous beneficiant folks. It has to return from everybody.”

MPTF Chief Growth Officer Courteney Bailey informed Deadline: “Giving Day is about celebrating the previous 101 years, which is really exceptional, and it’s about our imaginative and prescient of the longer term. I would like everybody to know that this can be a place that’s like their alma mater. There’s loads occurring on this world and there’s loads of instability in life, however that is probably the most unbelievable trade on the planet. So we need to thank them for the work that they do, and we would like them to be there for us as properly. So Giving Day is really only a present of gratitude to this trade for caring for us, as a result of the one approach that we are able to proceed to be round on this lovely circle of life is that if folks proceed to assist us in order that we are able to proceed to assist them. And that’s actually what it’s all about.”

Beitcher mentioned: “Giving Day is the popularity of the beginning of our charitable group and a possibility to remind the leisure trade of that and to attempt to get everybody to take part in some style in giving to assist the group. Our aim is at all times to get 100% of the trade to take part in some style. We don’t have a selected monetary aim as a lot as a participation aim.”

With Covid, he mentioned, the necessity has expanded tremendously. “By means of the top of this yr, we can have spent $9 million internally on totally different Covid wants: PPE, isolation items, workers for isolation items that we had to herald from outdoors, testing – we’ve completed 60,000 or 70,000 exams for our residents and workers – and on and on. But it surely’s value us $9 million that we clearly didn’t price range for and needed to dip into our reserves partly to pay. So on this Giving Day we’re specializing in Covid reduction, making an attempt to make up for a few of these extraordinary prices.”

The MPTF would have been much more careworn financially if it hadn’t obtained a $7.38 million Payroll Safety Program mortgage initially of the pandemic, which was forgiven in June 2021.

“The requests for providers have grown exponentially, particularly since Covid,” Bailey mentioned, noting that in 2021, the most important share of wants at consumption – 33% – have been for supportive counseling. “Many individuals are available for supportive counseling, after which we discover that they want monetary help or different providers, as properly,” she mentioned. Mixed, 61% of wants at consumption are for supportive counseling and monetary help.

Direct monetary help accounted for 28% of wants at consumption. In 2021, the MPTF gave out greater than $3.5 million in monetary help. Of the 4,644 folks served by the charity’s group and campus providers final yr, greater than half have been members of IATSE or SAG-AFTRA.

Monetary help, Beitcher mentioned, “grew dramatically in 2020 and the primary half of 2021. That leveled off in 2022, and we’re again to 2019 ranges. And with the amount of manufacturing occurring, loads of our under-65 manufacturing staff are working and have much less want for monetary help, however they’re nonetheless there.”

Even so, he mentioned, the MPTF’s reserves “are lower than wholesome.”

Presently, there are 220 residents who reside on the MPTF’s retirement village in Woodland Hills, CA. Six died of Covid within the early days of the pandemic; three extra died final yr, and one died three months in the past. “It was extra deadly for everybody” in these early days, Beitcher mentioned. “We didn’t have testing and we didn’t have vaccines, so we had loads of silent spreaders, and individuals who have been medically compromised have been getting Covid and never having the ability to overcome it.” Right this moment, he mentioned, “we’ve got a bunch of open beds that we are able to’t fill as a result of we are able to’t discover nursing workers to assist the items.”

Requested how lengthy the ready record is to turn into a resident, he mentioned: “It actually relies upon, as a result of we do unbiased residing, assisted residing, expert nursing and reminiscence care. Proper now, in expert nursing and reminiscence care we’ve got 80 beds, and my guess is that if we had one other 40 beds, we may fill them in a month or two. However we don’t. We will barely workers the beds that we’ve got proper now. That is a part of the nationwide vital nursing scarcity.”

The campus is at present Covid-free, he mentioned. “Right this moment, we’re what’s referred to as ‘all inexperienced.’ Now we have no residents with Covid and no workers who’ve interactions with residents who’ve examined optimistic for Covid. So persons are free to maneuver round, we’re doing communal eating, our theater has reopened, the residents are utilizing the pool and the health club, they’re having social actions. So it’s just about again to regular. We’re nonetheless encouraging them to put on masks once they depart the campus and go to giant indoor areas, they usually’re nonetheless sporting masks in our theater.”

However Covid-related bills are nonetheless piling up. “Even when Covid is much less on folks’s minds and we predict we’re getting again to regular, we’ll spend $2 million this yr,” he mentioned. “On a campus like ours, when one individual will get sick, it’s a must to open an isolation unit, it’s a must to usher in new workers, it’s a must to begin sporting PPE, and it’s a must to begin testing twice every week. It triggers an entire set of actions which are costly.”

On October 8, MPTF will maintain its first open home on campus because the begin of the pandemic.

“Earlier than Covid, we had a fairly profitable, fairly giant open home,” Beitcher mentioned. “Individuals toured the campus, and we had a giant crowd in our theater. So this can be a much-reduced model of that. It’s what we are able to do now and we’re going to be blissful to see some of us on campus — and hold our fingers crossed for 2023.”

Requested what the longer term appears like for MPTF, he mentioned: “I want I may reply that. Clearly, the world is much more changeable than we thought it was a number of years in the past. Now we have the Child Boomer era of leisure trade staff retiring in giant numbers, so we count on to see loads of want for them when it comes to monetary support to assist their persevering with to age in place at dwelling; to their want or need to maneuver on to campus, in addition to monetary help for care-giving and different issues that assist folks keep in place. So the necessity isn’t going away. Hopefully the Covid want shall be going away, however the want for our trade members for assist from a charity like MPTF shall be there and solely develop over time.”

About 20% of wants at consumption final yr have been for these considering residing on campus or those that need assistance with growing older at dwelling. One other 10% was for case administration. “Our small however mighty crew of social staff are regularly serving to folks,” Bailey mentioned. “And it’s not only a one-time name or a one-time monetary distribution. It’s about ensuring that everybody is taken care of correctly.” One other 9% have been from these fighting psychological well being points, social isolation, security and reminiscence loss.

Bailey careworn that making donations shouldn’t be the one approach trade professionals may give to the MPFT. “We discuss donate, advocate and volunteering,” she mentioned. “Past making donations, we additionally need folks to find out about us and to speak about us and to unfold the mission as a result of we’d like as a lot peer assist as attainable. As you’ll be able to think about, when it comes from the group, it’s impactful, however when it comes out of your buddy, your boss or your worker, it’s virtually much more impactful.”

When it comes to volunteering, Bailey mentioned: “There’s the whole lot from making a telephone name by being part of our every day name sheet to fight social isolation to our unbelievable program that our director of group engagement, Fredda Johnson, runs referred to as Angel Playing cards. Our residents weren’t receiving any form of mail on their birthdays, and it simply began out so simple as that. We’ve had organizations, corporations and guilds creating their very own birthday playing cards. And so they don’t simply signal a card; they write heartfelt notes. And now residents’ mailboxes are overflowing with love by birthday playing cards. And we encourage corporations to do days of service on campus. After all, campus at instances is restricted – one week is totally different from the following. However corporations like Paramount – ViacomCBS – they do By way of Group Day, they usually come on campus and do a wealth of volunteering, from interacting with residents, to meals to artwork courses to enhance cleansing up, adorning and bringing wheelchairs. Simply bringing pleasure to campus.

“And when it’s restricted and you may’t come to campus, there are methods to get on the telephone or write a notice, and there are numerous methods to volunteer in the neighborhood: meals supply for people who find themselves coping with meals insecurity points. We even have a Subsequent Gen group who assist present items to our residents and items to folks in the neighborhood, they usually have networking mixers. And it’s essential as a result of we actually want the following era of Hollywood to know who we’re. Past that, we’ve bought mentorship packages, the place we’re working with numerous companions, and it’s very a lot primarily based on inter-generational connections; getting knowledge out of your elders, and vice versa. And people are extremely significant.”

These considering volunteering, Bailey mentioned, can go on the web site, MPTF.com/volunteering. “That’s the simplest approach, or simply give us a name. If you happen to name our consumption line, we’ll take you to the appropriate place.”

“The extra those who we make conscious of our providers – the nice aspect is that we’re capable of assist extra, they usually’re calling us extra,” she mentioned. “And the flip aspect of that’s that it’s additionally placing strain on our fundraising capability to assist these wants. We’re serving almost 5,000 folks in our group and campus social providers. We have been as much as 10,000 in 2020 when it comes to requests. Up to now two years, our wants and requests for providers have gone up tremendously. And there’s not a lot slowing. In 2019, it was about 4,000. It’s not fairly as a lot now as in 2020, as a result of folks weren’t working in any respect then, however the wants are nonetheless growing past that peak we noticed in 2020. And whenever you have a look at who we’re serving, and it actually speaks to our mission, 35% are IATSE members. So it truly is these below-the-line staff who maintain us and produce so many individuals success, and we’re doing our half to maintain them.”

Beitcher’s ties to MPTF date again to 1990, when he bought his first job within the trade – when MPTF’s Payroll Pledge program was nonetheless going robust. “Studio staff, writers, administrators, actors – they put into their contracts that they have been committing to provide anyplace from a half a % to 2% of their pay to MPTF within the type of a payroll pledge,” Beitcher recalled. “I did it after I went to work at Paramount in 1990. It simply got here out of your paycheck to the MPTF. Again within the day, in 2021 {dollars}, we have been getting $10 million a yr in Payroll Pledge. In 2021, we bought $450,000.”

In actual {dollars}, that’s an annual shortfall larger than all of MPTF’s Covid-related bills because the begin of the pandemic. So the place has Payroll Pledge gone?

“The trade modified,” he mentioned. “It now not, for no matter purpose – company possession – it simply stopped being a part of the HR on-boarding course of. A part of it was that most individuals who labored for the studios – in digital camera departments and lighting departments, all these crafts departments – these departments have been shut down; all of them grew to become freelance, and they also’re on seven payrolls in a yr. And it’s laborious to do Payroll Pledge and observe them each time they transfer to a distinct manufacturing. So it bought gutted for a bunch of causes. It stopped being the tradition of the trade. After I joined Paramount in 1990 and went across the first few weeks to fulfill folks working on the studio, one of many questions folks requested me was, ‘Are you giving to Payroll Pledge?’ As a result of that was a part of the tradition, and it was essential to them. It mentioned one thing about you for those who answered ‘sure’ to that query. However that tradition has gone away, for no matter causes, and we’re making an attempt to convey it again.”

One of the best ways to donate, he mentioned, is “to go to our web site and join month-to-month bank card deductions. Giving us a bank card quantity and pledging $10 a month or $100 a month is the simplest factor for folks to do. Now we have Payroll Pledge at MPTF, however clearly that’s simply us supporting ourselves.”

The pandemic additionally value the MPTF when it comes to income when its huge occasions – like its Night time Earlier than the Oscars and its Night Earlier than the Emmys – needed to go digital.

“A company like ours, it’s laborious to buffer $9 million in further prices out of your reserves whenever you’ve bought different wants that haven’t gone away, and in some instances have solely gotten greater,” Beitcher mentioned. “So we have to rebuild these reserves after three years of those Covid prices. And never solely Covid prices, however we went from these huge Night time Earlier than and Night Earlier than occasions to those digital occasions that have been very profitable – in all probability a few of the largest or the most important digital occasions within the trade – however they raised loads much less cash than our in-person occasions.”

Giving Day, Bailey mentioned, “is de facto about speaking about our mission, sharing the wants that the group is going through – the various requests for providers – and to get as many individuals engaged as attainable. We need to develop our constituent base, and that is about grassroots fundraising. It’s about 100% participation. It’s fairly a lofty aim, and lots of organizations discuss that. However that is about everybody in our trade coming collectively to assist one another and to strengthen the fibers of the security web – or we wish to name it a ‘trampoline’ now, as a result of we don’t need to simply catch folks; we went to get them again on their ft. So that is about reaching a large viewers, about thanking them for the work they do, and about asking them for his or her assist.

“We’re there for them, and we’d like you to be there for us,” she added. “So this yr, we’re making an attempt to succeed in as many individuals as attainable, have everybody take part in any approach they’ll. After which one thing particular that we haven’t been capable of do in a few years, is anybody who makes a present of $25 or extra, we’re going to ask teams to return onto our campus and to re-engage with us and to get to know us somewhat bit higher or simply to return to the campus in order that we are able to thank them correctly, as a result of we’ve actually been lacking that in-person connection.

“Now we have a ton of providers; we’ve got an awesome construction, and we simply want to assist folks,” she mentioned. “They want monetary assist; they want these counseling providers. That’s why we’ve got to do as a lot as we presumably can – the whole lot from this Giving Day, to reinvigorating what our former chairman of the board, Jeffrey Katzenberg, began with a Nation Dwelling fund. And now our CEO is carrying on the custom of asking leaders of the trade to match his giving. And our CEO is personally dedicated, in addition to professionally dedicated, to serving to MPTF, and we’re going to be launching a fundraising marketing campaign that’s somewhat bit higher-level, asking folks to make pledges, in honor of the 100th anniversary, of $100,000 over a time frame, to assist us. We’d like assist in each space, and we’re actually engaged on getting the message on the market so we are able to proceed to assist as many individuals as attainable.”