I posted this response in the Forum News but I am repeating it here, as it is relevant to the discussion:
As of this point, NOMSV has received no grants of any kind (including government) except for a few very welcome small ones that were specific to the conference (e.g., Ambrose Foundation for the Keynote Speaker, Continental Airlines as a donation). We have applied for several grants but were turned down. Therefore, we have to be very careful about how we spend our limited financial resources, which chiefly come from membership fees, contributions, and conference fees. (We also get a percentage of all purchases made -- even of items not on our lists -- when you go to amazon.com through our Bookstore, so please enter amazon.com through us for ANY purchase.) Because of the success of the New York conference, for the first time we have some money on hand, though by the standards of many not-for-profits we are still small. We have only one paid employee, a part-time administrator. Everybody else is a volunteer, and we are very grateful to all who have given us their time.
Thus, we have had to make decisions about how to spend our human and financial resources -- if we went in all the directions that we would love to go in, nothing would get accomplished well. Our major new project at the moment is to develop our professional resource directory, because we constantly hear from survivors in out-of-way places (and even metropolitan areas) all over the world, asking for the names of therapists and other professionals. As you probably know, we have also started to offer survivor retreats. We are a very long way off from being able to open up a clinic of any kind.
For all these reasons, we need volunteer help from our members who have skills such as grant writing, or just enthusiasm and ability to be on a committee.
As for the location and timing of the conference, historically we have moved the conference from city to city because of the enormous amount of time it takes to organize the conference (with its personal toll on the organizers) as well as the importance of sending out our message in all parts of the US and Canada.
I hope this clarifies things, and I wish all a very healthy, safe, and prosperous New Year.
Richard Gartner, PhD
NOMSV president (starting 1/1/02)
[ December 29, 2001: Message edited by: RichardNYC ]