Thank you so much.

...It's very kind of Ralph and Kathryn to acknowledge my participation and role in this, but really all of you are the ones who have made this such a success. Certainly Ralph and Kathryn and my wonderful representative here in Westchester, Geri Shapiro, spent a lot of time thinking about what could be done to really bring people together and to give us a platform for exchanging ideas and thinking about how to be more effective in the not-for-profit world which is where I spent a great deal of my time over many years working on behalf of issues that I believed in.

This summit has been successful beyond anyone's anticipation and that is due to the great team that was put together to plan it and implement it. In addition to Ralph and Kathryn, I would like to thank Kerry Bright, chair of the United Way Board and of course all of the members of the Summit Committee who have worked so hard all year round to make this happen. Chris Giamo and the sponsors that have funded it and created this extraordinary partnership between the not-for-profit and the private sector and elected officials like our wonderful Congresswoman and my friend, Nita Lowey, who have also understood from the very beginning the importance of the not-for-profit sector in delivering services. It's just such an honor to work with Nita like we do on a regular basis because she really gets it completely. She knows what it takes to build communities where people have a chance to really flourish and she's just done such a wonderful job in the Congress.

When we began working on this in 2003 - well we first worked on it in 2002 but the first conference was in 2003 - our first theme was "Surviving During a Time of Dramatic Change". I remember so well Ralph, when we had the first conference here, there were a lot of not-for-profits who didn't think they would last the year. The financial pressures were so great and people were feeling really pressed. Now in our 5th year we can see how far we've come with the theme of "Excelling During a Time of Dramatic Change". So we've gone from surviving to the challenge of excelling and I think that's a good trajectory for us to be on. But I think it's time that we even think more about how to take this idea of this summit and really create even more benefits for the people and the organizations that take a role in it.

I'm really proud of the working relationships I've developed with the United Way and with the Westchester Community Foundation, as well as all the member organizations that form the conference committee. I'd like to ask all the members of the conference committee to stand, because you are the unsung heroes and heroines of how we put this on every year. Would all of the Conference committee members please stand? (Applause)

You know, as Nita said in the past few weeks here in the county we have seen first hand how vital the not-for-profit sector is. I want personally to thank the United Way, Habitat for Humanity, the Red Cross and all of the local organizations that responded to the recent floods. You really answered the call in a time of need and demonstrated what the public already knows - that you play an invaluable role in times of crisis, like we had with the floods.

When I think about all of the ways that every one of you and all the organizations you represent play a role.... If we had a timeline - which maybe next year we could do - if we had a timeline we could go 24 hours in a typical day in Westchester country and look at the ways that your organizations help people get through the day. We could start early in the morning with all of the services that you provide, as children are dropped off for either child care or respite care or preschool or other kinds of intervention. Where adults are dropped off for some of the very same needs - to socialize, to be taken care of, to have services. We could go through after school, we could go through after school we could go into the evening as people are looking for places to live. We could look at the disability community; we could end at an arts event. You can go around the clock and think about so many of the contributions that really make the standard of living and the quality of life possible here.

I've often used a metaphor to describe society as a three-legged stool. One leg is the private sector; our dynamic free-market economy that provides the jobs, creates the wealth, the economic opportunity that we all are beneficiaries of. Another leg is the public sector; our government, at all levels of government. We are so blessed in this country to have such effective governance. Particularly here in this county, we see how our county government and our local government work hand in hand to try to provide basic services, to support economic development and really to stand for all that we believe in, in our democracy. But the third leg of civil society is really where so much of life takes place. It's where the faith community makes its contribution and it is in our country where our vital not-for-profit sector makes its mark. There are so many countries that have a very high standard of living and a good quality of life, but don't have this dynamic third leg, don't have this civil society. Obviously we've been noted for having that going all the way back to de Tocqueville. But it is truly one of the great gifts of America.

You're going to be hearing later from Thomas Tierney, the chairman and co-founder of Bridgespan who will offer his own advice and experience about how to be effective not-for-profit leaders. I want to mention a few of the areas that I think we have to focus on because there's a lot of work to be done. And as Nita and I struggle every day to try to make sure that vital services to people are not cut back, so often we have to turn to you to pick up what is lost.

For many years I've been involved in the not-for-profit world. I went to work for the Children's Defense Fund right out of law school and have been an advocate for children and families for many years. I worked on the study that was done back in 1973 going door to door trying to find children with disabilities who weren't in school. We looked at census data and you might see a hundred school-aged children and then you looked at school enrollment data and there were 87 in school. So where were the remaining 13? Some in those days were out of school, helping to support families, but the majority of them were children with disabilities, from relatively mild disabilities to quite profound disabilities but they weren't in school. And as a young lawyer I knocked on doors in communities like New Bedford, MA asking if people had a child of school age who was not in school. I'd be invited in to small homes and tiny apartments and I'd meet a blind child or a child sitting in a wheel chair because these children were just not part of our society. We didn't see them, they were invisible to us. Well thankfully we've made such a tremendous commitment in America; first in the world ever, to say that we were going to provide education for children with disabilities. And we still have a lot of work to in the disability community - I see that wonderful sign "Ability Beyond Disability" - there is still a lot to be done but part of it is because we know we can. We've made so much progress in dealing with the challenges to people with disabilities and their families face, and now we need to keep moving forward because there is more work to be done.

When I think back to the work I did on behalf of children in Arkansas - I started a group called Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families because there were so many children who didn't have access to health care, as there still are today but the numbers were proportionately even larger then. Children who were abused and neglected, who would get lost in the foster care system. Children who would attend school but would never seemed to be able to learn because there was no extra help for them and so much else. We've made a lot of progress there as well, although when it comes to the needs of our children we are still, in my view, woefully short. We have 9 million children without health insurance. We have millions of children who start school unready to learn and never catch up. So we have our work cut out for us and we need better policies and better approaches. Again, we need a partnership between business and government and the not-for-profit sector to try to give a boost to every single child and certainly to try to provide healthcare for every child.

You know, Nita and I and our colleagues are going to try to expand the Children's Health Insurance Program this year. Because we not only have those 9 million who don't have insurance at all, but during the course of the year as parents move from employment to employment, as their income level rises and they're no longer eligible for Medicaid or for what's called S.C.H.I.P (the State Children's Health Insurance Program), they fall off of insurance. So during the course of the year, more than 20 million children go in and out of insurance. And if a disaster happens, if that sports accident or that car accident or that disease strikes when they're in between insurance, often times the results can be very, very damning.

It is now clear that if an uninsured child goes into the hospital - any hospital even our best hospitals - with the same condition as an insured child (that is a serious life-threatening condition), the uninsured child is twice as likely to die. If a child with a debilitating condition is discharged from a hospital, the uninsured child is less than half as likely to be referred to a rehabilitation facility. The uninsured child's illnesses become more serious more quickly. I was recently visited by a delegation of emergency room doctors from New York, who were telling me that they can't do their work any more. The emergency rooms are filled! They are filled with in-patients who can't yet get a bed and they are filled with out-patients who shouldn't be in the emergency room. So we have work to do.

Those of you who advocate for affordable housing know how difficult it is to find affordable housing in Westchester County. Many of the people who have built this county, who provide services; firefighters, police officers, teachers, nurses... They can't afford to live in Westchester County. Mayor Delfino and I did a project a couple of years ago to try to encourage employers to provide financial help, in the way of financial counseling or help toward a down payment or some other assistance so that people could live near where they work. It's especially important for some of our big employers, like hospitals.

In many ways Westchester is a victim of our success; between 1980 and 2000, real income grew by about 25% in the county. But in the same period, housing values grew by more than 150%. It's important that we focus on this affordable housing. People call it different names; people call it "affordable housing", "workforce housing", but we need a mix of housing. In the Senate I've just introduced the "Housing America's Workforce" Act to create new competitive grants for not-for-profit housing organizations and new tax incentives to encourage employers to help employees own or rent.

I've also put forth an agenda to combat abuse in the sub-prime lending market. Now that's been in the news a lot and we're really not sure of the full impact because according to the most recent statistics delinquent payments now effect more than 13% of the sub-prime loans in our country, the highest level in 4 years. But the foreclosure rate on all mortgages increased by more than 17% in the last quarter of 2006. We now have more bankruptcies America than we do college graduates. The high foreclosure rate is higher than it's been in 4 decades. A lot of new home owners are one illness or one job loss away from foreclosure and we've got to figure out how we are going to provide consumers with more counseling and information. We need rules to prevent families from being trapped in high interest loans with pre-payment penalties. This is one of the things that is really so heartbreaking to me. I get these calls in our office and some of the new homeowners are so excited to have a home and they have no idea what they've signed to get that home - that in order to try to pay off their home, they actually pay more than their mortgage payment and what they don't realize is that in the fine print, that triggers a penalty. So people are being penalized for trying to be responsible to pay off the loan a little faster, to try to get out of debt. So the market is really causing a lot of challenges for us and I hope that we'll get additional help from the not-for-profit community.

I've reintroduced the "Calling for 211" Act. We had worked on that with the United Way and we want this to try to be a national program. Some one can call and get referred to programs, help find the information that they need, whether it's job training or schools or volunteer opportunities. We need your help to continue to advocate for 211. We came really close last year, didn't quite get it through. My co-sponsor, Elizabeth Dole and I are going to try to get it done this year.

I also want to tell you about a victory we had, something I talked about at the summits before. I introduced 4 years ago legislation called the "Lifespan Respite Care" Act. It is a bill to help families and loved ones who provide home-based care to a husband, a wife, a child or a parent. Family care givers provide 80% of all long term care in the United States. That is estimated to be worth over $300 billion annually. If all of our family members stopped caring for their loved ones, think of the cost that would impose on government. Well we need to do something to recognize these caregivers. They often have no time off. It is emotionally, physically and financially demanding work and they need some help. So my law helps caregivers navigate existing services including not-for-profit services and funds initiatives to provide respite care, so that we can begin to show appreciation for all of our caregivers.

In mental health, Congress has passed into law a measure that I wrote to improve access to mental health services for our nation's seniors. One of our biggest problems health-wise with seniors is depression and the beginnings of dementia. There are so many problems that are difficult for families to deal with and we know that 20% of older Americans experience mental health problems. With this law, seniors will get help through competitive grants for states to support mental health screening and treatment and increase public awareness - something that I know many of you have a deep concern about. We also need to do so much more to remove the stigma of mental health services. We passed out of committee in the Senate, and I hope we're going to pass in the Congress, what's called "Mental Health Parity" where we once and for all say "look, physical illness, mental health challenges, it's all the same. Don't discriminate on the basis of a mental health diagnosis".

So there's a lot of work to be done and today you will have the opportunity to not only hear from experts and people with experiences in various fields, but also to talk to each other. One of our hopes for this summit is that more and more not-for-profits would share resources, share logistics... One of the things we find is that if we could help to house a lot of not-for-profits together - 1 fax machine, 1 computer system - we could help not-for-profits save money and be more efficient in delivering the important services. So we want you to get this information, we want you to network, but we also want to look for ways that we can help you do the important work you're doing in a value-added fashion.

Ultimately, not-for-profits in our country have not only survived but excelled because they provide value. People can look at them and they can see that this makes a difference, that this helps to provide a service that would otherwise not be available. I think we need to be open to new ways of doing business. The 21st Century has certainly changed the way many of us live and work, how we shop on-line and so much else. But it hasn't changed the basic function of caring for our fellow men, women and children. So what we need to do is stay true to our values but look at ways that we can use more cooperation, relationship and network-building to try to provide those services in a more cost effective manner going forward.

I'm very excited about being here again. I'm thrilled that this summit has provided so much benefit to so many over the last 5 years and I look forward to hearing the results of the work here and to be part of the summit and its activities going forward.

As some of you may know, this summit has served as a model. Some other counties - Rockland County and Long Island - have looked to this summit to figure out a way to replicate it. So we're not only doing the work that we need to do to improve conditions for living and to really make Westchester the very best place to live, but we're also setting an example for others who understand the value and importance of the not-for-profit sector.

Thank you all very much.

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