Italian Home for Children provides an integrated network of powerful and effective programs to help children and families with emotional, behavioral, and educational challenges thrive in their communities.

As is the case with most non-profits, financial independence combined with financial support are critical to our existence and the programs and services the Italian Home for Children provides to at-risk youth in and around Boston, MA.

This message takes on a special meaning to me because it’s my first chance to articulate a vision for the future of Italian Home for Children. Inspired by our storied history of providing help to the most vulnerable, our truly wonderful staff, and an incredibly dedicated base of volunteer and professional leadership, we will continue to empower the children and families we serve. For close to 100 years Italian Home for Children has rallied around a powerful mission of providing the best and most meaningful care to children, adults, and families of all backgrounds. More recently we’ve harnessed that experience and the competencies we’ve developed in order to expand our service mix and geography. For example, in the past five years we’ve started offering cutting edge outreach services in a growing number of communities. With a new leadership team it is now a perfect time to pause and ask some questions of our stakeholders so that we can meet the central mission. If we served you, how could we have provided even more help? If you are plugged in to your community, where are there unmet needs? If you work for us, how can we become the employer of choice in our field? If you’ve donated time, energy, or a financial contribution, did we exceed your expectations? In my short time I can already relate examples of how we can actualize this process. For example, when a close and well-connected colleague found out I was coming to IHC she told me that more in-home services were needed for children with Autism. Hearing this, I tuned in to some parent groups in our service area and found out that there were, in fact, long waiting lists as providers struggled to serve everyone who needed help. Now we are asking our current staff how we could become the employer of choice in order to attract well trained staff who would deliver these services. We are also building a strong state of the art development department so that we can earn the capital needed for the startup of new and exciting programs like this. Over the course of the next year we will be excited to share our progress toward opening up this new service line! As we close in on 100 years we will continue our long tradition of providing the highest quality programs rooted in deeply held core values. To that end I’m hoping that each person reading this can help us by answering one of the above questions. We truly need your help so that we can serve even more children in significant ways in the years to come.

Alan Jacobson

Chief Executive Officer

“The one who works with his hands is a laborer. 

The one who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.

The one who works with his hands and his head and his heart is

an artist.”

St. Francis of Assisi

I am pleased to address this letter to all of the “Artists” who have supported Italian Home for Children this past year. Italian Home receives all types of support from a variety of sources. From some, we receive vital financial support to fund our programs. From others, we receive in kind donations of goods and services that they are uniquely able to provide. And, from groups and individuals like the ones we honored in this years Annual Report, we receive direct and active engagement in special projects throughout the year. None of this support is a luxury for Italian Home for Children. In fact, each type of support is essential for us to function at the levels that our children and families require and deserve. It is also essential to support our culture and identity as an inclusive and collaborative organization that empowers all of us to achieve our greatest potential as caregivers. Ultimately, it facilitates more favorable outcomes for the children, adults and families in our care. I consider our management and employees to be in this group of “Artists”. Yes, they choose to do this work as their profession, but they do so in an extremely demanding field that does not offer significant financial reward. In spite of that dynamic, many of them provide organizational support that transcends their job description, putting their “hands and hearts and minds” into this work which makes Italian Home for Children a true mission driven organization. This kind of behavior cannot be created. It evolves over time and is one of our best attributes. A human services agency like ours has many organizational challenges. And one of our more interesting challenges, as we grow and attract more engaged volunteers is ensuring that we can manage them in a fashion that is most productive for Italian Home for Children and most gratifying for the volunteers who are moved to help us. We will always need your support but we also need your leadership to mobilize and leverage this support to properly represent the mission of Italian Home for Children in your community or organization. Alongside our CEO Dr. Alan Jacobson, I encourage all of you who read this to participate and take a leadership role in the future of Italian Home for Children!

With deep and sincere gratitude,

Michael A. Papile

Chairman of the Board

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Financial summary data in the charts and graphs above is per the organization's IRS Form 990s.  Contributions from foundations and corporations are listed under individuals as the breakdown was not available.

Other Documents

No Other Documents currently available.

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