008

2Annual
Report

Bringing people and services together


History
Time Line of Current Programs:
1975 Information & Referral
1979 LifeLine
1983 MedAssist
1986 After-Hours Answering
Services
1990 Child Care Connection
1999 Project Connect
2003 2-1-1
2003 Homeless Management
Information Systems
2008 Community Voice Mail
About Info Line
Info Line, Inc. (Info Line) was incorporated as a private nonprofit
corporation by the State of Ohio on June 4, 1975 and is governed by
the Board of Trustees (2008 Board of Trustees featured on Financial
page). The Board of Trustees regularly meets five times per year.
The initial service provided by the agency was Information and
Referral. The agency’s mission was to link people in need of services
with the most appropriate providers of those services. Information
and Referral service is free of charge to the local callers. This program
has grown to become Summit County’s 24-hour Information and
Referral service answering 70,000 incoming calls annually through its
10-digit telephone number and an easy-access three digit 2-1-1 dialing
system. Info Line has been accredited by the Alliance of Information
and Referral systems (AIRS) and 19 staff members are Certified
Information and Referral Specialists. Info Line maintains a computerized
resource directory of over 1,100 agencies and services for the Summit
County area.
In addition, Info Line serves as the Clearinghouse for Emergency
Food in our county. Info Line refers over 15,000 families to over 60
pantries for a 3-day emergency supply of food. Through a grant from
the Community Technology Fund of Ohio, Info Line has developed a
clearinghouse database for client tracking and is bringing computers
into the food pantries so that they can access this information and
provide services to clients in need more efficiently.
The target population for Information and Referral are all individuals
and families living in Summit County who need access to community
resources and services. While we serve anyone needing information,
the vast majority are seeking services that would be described as basic
life necessities such as food, housing, clothing and medical care.
Throughout its 33 year history, Info Line has been sensitive to the
needs of the community and through strategic planning with the
Board and community leaders, has continued to develop additional
programming in line with the current mission statement of improving
the quality of life of all people who live and work in Summit County by
enhancing their access to and use of the human service delivery system
in our community. Additionally, the organization assists in community
planning by identifying gaps, overlaps and duplication in services.
Info Line has continued to meet this mission by utilizing advanced
computer and telecommunications technology. Current programs
were developed (see timeline) and continue to be beneficial programs
designed to meet the needs of Summit County residents and agencies.
 Programs
2-1-1 Information and Referral & Senior I&R: 2-1-1: In 2008
2-1-1 Information and Referral and Senior I&R: 2-1-1 responded to 70,000
requests from individuals and families and connected them to resources
throughout the community.
Child Care Connection: Child Care Connection has been actively
expanding its outreach efforts to educate the community about the
services that are provided to families, child care providers and the
community. Child Care Connection also continues to expand the
quality improvement services provided to the early care and education
community through programs that include: Step Up to Quality, First
Steps Infant Toddler Program, and the After school Initiatives, Quality
Enhancement.
Lifeline: Lifeline provides quick access to help, 24 hours a day. Lifeline is
an easy to use medical alert service designed to reduce the risk of living
alone. In the event of a fall or emergency, help is available at the push of a
button. Info Line serves over 1500 clients through the Lifeline program.
MedAssist: Emergency and on-going prescription expense assistance for
uninsured Summit County residents. MedAssist exceeded all of its goals for
2008 and leveraged over $4 in pharmaceuticals for each $1 contributed
by United Way. The total market value of medications secured for Summit
County residents in 2008 as a result of the program was $1,114,083.
Project Connect: A support program for nonprofit organizations to
upgrade their technology capabilities and utilize their resources more
effectively.
Homeless Services Team: The Homeless Services Team is made up of
two programs, Homeless Management Information (HMIS) of Summit
County and Community Voice Mail Summit (CVMS).
• HMIS: Community collaborative which tracks services provided to
homeless and low income clients throughout Summit County to
determine efficient allocations of resources and effective coordination
of services. There are 14 agencies with 41 programs currently entering
data into HMIS.
Community Projects HMIS participate in:
– Akron/Summit County Continuum of Care for the Homeless:
Info Line’s Vice President of Services serves as the chairperson of this
community collaborative of agencies that work together to shape
policy and procedure for addressing homeless issues in the Summit
County region.
– Point-In-Time Count is an annual one-day count of sheltered and
unsheltered homeless persons in the Summit County community. The
PIT Count held on January 29, 2008, resulted in the best outreach
effort to date with over 733 people being counted.
– Project Homeless Connect: This “all day” services fair for the
homeless population in our community is held in the spring every
year. In 2008 Project Homeless Connect served over 500 people in an
effort to connect guests with housing, health care services, jobs, food,
hair cuts and more.
• Community Voice Mail Summit: CVMS partners with social service
agencies in the community to provide free voice mail to phoneless
clients in order to give them a constant point of contact as they
transition out of crisis. CVMS have partnered with 10 agencies with
14 programs in the first six months of operations.
 Programs Making a Differance
Information
MedAssist
MedAssist: In July, a forty-four year old Kenmore
resident contacted MedAssist for help with a critical
& Referral
Information & Referral: A 62 year old female called
Info Line for help paying her water bill. She said that she just
received her SSI check, but someone in her family got into her
medication. Three months earlier she had lost her job
checking account and her money was all gone. Social Security
and health insurance; however before her insurance ran
was in the process of investigating the account to reimburse
out, she wisely obtained a three month supply of her
her but it would take 60-90 days. Info Line referred this
medication. Although she was again employed full time,
customer to the Tallmadge Richardson Trust. They were able
she was not eligible for insurance through her employer
to help this woman with $179.00 to pay off her water bill.
until December and could not afford

Lifeline
to pay $1,800 each month for the
injectable anti-coagulant that she
needed. With her doctor’s assistance,
MedAssist enrolled her in the
Lifeline: A 98 year old female with a medical history of
manufacturer’s patient assistance
high blood pressure and strokes had been a client of Info
program the same day she called
Line’s Lifeline service since 2001. Info Line received a “help
for help. Through December 2008,
needed” signal from the client. Although we could not hear
she received nearly $11,000 worth
her clearly, we could tell she was in distress and immediately
of medication at no charge, keeping
called a responder. Her neighbor found the client inside with
her health stable and allowing her to
a broken arm. Upon speaking with the responder, Info Line
keep working. MedAssist also referred the patient to a low
called Emergency Medical Service (EMS) and the client was
cost health care program to use until she became eligible
transported to the hospital.
for insurance in December.
Info Line also immediately contacted the client’s daughter
to let her know her mother was being transported, and she
arrived at the hospital before her mother. The daughter shared
with us that it was so comforting to her mother to see her
family when she arrived at the hospital emergency room
and to know she was not alone. After this incident, the client
moved into a nursing home, but Lifeline helped this woman
remain independent in her own home until age 98.

Child Care Connection

Child Care Connection: A child care center in Summit County contacted Child Care Connection to receive assistance with the
new voluntary tiered quality rating system in the state of Ohio called Step Up to Quality. We spent 12 months working with the
program, its director and staff to improve the quality of care provided and meet the benchmarks set by the Step Up to Quality
program to become star rated. A team from Child Care Connection achieved the following in 2008 :
• Nationally recognized environmental rating assessments in the infant, toddler, preschool and school age classrooms
• Technical assistance and mentoring on best practices caring for children in each classroom
• Support and mentoring for developing systems to successfully complete mandated licensing requirements
• Professional development training and support for staff and directors to meet the qualifications in the Step to Quality Benchmarks
• The program was eligible to participate in the TEACH program which offers financial support for teachers to achieve their CDA
(Child Development Associates Credential) and work toward their degree in early care and education.
As a result of the star rating the Child Care Connection program received Quality Achievement dollars that will help them continue
to support the quality programming that is being provided to the children in their care.

Stories from
Revenue
the Heart
Expenses
Every year I receive 30 or more
Annual Reports from organizations
in our community. Some have
been beautifully crafted with
Assests
professional photos, graphics, art
work and cleaver layouts. Others are more modest
in design and presentation. All of them include the
standard basics: Mission Statement, description of the
programs offered, statistical accounts of the year’s most
noteworthy accomplishments, a financial statement,
list of key organizational leaders, etc. But what is
most important about what an organization has done
in any given year can never fully be communicated Liabilities and Net Assets
through statistics, balance sheets, pie charts, pictures,
or descriptions of services. It is in the actual stories of
people whose lives have been changed as a result of
our efforts that we begin to understand the true value
of our organization. This annual report includes the Net Assets
requisite statements, figures and lists. More importantly,
it includes a few stories of people who are better off
because of what we do. These stories are what we
TOTAL LIABILITIES AND NET ASSETS........... 1,124,438
are all about. More to the point, they are the “why”
we do what we do. They give hope to those in need,
inspiration to our dedicated staff and volunteers, and
real return on investment to the community.
This report also offers readers information about
some rather useful resources that may help them with
their own professional and/or personal challenges (see
Resources).
After you have had a chance to read through this
report, let me know what you think about the work we
do here at Info Line, what other information you would
like to know about us, and what else Info Line could be
doing to help people in our community improve their
lives. My phone number is 330-762-5627. By the way,
much more detailed information about our organization
is available online at www.infolineinc.org.
Thanks for your continued interest in Info Line.
Richard Stahl
President & Chief Executive Officer
Financials
2008 Year-End
Government agencies............................................ 2,708,509
Service income..............................................................519,128
United Way....................................................................415,170
Foundations..................................................................139,986
Other................................................................................. 88,488
TOTAL.......................................................................... 3,871,281
Staff resources........................................................... 2,067,282
Operational expenses............................................ 1,027,255
Direct assistance to clients........................................488,593
Depreciation..................................................................133,195
TOTAL ........................................................................ 3,716,325
Current Assets
Cash and cash equivalents.......................................174,966
Accounts receivable....................................................480,350
Prepaid expenses and other assets.......................... 36,200
TOTAL CURRENT ASSETS..........................................691,516
Non-Current Assets
Furniture and equipment, at cost...................... 2,073,927
Less: Accumulated depreciation...................... (1,656,966)
TOTAL NET NON-CURRENT ASSESTS...................416,961
Other assets..................................................................... 15,961
TOTAL ASSETS.......................................................... 1,124,438
Current Liabilities
Accounts payable.......................................................... 83,528
Accrued expenses and payroll withholdings....... 96,299
Deferred revenue.......................................................... 70,734
TOTAL CURRENT LIABILITIES...................................250,561
Long term liabilities..........................................................4,424
Unrestricted
Operating.......................................................................452,492
Equipment.....................................................................416,961
TOTAL NET ASSETS.....................................................869,453
ees
ust
f Tr
Karen Talbott,
Chairperson
do
r
John Falvy,
a
Vice-Chairperson
o
Tom Hastings, Treasurer
B
Annette Ruby, Secretary
John Burkley
Robert Merzweiler
Dick Norton
Laura Musarra
Robert Norman, M.D.
Jay Porter
Lois Stevens
 Other Informative Resources
Local Other Information
City of Akron Customer Service Center US Census Bureau
provide up-to-date information of City depart- Information about social and economic
ments and contact info, Calendar, Attraction, and conditions in the country, including
News Releases: employment, housing, manufacturing,
www.ci.akron.oh.us trade, and many other topics.
3-1-1 or 330-375-2311 www.census.gov
1.800-923-8282
Bus schedules
METRO RTA
www.akronmetro.org Ask the Nurse Support 24/7:
1-800-227-9905 www.callcarenet.net
1.800.809.7000
Main Library:
Akron-Summit County Public Library Guide to Finding and Evaluating Health
www.akronlibrary.org Information
330-643-9000 Medical Library Association
www.mlanet.org
Tel., 312.419.9094

Poison Control:
http://www.aapcc.org/DNN/
1-800-222-1222

County, State EPA- Human health and the environment

information

& National www.epa.gov

Value of Volunteer Time

Summit County Government information and Independent Sector Research Article:
service site about property, development, services (i.e. The estimated dollar value of volunteer time is
vendor and dog license), courts... and more. $20.25 per hour for 2008
www.co.summit.oh.us http://www.independentsector.org/programs/
1-800-582-2699 research/volunteer_time.html
Ohio Government information and service site,
find legislators, Ohio’s laws or codes, get certificates,
register vote, file state taxes, and more.
www.ohio.gov

Ohio Government Get direct access to searchable Contact Info Line for
2008 Call Statistics
information from the United States government,
state governments, and local governments. Get a US
Passport, Replace Your Vital Documents, File taxes,
SSN, Employer ID number. Includes Libraries US
GovernmentGraphics and Photos, US Government Tim Hite, CRS
Forms, Money and Taxes and more Info Line Resource Coordinator
thite@InfolineInc.org
www.USA.gov
Direct Phone: 330-315-1402
1-800-FED-INFO (1-800-333-4636)

Info Line, Inc.

703 South Main Street • Suite #211 • Akron, Ohio 44311
330.762.5627 (Administration) • 330.253.1137 (Fax)
Web Site: www.infolineinc.org
Follow Info Line on Twitter: http://twitter.com/infolineinc