CCNY, Inc.

10/15/2026

OPEN MINDS CEO Monica E. Oss’ bet: nine out of ten executives would say their organization has strong data leadership.

We sat down with Monica for an OPEN MINDS Executive Perspective conversation. Her starting point is one she hears from leaders often: they have plenty of data, but not always the information they need to make decisions.

So she asked our executive director, Heidi Milch, the follow-up that matters. How can you actually tell?

When did your leadership team last compare how executives and program staff use the same data?

10/13/2026

The work we do with behavioral health and human services organizations goes better when the people doing it genuinely like working together, so once a year we make time for exactly that.

This year’s huddle had us brainstorming headlines and playing reporter for an hour, comparing personality quiz results (who’s a map and who’s a boat has become a real office debate), and unboxing new CCNY merch.

Thank you to this year’s planning team for pulling it together. It was a good day, and it shows in the work!

10/13/2026

10/06/2026

Meet Alexandria Busch, one of our Evaluation and Analytics Interns.

Alexandria is finishing her MPH at UB and came in as a Certified Health Education Specialist with a sharp interest in program evaluation.

Right now she’s helping us build something from scratch: a new fidelity tool for our MiiWrap model, developed alongside professionals across multiple sectors, after digging into the gaps in the existing High Fidelity Wraparound tools.

Welcome to the team, Alexandria!!!

09/29/2026

We’re heading back to the OPEN MINDS Technology & Analytics Institute this October in Philadelphia, and we’re glad to be there for a session featuring one of our clients!!

Yisroel Len of Pesach Tikvah is presenting “Every Measure Costs Hours: Focusing On The Data You Need To Collect,” a session on knowing which data actually matters instead of collecting it all.

We know that cost firsthand. Automating one monthly reporting process for his team cut it from 10 days down to half a day.

If you’re at TAI this year, catch the session and find us at our booth. We’d love to talk about what “the data you need to collect” looks like for your organization.

09/18/2026

Grant alert !

The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation awards grants to organizations for which a small amount of money might make a large difference. The Foundation welcomes requests for support from community-based, non-profit organizations based in the United States. Due Nov 10!

The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation awards grants to organizations for which a small amount of money might make a large difference. The Foundation welcomes requests for support from community-based, non-profit organizations based in

07/14/2026

Everyone’s talking about AI right now. But how many people are showing up in person to actually work through what it means for their own organization, team, and what it’ll be capable of in the next five years?

Last week, David Monroe started his morning at Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Inc. Innovation Tent for Coffee Talk, the second one of the season. Casual conversation, strong coffee, and a room full of critical thinkers thinking about where AI is headed for organizations like ours.

The mix in the room said a lot. University at Buffalo, Buffalo State University, Canisius University, and Ganson Street were all represented, along with recent UB and Buffalo State graduates who are just starting to forge their own path in this space.

Conversations like these are exactly why community is at the forefront of our work. These are real questions, real challenges, and a shared curiosity about what comes next in the world of AI.

07/13/2026

Advocating for families doesn’t stop at the county line 📣

Last month, Kim Stewart, Director of Help Me Grow Western New York, and Heidi Ann Milch, Executive Director of CCNY, Inc., sat down with Adam Fogel, Chief of Staff to Congressman Tim Kennedy, to talk about the barriers families across Western New York face when trying to access support for their children.

The conversation centered on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the real gaps that show up when families try to navigate it, along with the partnerships that could help close those gaps. It’s the kind of work that doesn’t always make headlines but shapes whether a child gets connected to support early or falls through the cracks.

07/09/2026

August 17 is six weeks away.

That's the deadline for this round of CCBHC Planning, Development, and Implementation and Improvement and Advancement grants.

Most of the conversations happening right now are about the application itself. Narratives, logic models, letters of support, and the usual pre-deadline scramble are happening.

What tends to get less attention is what comes after the fact: Once you're certified, SAMHSA requires you to report on nine quality measures every cycle. The technical specifications manual for those measures runs 242 pages, across four different stewards. Most newly certified CCBHCs figure this out by hand, in year one, with whoever on staff has time to become the expert.

We've been building a different way to approach this.

Automated logic, a monthly refresh, and a dashboard leadership actually uses, without anyone on your team having to carry 242 pages of specifications on their shoulders.

If you're applying this round, or supporting a clinic that is, we'd love to talk about what reporting infrastructure could look like from day one. The case study is a good place to start:

Your community's trust is vital. Discover how a data equity review can help address concerns and improve data practices.

07/06/2026

We tell organizations over and over that their outcomes data needs to be clear enough for a funder to trust it at a glance. So it felt like the right move to put our own house through that same test!

We just earned a 2026 Candid Silver Seal of Transparency. That means our financials, our programs, and how we actually spend our time are all sitting in the open on our Candid profile, not tucked away into a 990.

If you’re an evaluator or an executive director wondering whether the firm helping you build trust with your funders practices what it preaches, find the link to our profile in our bio.