
{"id":18441,"date":"2011-05-26T08:16:10","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T12:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=18441"},"modified":"2011-05-26T08:16:13","modified_gmt":"2011-05-26T12:16:13","slug":"hands-on-jay-miller-and-his-%e2%80%98natural-support%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/05\/26\/hands-on-jay-miller-and-his-%e2%80%98natural-support%e2%80%99\/","title":{"rendered":"Hands on: Jay Miller and his \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnatural support\u00e2\u20ac\u2122"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_18442\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18442\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2011\/05\/26\/hands-on-jay-miller-and-his-%e2%80%98natural-support%e2%80%99\/miller-20341\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-18442\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/miller-20341.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"miller-20341\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18442\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18442\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">PHOTO BY ALEX MANESS. Jay Miller at the Murphey School   <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>By Taylor Sisk<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that Jay Miller doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like the government, or the tax dollars it sometimes returns to his community. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all for support from Raleigh and D.C. for social services and the arts. <\/p>\n<p>But he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a realist. When funds from without aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sufficient to provide those social assets that define genuine community, we must look more within \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153natural support\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for such community.<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a term Miller learned from state Rep. Verla Insko a few years ago, as she warned of diminishing governmental support.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know then what she was talking about,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Miller says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But turns out what she was talking about was communities supporting the agencies and the work that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being done within the communities, because there is less government money right now, and there may be for a long time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>At which point it falls upon individuals to more fully define community. Individuals like Jay Miller.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The right fit<br \/>\n<\/strong>The son of a savings and loan executive, Miller was reared on the edge of the tony Birmingham, Ala., suburb of Mountain Brook. He came to this community in 1977 to attend Duke. <\/p>\n<p>Three years later, history degree in hand, Miller pondered law school and pursued a passion, landing a gig that was a natural fit: He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d long been a musician, and found employment in a fledgling instrument store \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a keen decision in a propitious moment. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dave Lovett started this tiny little music store in a loft in Durham,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Miller says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and he hired me to work there six months after it opened. And six months after that, he was like, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m moving to Memphis. Would you like to have the store?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The shop was called the Music Loft, approximately 300 square feet of floor space on Perry Street, off Ninth, at $54 a month. Under Miller\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ownership, the business grew to six stores in the Triangle, Triad and Wilmington.<\/p>\n<p>By the turn of the century, though, Miller had come to believe that you could be a mom-and-pop or you could be big business, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153but trying to get in between,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as he was, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to be in trouble.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>So he sold, offering each shop to its manager. By 2002, his last store, in Carrboro, was under new but simpatico ownership.<\/p>\n<p>Miller was 43, and had some cash in his pocket. Now what?<\/p>\n<p>He reconsidered law school. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And then I thought, well, if I went into law, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d go into nonprofit law, because I was already thinking nonprofit. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I felt I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been very fortunate. And I really kind of thought I wanted to do something fulfilling and give back \u00e2\u20ac\u201c all the typical stuff you hear.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>He did volunteer work, at the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service and elsewhere, and took classes at Duke and online in nonprofit management. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I decided that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how I wanted to concentrate myself\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c on the business of nonprofits \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and I wanted to concentrate on Orange and Durham counties, because I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have but so much time and money, and so I wanted to keep it tight, and also those are the areas where I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve lived and worked.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (He and his wife, the visual artist Ebeth Scott-Sinclair, live west of Chapel Hill off N.C. 54; their three kids are now grown and gone.)<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So I decided I wanted to be in the nonprofit philanthropist\/service business \u00e2\u20ac\u201c hands on.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>With Scott-Sinclair, he launched the Shared Visions Foundation, with a mission \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dedicated to building the organizational capacity of and promoting cooperation among nonprofit agencies that directly benefit communities\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Durham and Orange counties.<\/p>\n<p>Shared Visions works closely with several mental health care and other human service agencies, cultural organizations and a few environmental groups. Among the nonprofits the foundation is providing with financial and developmental support are Club Nova, Mental Health America of the Triangle, XDS Inc., Freedom House, The ArtsCenter, The Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Center and Stone Circles.<\/p>\n<p>The foundation also has renovated the Murphey School on N.C. 10, in rural Orange County between Hillsborough and Durham. The school, built in 1923, is now home to Just Right Academy, a nonprofit learning center, and also functions as a retreat center that can be rented dirt-cheap by nonprofits. It houses a performance space for fundraisers, like the Murphey School Radio Show, which features local luminaries and will hold its second performance at the school in November.<\/p>\n<p>The bulk of Shared Visions\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 work is assisting small nonprofits with the drudgery of finances and facilities, because, as Miller stresses, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the business end is just as important for a nonprofit as it is for a for-profit.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Miller\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s experience that, too often, nonprofits\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 mission statements don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153say anything about the facilities and the business end of things.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>A nonprofit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first inclination when faced with an influx of money, Miller says, is to provide more service. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And that makes sense; that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s their mission. You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t find one that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t interested in doing more of what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re already doing and doing it better.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>But sometimes it costs more to provide that service than the funds will afford. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A nonprofit will go out and hire somebody new, and all the work that goes around that sometimes isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t considered,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Miller says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They actually do provide more service, which is good for the community, but they end up in a worse situation financially. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So we try to help. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s often a gap between the needs they have and the resources they have, and we do what we can to bring that together.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Promoting cooperation\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is there in the mission statement. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In theory,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Miller says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153if you can work together, you can get more done. So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to see more collaboration\u00e2\u20ac\u009d among nonprofits.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shifting gears<br \/>\n<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I spent 22 years waking up every day and making decisions,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Miller says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a little bit hard to do committee work. I find board work to be pretty difficult. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m on some boards, but more and more I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m trying to just do projects. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcHow can I help you? This is what you need? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll help you this way.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I do sit through board meetings, and some of them are tedious, and some of the time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcGosh, we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to sit around and talk about this for two hours; let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just do it.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not saying it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the wrong way to do business. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not proposing a new model for nonprofits. I just personally struggle with it. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But, OK, sometimes the consensus reached is better than what I would have done.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Miller hopes to further develop the Murphey School, with plans to add a building when the permits come through. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll continue in his role as philanthropic handyman while also doing maintenance on the properties he owns, which are his source of income.<\/p>\n<p>And: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a little cabin up in Wilkesboro now,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and we want to run up there some.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll continue to play music. He played bluegrass as a teenager in Birmingham, then succumbed to rock \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 roll, by temperament and in vocation. Now, he says, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back full circle, once again playing bluegrass guitar. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I put it down at 16 and back up at 50.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>The Murphey School Radio Show is jazzing him \u00e2\u20ac\u201c engaging the artist within.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We want to do the radio shows on a regular basis. The first one, I have to say, was wildly successful,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d meshing music, comedy and literature. It aired on WCHL and is available on podcast. The next one will be Nov. 12-13, with an as-yet undetermined cast, though local author Lee Smith is already on board. The beneficiaries will be Housing for New Hope, based in Durham, and the Community Home Trust in Carrboro.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When we do these radio shows,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Miller says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a drop in the bucket; but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s individuals making up the difference.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>In fact, more than $10,000 was raised with the last show, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and people were glad to do it, and it was a lot of people giving a little money, which to me is the way to do it \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re family\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: the natural sources. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only way out,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Miller says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have wanted to be too dependent on the state and federal government anyway. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bummer that all this is happening,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says of the curtailing of institutional largess. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But where else is it going to come from? <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to come from them, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got to come from us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that Jay Miller doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like the government, or the tax dollars it sometimes returns to his community. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":18442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18441"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18469,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18441\/revisions\/18469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}