Orange County, California is famous for many things—Disneyland, sandy beaches, and, of course, traffic. The traffic is so daunting, in fact, that it had Dr. Lorrayne Leigh and her team at Western Youth Services wondering how to attract guests to their Point of Entry^® Events at clinics around the region without forcing them to commute more than an hour each way.

Western Youth Services is a county-wide agency that provides comprehensive mental health services for children and their families. Staffed by 150 psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, family counselors, and support personnel, WYS serves between five and six thousand children each year.

"We were founded more than thirty years ago in the basement of a local church by a group of well-meaning educators and people who were exposed to the problems of youth and teenagers," says Leigh, a licensed psychologist and the organization's executive director and CEO. "We were originally a drop-in center, but now we have five clinics and eight satellite locations across Orange County."

Faced with confidentiality issues as well as a large geographic area, Leigh and her team knew that bringing groups of people through their working clinics wasn't feasible. "We couldn't have people visiting the clinics when clients were around, so we've adjusted our Point of Entry to take place in our corporate office, which is also more centrally located," she says. "We've really tried to bring the clinic to our office space. We use tools that are used in therapy—puppets, arts, visuals."

Leigh also found her team tackling stereotypes about where WYS services were most needed. "There tends to be an attitude of 'not in my neighborhood,'" she says. "But issues like bullying, divorcing parents, over-achievement, body image—these kinds of things are universal."

To address the scope of their nearly $10 million county-wide operation, they've incorporated visuals such as an enormous wall-sized map of Orange County dotted with flags that represent the clinics and regions that WYS serves. "We're serving between five and six thousand children a year, but there are 850,000 children in Orange County," explains Leigh. "Even if only one out of three children needed our services, that's still 250,000 children who need our help."

Like many health and human service organizations, WYS has always been heavily dependent on government funding and grants. The restrictive nature of government funding was what initially brought the organization to a Benevon 101 Workshop in Long Beach last year. "We'd actually never used individual giving as a source of revenue before," says Leigh. "But we made a goal for diversified funding, and [Benevon] provided a formula for what we were already doing. It was put in a capsule that the board was able to wrap their arms around."

Creating a source for unrestricted operating costs has given the organization an opportunity to expand its services to include programs not previously covered by the government, such as programs for dealing with bullying, developing social skills in groups, and providing therapy for parents. "It gives us a framework for planning our growth," says Leigh. "We've even recently hired a development person who is allocated to run the [Benevon] Model. The whole agency is really excited about the possibility of serving more children and what we're going to be able to do with more resources."

Inspired after attending the workshop, Leigh and her team are already making plans for a future where only 50% of the organization's operating costs are funded by the government. Their plan includes an impressive goal of raising $15 million by 2015. "We're looking at the needs of the community and filling those gaps wherever they're identified," says Leigh. "We're here for a simple reason—to help kids cope with the day-to-day challenges of growing up."