PBN C-SUITE 2021 AWARDS
Edward McPherson
Newport Mental Health director of marketing and fund development
As a former professional ballet dancer, Edward McPherson always knew where his feet should land on the job. But taking over as director of marketing and fund development for Newport Mental Health in February 2020, just one month before the COVID-19 pandemic fully gripped the world, he found himself like everyone else, landing with both feet on very unfamiliar turf.
“I had no idea of the scope of the work that would unfold,” said McPherson, 34, a California native who had been executive director of the Island Moving Co. in Newport prior to his current job. “Typically, fundraising and marketing practices carry over between industries, but those playbooks were almost useless when COVID-19 began.”
Raising money for a nonprofit isn’t easy even in the best of times, McPherson said, adding, “You can’t raise money if you don’t know what the organization needs, and our clinical team didn’t miss a beat; they gave our team all the information we needed to make a case for supporting us.”
It worked. Newport Mental Health’s 2020 gross revenue was roughly $8 million. In 2019, it had been $2 million, and $1.5 million in 2018. Additionally, it has grown from 80 employees in 2018 to 140 currently, which includes therapists, counselors and psychiatrists.
“The element of crisis created opportunities that I may not have had so readily,” McPherson said. “The crisis allowed me to get with the management team quickly.”
McPherson’s ballet career was one in a field of tremendous dedication, competition and not just physical demands but mental ones too. He recounted his experience at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, where a mentor “took the time to empower me with the tools to take care of my mental health. Too often, we only think about mental health when we are in crisis,” he said.
He also spent five years as the program and education coordinator of the Midland County Public Library system in Texas, which helped form the foundation he’d need in his current job. He began setting up an infrastructure at Newport Mental Health to capture and analyze constituent and performance outcomes.
“Taking an evidence-based approach is so important, not only from a fundraising perspective but especially in our marketing landscape,” McPherson said. “Internal stakeholders understand what we do and why it’s important because we share the data behind it.”
Through the pandemic, on its way to raising a record amount of money, Newport Mental Health reached county residents, he said, “with accurate, informative, uplifting and positive mental health messaging 1,096,981 times.”
As part of the agency’s effort to be more proactive in an industry that is most often reactive, McPherson said, the organization is partnering with the Newport County Prevention Coalition on a pilot program through the state to get cellphones to 25 senior citizens who are caregivers to their grandchildren and who don’t have internet service at home.
“They’ll have access to their grandchildren’s doctors and other support connections to health care,” he said.
Regarding goals for Newport Mental Health, McPherson said, “I was brought in to build a team to address long-term financial challenges that all mental health care providers face in an industry plagued by instability. My job is not finished until we have a thriving philanthropic program to round out what we already have, to reach sustainability and alleviate long-term fear” of lack of funding.
“Despite the pandemic interrupting all of our planned fundraising events,” said Jamie Lehane, the agency’s CEO and president, “Edward’s expertise and ability to innovate was amazing. He pivoted to not only maintain our fundraising efforts but to grow them.”
McPherson said he was “drawn to fundraising because it pairs people who have the ability to change the world [with] those people who need it. It allows me to reach those people. I can’t see anything better than that. I reached my dream and I want to make that happen for others.”
