Ternopil-Portland couple helps cerebral palsy center in Lviv (03/28/04)

Ternopil-Portland couple helps cerebral palsy center in Lviv

by Matthew Matuszak

LVIV - Paul and Tatiana Terdal spent the last six months in Lviv, using their management consulting skills to help some local non-governmental organizations, including the Dzherelo Center for children with cerebral palsy and other neurological disorders.

In June 2003, Mr. Terdal, originally from Portland, Ore., and Ms. Terdal, originally from Ternopil, decided they "really wanted to do something in Ukraine." By September they were in Lviv.

The Terdals first met in 1998 while they were graduate students at Yale. They married in August 1999 and moved to San Francisco to work at PRTN, a company that provides management consulting for high tech, for-profit companies.

With no specific plans, in June 2003 they decided to go to Ms. Terdal's native Ukraine. (She first came to the United States in 1991 as a foreign student.) Mr. Terdal quit his job first, so he could start learning Ukrainian at Harvard's Ukrainian Summer School.

At the summer school, Mr. Terdal met some students from the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU). He told them he was looking for something interesting to do in Ukraine." The students put him in touch with UCU Vice-Rector Jeffrey Wills, who at the time was helping to organize the university's new Institute of Non-Profit Management. The couple wanted to teach part-time and to consult part-time.

Prof. Wills suggested the couple could teach and help develop curriculum at the institute and consult for local NGOs. Prof. Wills also directed them to the Dzherelo Center for children with cerebral palsy.

"Dzherelo has very good leaders," Mr. Terdal said, "but they have no business training, no management skills." ("Dzherelo" is a Ukrainian word that means source: or spring.)

The Dzherelo Center started in 1993, when the Lviv city government gave a former kindergarten building to a group of parents whose children had cerebral palsy. At that time, there were two pre-school groups helping 20 children. Now Dzherelo has 90 employees who help over 200 children with cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities.

The Terdals spent their first few weeks at Dzherelo talking to the people there in order to understand the issues that they needed to address. Then they came back with recommendations.

The first recommendation was to set up a development office for fund-raising. "Dzherelo has been very successful with fund-raising," said Ms. Terdal, "because they have good individuals, trustworthy people with high integrity." Because of personal contacts, Dzherelo has good relations with Canada and Holland, but, to date, almost no donations from the United States. "A common problem that NGOs face," added Ms. Terdal, "is that it's easier to get money for construction, to buy equipment, and so on. But it's difficult to get money for operating expenses."

The Terdals also brought up the idea of charging the parents some fee for Dzherelo's service. "Up to now," explained Mr. Terdal, "everything has been free. Rival services charge a lot of money, but aren't as good. They just have good marketing. People in Ukraine are attracted by the high fees. Some people were not interested in Dzherelo because it was free," and so they didn't believe it could be a quality organization.

The Terdals also had recommendations for Dzherelo's organizational structure. They spent time with the director, Myroslav Nykolaiev, and tried to teach him how to get his time freed up. He was often involved in small details, like problems with the drivers of the vans that bring the children to the center. Because of the time spent "fire-fighting," bigger issues were lost, explained the Terdals.

"The Terdals' participation was a significant event," said Mr. Nykolaeiv. "It opened my eyes to certain questions. They looked at our work from the outside, and gave their expert analysis. They looked at the workers, the parents. They gave the parents a questionnaire to fill out: Are they satisfied with Dzherelo's services? Would they recommend Dzherelo to someone else? What are their priority concerns? Would they be prepared to pay something for Dzherelo's service? And other financing issues arose. Our organization is growing, and we have to think about necessary programs that we should open."

"I now think of time in terms of 'Before Terdals' and 'After Terdals.' " Dzherelo's director observed.

The Terdals have since returned to Mr. Terdal's hometown of Portland, where they are rejoining the job market.

Donations to the Dzherelo Center (with the notation "For Dzherelo") or requests for further information may be sent to: Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation, 2247 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago, IL. 60622; or to Children of Chornobyl Canadian Fund, 2218-A Bloor St. W., Second Floor, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, M6S 1M8.

| Home Page |