Dear David,

This summer, we will celebrate our 20th anniversary. It is always rewarding to mark a milestone, but I think I speak for our team when I say we are just as excited about what lies ahead. The changes in our profession -- and in the world -- are enormous, and we seek to innovate in response to these changes.

As you will read below, we continue to educate the public about the housing crisis and the urgent need to make up for decades of under-building. We need more housing of all types in every single community in the commonwealth. It will ensure our competitiveness as a state and will give our children the chance to own a home where they grew up.

Our firm just announced the launch of what we are calling our HousingLab, a practice area designed to advance the work of nonprofit and for-profit developers, the design profession, the building trades, and academic programs focused on this space. We seek to put the issue of housing front and center, to overcome the paralysis of NIMBYism that stops many good projects, and to fight rampant disinformation around this topic. Here is an op-ed that I wrote on the subject.

I hope that you will join us in the fight!

Housing Assistance, a nonprofit organization on Cape Cod, has been helping people with housing for 50 years. It started as a rental voucher provider aimed at assisting year-round workers. It has since evolved into a multifaceted agency engaged in homelessness prevention, family shelters, homeowner assistance with energy efficiency projects, housing counseling, and the development of affordable and market-rate housing for year-round workers on the Cape.

The common thread running through all of these activities is advocacy – not only to empower people to find and maintain housing for themselves but also to raise a strong voice for policies that will make housing on the Cape more attainable for the workforce there.

The Cape’s many tourists don’t often see what’s missing from this picture-perfect destination. The housing crisis is squeezing year-round workers, forcing more to move away and to give up on achieving a piece of the American Dream. The Cape way of life is suffering.

Housing Assistance CEO Alisa Magnotta underscored these concerns in an opinion piece recently published by CommonWealth Beacon. She explained how the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s proposed Affordable Homes Act will empower communities on the Cape and elsewhere to create more housing and solve the crisis. “We can do better than this,” she wrote. “And the Affordable Homes Act, at long last, gives us the tools to do just that.” 

The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts weighed in on the Steward Health Care financial crisis, from the point of view of its president & CEO Amie Shei, who penned an opinion piece for The Boston Globe. Dr. Shei called for “greater standardization, oversight and long-term planning at the state level to avoid the potential shortfalls that can occur with conversion transactions, which are bound to continue in a rapidly changing health care sector.”

Alarmed about state budget cuts harming its members’ missions, the Massachusetts Head Start Association issued a call through statewide media outlets to restore funding and support programs serving more than 11,000 children statewide. Multiple media outlets reported on the situation, including GBH News, WBUR and WBZ-TV.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, a Boston-based nonprofit grantmaking and research organization, garnered significant media coverage of its report calling for further reforms to the MassHealth estate recovery process. The Boston Globe led with a front-page story featuring a family that had to fight to keep from losing their home to the cost-recoupment policy. The Boston Business Journal and The Republican of Springfield followed with editorials calling for reform, and the effort prompted national coverage by The Associated Press and The New York Times.

The Association of Developmental Disability Providers (ADDP) announced the results of its biannual member workforce survey, which showed a slight decline in human services job vacancy rates statewide, notably in programs where salaries increased. While encouraging, the survey also showed that thousands of people are still waiting for services due to the workforce crisis and average job vacancy rates at developmental disabilities providers lingering above 20%. The survey was covered by The Boston Globe, making front-page news in the print edition. ADDP President and CEO Ellen Attaliades also co-authored this op-ed piece, which ran in both the Hampshire Daily Gazette and Greenfield Recorder, about the workforce crisis and its connection to the housing crisis.

With great fanfare and local support, Community Servings opened a new distribution center in Mansfield where it will be better equipped to deliver medically tailored meals to chronically and critically ill clients across southeastern Massachusetts. The growth was a top story in The Sun Chronicle newspaper. After the ribbon-cutting event, Providence Business News also featured CEO David Waters in a Q&A about the expansion of the Boston-based nonprofit organization’s health care mission into Rhode Island.

Bridgewell, a nonprofit human services provider serving northeastern Massachusetts, marked its 65th anniversary in 2023. The milestone provided an opportunity to recount the organization’s history and growth, and share its vision of future services and supports in a commentary piece published in The Daily Item of Lynn.

The Brentwood Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center, supported by Marquis Health Consulting Services, cut the ribbon on its new five-chair dialysis den where residents can receive hemodialysis services without having to leave the facility. Research shows that patients who receive dialysis on-site during their stay in a nursing home – eliminating the time and stress of traveling to multiple appointments at outpatient clinics or hospitals – have improved clinical outcomes, better recovery times and reduced risks of infection.

An issue brief published by the Association for Behavioral Healthcare detailed the alarming state of children’s behavioral health services in Massachusetts. ABH’s findings and recommendations in “Kids Are Waiting: Children’s Behavioral Health Services Crisis and Collapse” were reported in The Boston Globe and on Channel 5, Boston 25, WBUR, WBZ Radio and several other news outlets.

RIZE Massachusetts was selected by the Healey-Driscoll Administration to distribute millions in grants allocated through the Opioid Recovery and Remediation Fund later this year. The fund was established following legal settlements related to the opioid crisis. “This funding represents people who have lost their lives and families that have been torn apart by the opioid overdose crisis, and we accept and embrace the awesome responsibility of putting these resources to work to once and for all end this epidemic,” said RIZE President & CEO Julie Burns.

Introducing Molly McKinney, Our New Account Supervisor

Molly McKinney has joined Ball Consulting Group as an Account Supervisor, supporting client accounts, conducting media research and outreach, managing social media activities, and developing and executing strategic communications initiatives.

McKinney previously worked for both local and national life sciences communications firms.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Washington Post Publishes Letter on UnitedHealthcare Cyberattack

David Ball penned a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, reacting to the newspaper’s story about the cyberattack that had overtaken UnitedHealthcare's IT systems.

Ball, drawing on the experience of having helped numerous clients in the aftermath of a cyberattack, called such events a “continual danger” to the health care system and underscored the importance of protecting against them and preparing for their near-inevitability.

“Build multiple off-site continuous data backups. Have emergency resources at the ready, such as funds to advance to customers or clients,” Ball wrote. “And most important of all: Build a crisis communications plan that specifically prepares for the highest-magnitude cyber event.”

Your Boutique Firm That Just Happens to Be Global

Ball Consulting Group is a proud member of PR Boutiques International, a worldwide association of independently-owned boutique PR firms.

At its annual meeting held in April in New York City, agency owners discussed the latest trends, including the surging use of AI, the future of media, and the new world of work.

We are proud to be a part of a network that gives our firm branch offices in more than a dozen U.S. cities and on four continents.