CTF calls for donations

YARMOUTH, Maine – The Clinician Task Force is in the middle of a fall pledge drive to support the organization’s advocacy, policy work and other activities for next year. 

The CTF, which is primarily supported through donations from manufacturers and providers, has a goal of raising $125,000, says Executive Director Cara Masselink. 

“This year, we’re going to try to brand manufacturer and supplier membership, but also expand our reach with a healthcare organization membership, because there are a lot of prominent organizations like Craig Hospital, and we want to make sure they can support us, as well,” she said. 

The CTF was hoping to add a “donate now” button to its website, cliniciantaskforce.us, to process payments electronically. Right now, it’s more of a manual process, where it collects information from donors and sends out invoices.  

The organization is “lean,” Masselink says, with only two paid personnel, herself and an administrative assistant, but it does pay members a market rate for volunteer hours and special projects. 

“The members working on our power assist policy process, for example, are meeting monthly and they’re going through and doing an evidence review of the literature and writing a manuscript,” she said. “That’s going to be a lot of time. For any project approved by the executive board, we’re going to reimburse them. We wouldn’t be able to do it without them and we want to give recognition where it’s due.” 

The CTF would also like to support more clinicians attending conferences like the Abilities Expos. 

“With COVID, events have been disrupted,” Masselink said, “but we’d like to see our clinicians attend and present at these events again to expand our reach.” 

In addition to the power assist policy, the CTF’s funding helps the organization support efforts to get Medicare coverage for power seat elevation and standing systems and work with RESNA on a join position paper on supportive standing. 

“We’re setting our budget, too, and we want to have an idea of what we can cover in the next year,” Masselink said.