GiveBetter x Los Angeles

Dayle McIntosh Center

Independent living, home access, community transition and disability support

Research time: 5 min on GPT-6 Astra Light
  • Research — reviewed programs, finances and impact evidence.

Updated: 2026-09-14

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Summary

What do they do? Dayle McIntosh Center supports independent living for people with disabilities and older adults in Orange County. Its services include home access, community transitions, assistive technology and peer support. The estimate prices a home-access health component at full recipient cost while leaving other portfolio outcomes unpriced.

Why we’re interested in this organization:

  • The current home-access page identifies a concrete role for donations above funder limits.

  • Original returns reconcile annual expenses to reported audited totals without an identified netted event or inventory addback.

  • Home modifications have a plausible functional-health pathway supported by external randomized multicomponent evidence.

Our main reservations:

  • No current annual modification count, marginal allocation or unit cost was found; the central bridge explicitly uses judgments.

  • Most revenue is public funding, and equivalent services or funder reimbursement may replace donor spending.

  • DMC is not the tested CAPABLE clinical team, and functional independence is not automatically a measured QALY.

What do you get for your dollar? $210.2M per better life: ten additional quality-adjusted life years in Los Angeles. Working judgment price for the home-access health component, charging full recorded recipient cost. Other portfolio effects and unrecognized external resource costs remain unestimated; this is not a measured whole-portfolio or societal return..

149.16744 modeled packages at f=.2 and k=5000, reduced to 18.64593 additional packages before geography. These are scenario quantities, not reported DMC clients.

1. What do they do?

DMC is a nonresidential, peer-based independent-living organization, EIN 95-3313707. Its current identity page describes Orange County services and public/private financing. The service portfolio includes assistive technology, independent-living skills, housing, transitions and personal-assistance navigation. An ordinary gift supports this whole recipient, not a separately designated modification program. The estimate includes only the home-access health component; rights, autonomy and other services are not assigned a fabricated health uplift.

2. Monitoring and information sharing

The Home Access page describes ramps, bathroom access and other modifications, including CalOptima eligibility and limited Laguna Niguel funding. Work can depend on available funding; costs above a funder's lifetime budget may require a donation or another resource. This establishes a mechanism, not a verified queue or price. Measure completed unique homes, actual resource cost, resident county, alternative insurance/municipal funding, functional health before and after installation and adverse events.

The community-transition program coordinates housing and support after institutional care, typically following consumers for 90 days. Its beneficiaries can overlap with Home Access. Transition stories are not annual throughput or controlled outcomes; no separate transition QALYs are added here.

3. Qualitative assessment

The 2019 CAPABLE randomized trial found a 30% reduction in ADL disability scores at five months in low-income older adults. Its intervention combined occupational therapy, nursing and home repairs; delivery cost was $2,825 per person in that historical trial. At 12 months the same trial no longer found a statistically significant ADL advantage (adjusted relative risk 0.90, 95% CI 0.68–1.18). A disability-score reduction is not a health-utility change, and DMC's modification service is not verified to reproduce the clinical package.

Importantly, a 2025 randomized post-hospital CAPABLE trial did not improve its primary ADL outcome overall, although mobility and a high-comorbidity subgroup improved. This argues against applying a universal treatment effect to every modified home. The central 0.01 QALY is a deliberately modest, explicit first-year health-area judgment—about 3.65 quality-adjusted days—not an empirical QALY coefficient. There is no assumption that disabled life is intrinsically less valuable, no mortality credit, and no health gain after year one. Autonomy gains may matter outside this health metric.

4. What do you get for your dollar?

The original accrual returns report $3,919,818 in FY2023, $3,857,305 in FY2024 and $3,729,186 in FY2025, years ending September 30; mean $3,835,436.33. Each Schedule D reconciles to the same reported audited expense, with no donated-service adjustment. Part VIII shows no event, gaming or inventory expenses to restore. This establishes recognized recipient cost, not absence of unrecognized donated equipment or volunteer effort. FY2025 return

The conditional model allocates an assumed 20% of the full budget to representative home-access packages costing an assumed $5,000 each, including installation and coordination. That implies 149.17 packages before additionality, not observed output. A 50% no-equivalent-service fraction and 25% funding response imply 18.65 additional packages before geography. At 0.01 first-year QALY, 98% LA/Orange share and 3% discount, the result is 0.177408 LA QALYs, or $210.20 million per 10. The $5,000 is a current planning prior, not an inflation-adjusted trial price or a quoted DMC charge.

All recipient cost remains in the numerator, and the home-access allocation limits credited output. Positive joint cases are broad judgments, with zero and net-harm alternatives. Outside clinical care, public implementation and unrecognized donated resources would add social cost; they are not treated as free. This is not a complete portfolio return.

Model, assumptions and sensitivity

Full annual recognized recipient cost; home-access partial health only, not full social or portfolio value. The full annual budget is a ratio normalization, not a requested donation or verified funding tranche. Applying the ratio to an ordinary small gift assumes locally proportional capacity response and the stated component allocation.

98% LA/Orange benefit prior; Orange County eligibility supports high local share, but actual residence mix is unmeasured. Test .9–1.

N=C*f/k; Qall=N*a*b*q/1.03; QLA=Qall*g; price10=10*C/QLA. C=3729186,f=.2,k=5000,a=.5,b=.25,q=.01,g=.98. One year total health area, no recurrence.

C
3729186 USD/year (observed). Full recognized expense. [9902025]
f
0.2 fraction allocated to home-access packages (judgment). Not reported spending share; test .05–.4. [home-access]
k
5000 USD per complete package (judgment). Installation plus coordination planning cost; test2000–15000, not DMC quote or CAPABLE price. [capable19]
a
0.5 no-equivalent-service fraction (judgment). Existing public or municipal alternatives; test .2–.8. [home-access]
b
0.25 ordinary-funding capacity response (judgment). Replacement donors and contracts; test .05–.75. [9902025]
q
0.01 total first-year QALY per extra package (judgment). Finite functional-health area, not trial QALY; test .001–.05 plus zero/harm. Treat this as expected net first-year health area, inclusive of competing mortality, intervention burden and benefit fade within the year; it is not a utility level maintained for every survivor. [capable19]
g
0.98 LA/Orange resident benefit fraction (judgment). High local share but unmeasured; test .9–1. [about]

central: Cost: $3.7M; Los Angeles QALYs: 0.17740787766990296; all-population QALYs: 0.18102844660194178. f=0.2; k=5000 USD per installed home-access package including coordination; a=0.5; b=0.25; q=0.01 total first-year QALY; g=0.98; no later benefit. Every parameter except C is judgment.

low: Cost: $3.7M; Los Angeles QALYs: 0.00010861706796116505; all-population QALYs: 0.00012068563106796118. f=0.05; k=15000 USD per installed home-access package including coordination; a=0.2; b=0.05; q=0.001 total first-year QALY; g=0.9; no later benefit. Every parameter except C is judgment.

high: Cost: $3.7M; Los Angeles QALYs: 21.723413592233015; all-population QALYs: 21.723413592233015. f=0.4; k=2000 USD per installed home-access package including coordination; a=0.8; b=0.75; q=0.05 total first-year QALY; g=1; no later benefit. Every parameter except C is judgment.

zero: Cost: $3.7M; Los Angeles QALYs: 0; all-population QALYs: 0. No net additional health or complete substitution.

adverse: Cost: $3.7M; Los Angeles QALYs: -1; all-population QALYs: -1. Illustrative one LA QALY net harm from unsafe or displaced care; not observed. This direct one-year local-harm stress assumes g=1 for the harmed population; it is not derived using the central geography fraction.

portfolio-unknown: Cost: $3.7M; Los Angeles QALYs: unknown; all-population QALYs: unknown. Other independent-living pathways unpriced.

Counterfactual: Public funders, other home-modification organizations, family resources and DMC's existing financed work continue. Only otherwise unavailable or earlier completed access enters a; ordinary donor capacity responsiveness enters b once.

Attribution: a is clinical service substitution, b financing substitution; no additional coalition multiplier. Do not double count transition, falls, mobility or personal-care benefit for the same person.

All output and health-bridge parameters are explicit subjective priors. The source-grounded operations make the pathway plausible, not the exact allocation, cost or effect calibrated. Other portfolio outcomes remain unknown.

Sensitivity

  • Price varies inversely with f,a,b,q,g and directly with k; the full-budget normalization cancels only under the assumed proportional capacity model.
  • Use smaller first-year utility or higher modification cost for a less favorable price.
  • The 2025 post-hospital trial is meaningful counterevidence to universal transfer.
  • Add outside public resources and unrecognized donated equipment for social costing.

Unresolved inputs

  • Current marginal spending allocation and actual unmet-project pipeline.
  • Full completed-package resource cost and which costs insurers pay.
  • Measured function-to-utility trajectory and adverse effects.
  • Public/municipal substitution and donor response.
  • Actual beneficiary residence and overlap across services.

5. Funding and previous grants

The FY2025 original return reports $3,156,228 government grants, $296,327 other contributions and $508,062 service fees. Total revenue was $3,961,771, with net assets of $1,031,209. Neither a surplus nor a named public funder determines next-dollar effectiveness. DMC's funding description identifies government, CalOptima and aging-system partners. b=.25 is an explicit assumption about extra recipient capacity after replacement funding, separate from a=.5, which concerns whether recipients would otherwise obtain equivalent home access. A costed current list of unmet projects would materially improve this estimate.

Annual expenses

Organization-level spending, including programs, administration and fundraising. The research list averages three comparable, consecutive full fiscal years when available.

  • FY 2023: $3.9M; Dayle McIntosh Center for the Disabled, EIN 95-3313707, 12-month period, Accrual Form 990 recognized recipient expense; Schedule D matches audited expense; no netted event/COGS addback reported. Source
  • FY 2024: $3.9M; Dayle McIntosh Center for the Disabled, EIN 95-3313707, 12-month period, Accrual Form 990 recognized recipient expense; Schedule D matches audited expense; no netted event/COGS addback reported. Source
  • FY 2025: $3.7M; Dayle McIntosh Center for the Disabled, EIN 95-3313707, 12-month period, Accrual Form 990 recognized recipient expense; Schedule D matches audited expense; no netted event/COGS addback reported. Source

6. Sources

  1. Current identity and funding. Dayle McIntosh Center. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  2. Current service portfolio. Dayle McIntosh Center. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  3. Home access eligibility, financing and implementation. Dayle McIntosh Center. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  4. Current community transition pathway. Dayle McIntosh Center. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  5. FY2023 original Form 990. DMC / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  6. FY2023 original Schedule D reconciliation. DMC / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  7. FY2024 original Form 990. DMC / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  8. FY2024 original Schedule D reconciliation. DMC / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  9. FY2025 original Form 990. DMC / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  10. FY2025 original Schedule D reconciliation. DMC / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  11. CAPABLE randomized functional-disability trial. Szanton et al. / JAMA Internal Medicine. Published: 2019-01-07; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  12. CAPABLE post-hospital randomized trial. Szanton et al. / Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.