Changing the ways we do business

Nonprofits are businesses, and we have the responsibility to be financially successful so we can deliver on our missions. I believe strongly that too few nonprofits are thinking about services they need to change in response to the age wave. For me, my board members, and the people who work at Ecumen, the issue of providing services to the aging is very personal. At some point, we all will need these services — and there better be good choices.

So said Kathryn Roberts, president and CEO of Minnesota-based Ecumen, one of the country’s largest nonprofit senior housing and services companies.

In case you have any questions about why the Milwaukee Aging Consortium is growing to include housing and services, you’ll find some clues in a recent interview with Roberts in Boardmember. The article addressed how and why Roberts led her company’s way into the private sector market to create new ways to approach the organization’s mission, “to provide the poorest and the neediest with housing and nursing care.”

It’s all about imagination, partnerships, crossing boundaries, and creating new ideas in the spaces in between them.

An excerpt from the interview:

. . .In 2004, after I had been at Ecumen for about a year and was starting to put some strategies in place to ride the (aging) wave, the board went on a retreat. The members used that time to identify a vision for our future and a five-year plan. Since then, it’s been “Go, Kathryn, go. Go as fast as you can.”

I may be overstating this, but if this organization hadn’t changed, it would not be looking at its 200th anniversary. And the board knew it too. Five years ago, more than 80 percent of our revenue came from government reimbursement, primarily through our nursing home line. With set rates and declining Medicaid support, we were only going to lose money. Because the nursing home industry is so regulated, our expenses were completely out of our control as well. So our choice was to either change our product line or run through our cash and close up shop.

Facing this dilemma, we strategized with the board and came to the consensus that we would need to add services that are less regulated and generate private revenue to offset the inherent losses in the nursing home line. My leadership team and I recommended that these new services include independent housing, assisted living, and care for those with Alzheimer’s and other memory impairments. One of the goals we set in that first strategic plan was to reduce the percentage of our income that comes from our nursing home line from 82 percent to 52 percent — there is no question in my mind that we will achieve that goal and maybe exceed it.

You can read the rest of the article at Changing Aging.

Are you doing business in new ways to fulfill your mission? Share your stories and ideas with us!