Training Institutes 2012 - National Technical Assistance Center for ...

WORKSHOP #16 8:30 AM FRIDAY • 3:30 PM SATURDAY • NAPLES 1
Risky Business: Doing Business with Nonprofit Family and Consumer Organizations
OBJECTIVES—Participants will learn:
1. To define five core business practices and how they impact family-run organization contracts
2. To identify and apply 10 steps that can protect both funders and family organizations and their leaders
3. To utilize methods for maintaining a level of accountability that is business prudent but accommodating the
developmental level of family organizations
4. To describe eight key components that MUST be in a contract to ensure successful outcomes and business
sustainability
This Workshop will focus on contracting with family and youth-run nonprofit organizations. The session will prepare
both those investing in a family organization and organization leaders to establish business arrangements, monitor
outcomes, and create pathways of accountability that will encourage transparency and success, despite the competitive
and resource poor environment of today’s mental health arena.
As a core foundation of the system of care, programs are establishing new approaches of doing business with new and
emerging groups, including family and youth-run organizations. Contracting or other formal agreements have emerged
as the mechanism to opening the door and extending authentic family and youth involvement and voice at deeper levels
of policy development, service planning, and program evaluation. The capacity to write, implement, manage, and
monitor these methods continues to be a challenge. The strategies and approaches to be highlighted in this session will
include an examination of the outcomes of ill-fated bumps in contracting and discussions about how to prevent and
recover from business mishaps between family-run organizations and government systems. Targeted prevention of
common challenges will be explored, and potential solutions will be offered. New methods of monitoring family-run
organizations will also be shared, facilitating a developmentally appropriate responsibility and accountability process for
funders and those receiving funds.
Specific topics to be covered include:
• Business options and opportunities between family-run organizations and systems of care
• Understanding and building upon organizational capacity and system of care needs
• Creating sustainable business partnerships
• Building the business capacity of family run organizations
• Creating optimum and individualized payment options
• Developmentally appropriate responsibility and accountability process
• Pathways of accountability and transparency that manage risk and protect involved entities
The session will include video clips of real life scenarios and experiences, and participants will have an opportunity to
participate in skill-building exercises. Participants will leave with a toolkit of resources for accountable,
developmentally sound contracting that minimizes risk and builds sustainable business partnerships. The faculty team
for the session will offer the perspectives of a family leader and consultant to family organizations and a state system of
care leader who has successfully negotiated and managed contracts with family-run organizations.
MODERATOR/PRESENTER: Conni Wells, Consultant, Axis Group I, LLC, Butler, TN
Marilyn Copeland, Director, Action for Kids Program, Jonesboro, AR
Training Institutes 2012
WORKSHOPS
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