Helping Our Clients Survive, Adapt, and Grow
Our clients represent a cross-section of businesses, nonprofits, philanthropic and community involvement. They include foundations who seek to strengthen and increase the organizational effectiveness of their nonprofit grantees, businesses who seek to become more resilient through business continuity planning, institutions interested in coalition building around community concerns, and nonprofit boards who seek to assess and form strategies to address new demands and opportunities.
Current Case Study
The Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation: Building organizational capacity to scale services and maximize impact
Since its founding, MPCF has compassionately assisted adults with cancer by providing one-on-one counseling to its clients in person and over the phone. While this model leverages the expert knowledge and compassionate care of MPFC’s professional staff, the narrow access point challenged both the financial and programmatic sustainability of the organization and limited its potential for impact. With one out of two men and one of three women receiving a cancer diagnosis at some point in their lifetime, MPCF wanted to dramatically scale its geographic reach and number of clients served.
To this end, the Executive Director, Susan Hosbach, and her Board of Directors, developed a strategy to make their extensive library of resources and culture of caring available through a Web 2.0 platform in addition to walk in services. This new programmatic approach would enable them to expand from 3,000 clients in the Middle Tennessee area to 100,000 individuals or more around the globe. Director Hosbach recognized, however, that implementing this technology-intensive strategy and dramatically expanding the client base would require significant changes across the organization, and especially in operations and infrastructure. With the help of Patmos Consulting and its resiliency ORG Tool, the Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation (MPCF) strengthened key elements of its organizational infrastructure in order to scale critical services for adults with cancer. Read more...
Testimonials
Praise for the Risk Navigation Tool software strengthening nonprofits:
"The workshop was very helpful. First, I found the tool exposed me to new concepts and ways of looking at my agency. It clearly helped my board president and I look at how we need to work together in a different way. I appreciated coming away with a plan- selected three areas to address and we have already started on those." -Vicki Beaver, Executive Director for Nurses of Newborns March 2010
The Board of Directors and management of STARS (www.starsnashville.org), a highly regarded school and community based program for youth with a budget of over $3,000,000, are using the recommendations of the Risk Navigation Tool (RNT) in their strategic planning process and operationally in prioritizing attention towards increasing liquidity; increasing efficiencies and cost savings in back office collaborations with other organizations; infrastructure; and, communication with stakeholders internally through an employee engagement strategy and externally in social media efforts. Here is what Cynthia Whetstone, Director of Operations reported in a recent grantor/grantee gathering about how Board and Staff addressed the issue of cash flow in light of the RNT findings:
“Although historically STARS has maintained a strong cash balance, at the point in time the survey was completed, STARS average cash on hand was unusually low. Seeing how cash flow impacted the scores on the report, it reinforced the need to put additional safeguards in place to protect cash. After meeting with our board, it was decided that STARS needed to take a more aggressive approach in our contracts regarding payment terms and in collecting past due invoices. It was also decided that STARS would be more deliberate in the overall budgeting process to build in additional cash reserves. As a result of these changes, the average number of days of cash on hand has increased by 40%.”
Praise for our work in helping organizations in business continuity planning:
“Nashville is recovering from historic flooding that has impacted hundreds of businesses. Our company facilities were unaffected by the flooding. Patmos has helped us develop and mature an effective business continuity/DR plan. As the situation worsened in our community, we had confidence that we were prepared with assigned team roles, communication channels for both employees and customers, and strategies to respond to and survive any potential impact with very minimal downtime. Our proactive plans helped our employees and customers know what to expect in the unexpected. “ - CFO of a Financial Card Services Company May 2010
Partial Listing of Foundation Clients:
Assisi Foundation
HCA Foundation (Hospital Corporation of America)
Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation
Partial Listing of Organizations We Have Helped:
Avenue Bank
Boys & Girls Clubs of Middle Tennessee
CASA, Inc.
Catholic Charities of Tennessee, Inc.
Conexion Americas
Faith Family Medical Clinic
A Financial Services Card Company
Hard Bargain Mt Hope Redevelopment
Monroe Harding, Inc.
Nashville CARES
Nashville Humane Association
Nurses for Newborns- Tennessee
Oasis Center Inc.
STARS
Tennessee Urban Forestry Council
Tennessee Repertory Theatre
The Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation
United Cerebral Palsy of Middle TN
United Neighborhood Health Services
Vanderbilt University Institute of Public Policy Studies
YWCA of Nashville & Middle Tennessee
