Human Services Strategic Mergers
Building a Stronger Foundation for Elder Services
Background
The clients are two mid-sized elder services organizations with a combined revenue of $75M, servicing 9508 individuals with 255 employees across 20 towns throughout the Boston region. The combined organization provides comprehensive services to older adults, individuals with disabilities and those who provide care, guided by a commitment to an individual’s right to live independently in the community.
Challenge
Both organizations were looking to secure a merger partner that would align culturally while addressing their individual business needs. Agency B, the smaller of the two organizations, had financial challenges that resulted in the need to reduce administrative staff. Leadership at Agency B intentionally left positions vacant to support integration through the merger. Agency A was the larger organization with leadership and a board that were looking to develop strategies for long-term growth and sustainability. Agency B was in a position where partnerships and mergers created solutions to several of the challenges they were facing. The two organizations entered into merger discussions to build a more sustainable and effective organization for the future.
Solution
From the onset of their merger discussions, both organizations knew this was the right thing for each of them. But, it takes leadership to move a merger forward while keeping the business running at each agency and ultimately blending cultures to make the merger successful. To keep the deal on track and achieve a positive outcome, Curtis Strategy was hired to manage the merger process with the leadership and board.
To support the organizations in the successful merger process, Curtis Strategy provided an overall framework and project management for the transaction including key terms of the deal, due diligence, legal document preparation, and integration planning. A process was created to keep the boards engaged and informed. Curtis Strategy also supported agency leadership in communicating with internal and external stakeholders including meetings with EOEA.
The project resulted in the combined organization being able to expand service area coverage, expand unique service offerings to individuals served at each organization, reduce overall administrative overhead so that more resources could be used to support front line staff, and address workforce challenges by retaining staff at both agencies.
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