News :: GLBT
AIDS Housing Corp. merges with Victory Programs by Ethan Jacobs
staff reporterWednesday Jul 1, 2009 As the economic downturn puts the squeeze on many non-profits, two Boston-based HIV/AIDS service organizations, Victory Programs and the AIDS Housing Corporation (AHC), have merged. As of July 1 AHC, which provides technical assistance to agencies operating housing for people living with HIV/AIDS, will now function as a division of Victory Programs, which provides housing and direct services to people who are homeless and/or struggling with substance abuse or chronic illness -- about a quarter of Victory Programs’ clients are living with HIV/AIDS.
Joe Carleo, who was executive director of AHC and now serves as Victory Programs’ director of community affairs, said that the merger was motivated in part by cost savings, but the primary reason for the merger is that it will bolster the efforts of both organizations to carry out their missions.
"Victory Programs is a program I’ve had unbelievable respect for for many years. They do spectacular work, and every one of their programs is a gem," said Carleo. He added that he was gratified to be "bringing an agency I’ve been running for ten years and bringing it somewhere where it’s not only going to be healthy but going to grow."
He said both organizations entered the merger, which followed a formal 10-month strategic planning process led by the Boston Foundation and the non-profit consulting firm New Sector Alliance, from a place of strength. Carleo described both agencies as "challenged" by the economy but "stable." Already AHC has saved thousands of dollars by moving into Victory Programs office space, said Carleo, and the merger has also given AHC staff increased administrative resources.
"At AHC, we didn’t have an HR department or a development department. I was that," said Carleo.
Jonathan Scott, executive director of Victory Programs, said the merger benefits both agencies.
"Victory Programs as a primary service agency now gains huge external capacity to provide technical assistance to other organizations from Massachusetts to Virginia and a group that has a lot of experience in community organizing around really important issues," said Scott. AHC is licensed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to provide technical assistance to federally funded agencies providing housing to people living with HIV/AIDS, and they serve agencies along the east coast from Maine down south as far as Virginia.
Scott said the merger also benefits AHC by giving the agency the chance to study the effectiveness of different approaches to housing by examining Victory Programs’ own housing programs.
"For instance AIDS Housing Corporation has been a primary driver around harm-reduction models in AIDS housing and have organized people around that, held conferences around that, national conferences," said Scott. "And now they’ll be a part of working directly with an agency that’s actually doing harm-reduction models and be able not just anecdotally but directly to analyze how evidence-based practices really do work," said Scott.
The two agencies began initial talks about a merger last summer, Scott said. They applied for funding from the Boston Foundation to hire New Sector Alliance to carry out much of the logistical work needed for the merger. In the past few years Boston Foundation has been advocating mergers and strategic alliances in the local non-profit sector to improve efficiency in response to the shifting economy. Last February three other local AIDS service organizations -- AIDS Action Committee, JRI Health and Cambridge Cares About AIDS -- announced that they had also begun a strategic planning process with the foundation and with New Sector Alliance to investigate potential alliances or mergers, although the organizations have not yet announced a final outcome of that process (see "HIV/AIDS organizations undertake major initiative to re-evaluate delivery of services," Feb. 25).
Mary Jo Meisner, vice president of communications, community relations and public affairs for the Boston Foundation, said the foundation has been urging non-profits to consider strategic collaborations and mergers for more than a year, but the beginning of the economic downturn last fall has now given their recommendations a greater sense of urgency. The foundation released a report in June 2008 on the state of the non-profit sector in Boston that found that many agencies were in poor fiscal health. The report called on all agencies, both those with fiscal troubles and those that were healthy, to look at strategic collaborations and mergers to increase efficiency and to protect their ability to provide services to their clients.
"I think we were somewhat prescient in coming out with that clarion call because we were saying you need, especially the small and midsize organizations, to think of ways to strengthen your fiscal fitness," said Meisner. "A year later we’re sitting in a much different economy, and the economy itself has speeded up discussions of a lot of these issues."
Scott said he expects to see more such mergers and alliances among different non-profits.
"I think it’s always important to look at, no matter what the economic time, to how you can run your business better and what’s in the best interest of the people you serve. Even in the worst economic times there are always incredible opportunities, and I think this tumultuous and fragile economy we’re living in, worldwide economy, is opening the door for other organizations to communicate and to look at new strategic alliances in ways they might not have looked at a couple years ago," said Scott. "I think there will be much more of this, but I think there are lots of creative ways to have new business models that are even short of a merger and I think it’s in everybody’s interest to always be looking into that."
Ethan Jacobs can be reached at ejacobs@baywindows.com
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