Getting Started with 

Business Management 

Nourishing Partnerships 

Community Based Organizations that support older adults and persons with disabilities 

are increasingly finding that the growth of these populations and the demand for services 

is quickly outpacing available funding. Diversifying your organization’s revenue streams 

will provide opportunities to serve more people in your community. This is why developing 

partnerships and improving business acumen through planning are so important.

Start Thinking About “Nourishing 

Partnerships”: 

The first step in approaching partnership is assessing 

organization strengths, gaps, and needs. Begin by 

asking yourself the following questions:

• What challenges face our network and why? 

What are your program’s assets?

◊ Partners: Traditional, nontraditional, “wish list”

◊ Resources: Funding volunteers, programming

• What are your gaps in service?

• What are gaps in service of other organizations 

near you?

• How do you summarize the needs, goals, values 

and aspirations of congregate nutrition program 

providers and stakeholders?

Opportunities & Solutions: 

• What opportunities do you see to build existing and 

future assets, best practices and emerging trends?

◊ Do you see any critical care access points where 

working with health care providers would overlap? 

See a successful example of this by the New 

Hampshire Coalition of Aging Services.

◊ How can you engage with health care in pilot 

projects to integrate nutrition services and other 

home- and community-based services? Learn 

more about this approach.

◊ Nutrition services improve the health care member 

experience, improve health outcomes, and offer 

cost-effective delivery. The resource How Nutrition 

Services can Boost Your Bottom Line made a case 

for developing health care partnerships.

◊ Example: Metro Meals on Wheels in Twin Cities, MN 

developed a transitional care outreach project.

• How do you access networking events with peers, 

representatives of national and local organizations, 

and others? Think about who you could contract with.

• Identify opportunities and solutions. 

◊ What unmet needs exist in the market or community?

◊ What is most important to do first, second, third, etc.?

◊ What do we need/want to do?

◊ What value do we bring to the market or community? 

◊ What makes us the best partner to provide a service?

◊ What can we do?

◊ Is it feasible?

Collaboration 

can help your 

program overcome 

challenges. Nutrition 

programs should 

seek opportunities 

to partner with both 

public and private 

entities within their 

communities and 

beyond. Explore ideas 

and resources for 

collaboration and get 

inspired by examples 

from other senior 

nutrition programs.

“ 

” 
Opportunities & Solutions Continued: 

• Considerations for launch and execution

◊ Define roles and responsibilities

» Develop champions on both sides (partner 

organization and internal staff).

» Engage multiple individuals at the partner 

organization in the event of a transition.

◊ Plan for operational roll-out of a program and 

pull-through 

» Train staff of partner organization and 

internal organization to understand program, 

management of processes and workflow.

Implement tools to be incorporated into work 

flow for partner organization and internal 

staff.

» Plan for measurement of results that will be 

measured, how often, how reported.

◊ Financial and contract matters

» Invoicing plan, monitoring of accounts 

receivable.

» Internal monitoring of contract performance.

◊ Create opportunities for review of progress

» Toot your horn on positive results, manage 

perceptions around disappointing results.

» Fix things that are not working in the 

contract – financial, operational.

• Opportunities 

◊ Robust data tracking and reporting of results 

provide opportunities to create marketing 

material.

◊ Consistent tracking of results offers ability to 

create return-on-investment calculations 

supporting risk/reward value-based contracts 

in the future.

◊ Working closely with clients enables the 

organization to uncover new client problems 

and create new products/solutions.

◊ Collaborating with other providers/nonprofits 

can enhance business opportunities with 

partner organizations through co-promotion.

Lessons Learned: 

• Working together has a collective impact. 

An example is HomeLinks, working within 

collaborative health care networks to 

improve health outcomes and supporting 

people to live healthier lives within their 

homes. Learn more in the HomeLinks 

presentation.

• Some failures can be expected and are part 

of success.

• Do what you can but don’t do everything.

• Talk to everyone – champions and referrals 

come from all over.

• Consider outsourcing, insourcing, or 

partnering to enhance geographic reach or 

to manage things you cannot do right away.

• Better to under-commit and overperform; be conservative with contractual 

commitments.

• Evaluate pricing and costs on an ongoing 

basis to ensure you are competitive and 

that your contribution is favorable.

• Manage perceptions on performance – 

perceptions are reality to clients.

• Start small and focus on a specific 

population.

Learn more about creating your business plan.

This project was supported in part by grant number 90PPNU0002 from the U.S. Administration for Community Living, Department of Health and Human 

Services, Washington, D.C. 20201. Grantees undertaking projects with government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and 

conclusions. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent official ACL policy.