Just one downside to running nonprofits "like a business": VT healthcare took on Los Angeles-based group homes and lost $1.8m in the process.
"It’s often said that any big nonprofit organization ought to be run like a business. We agree — just not like a bad business. This observation is prompted by staff writer Rick Jurgens’ revelations last Sunday that Health Care and Rehabilitation Services of Southeastern Vermont Inc., headquartered in Springfield, took a flier on operating a string of group homes for developmentally disabled people in the Los Angeles area in recent years and lost $1.8 million in the process. That’s Los Angeles, as in California. HCRS, of course, was in the news earlier this year when it was disclosed that it had paid its former chief executive, Judith Hayward, $686,000 in deferred compensation. What Jurgens’ piece added to the picture was that the losses on the California venture occurred during the final three years of her 17-year tenure... That this development is only coming to light now is attributable to the fact that HCRS operates with approximately the same degree of transparency as the National Security Agency." -- the Valley News (Springfield, VT)
