Clare Healy, Matt Stern, Bret Day, Brad Plombon

4/30/2014

BUSINESS ANALYSIS:

HEALING HAITI

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BUSINESS ANALYSIS: HEALING HAITI

History and Background

At the young age of 25, the founder of Healing Haiti Jeff Gacek, inherited his

family business called Diversified Graphics. During Jeff’s years of leadership at

Diversified Graphics, he described himself as an extremely driven and hardworking

individual. While building his success from a young age, Jeff found himself setting

many goals for both himself and the business. Over time, he realized that reaching

his goals would provide happiness, however, this happiness was only temporary.

Chasing happiness (goals) only gives you temporary happiness while finding joy in

something is eternal. Jeff and his wife donated to Haiti at the end of each year, but

never would go on a mission trip. Finally, Jeff sold the family business in 2006 and

could not come up with an excuse not to go to Haiti. Jeff’s first time in Haiti was a

life changing experience that led to the beginning of Healing Haiti.

Healing Haiti’s mission is to empower and transform lives through Christ. Unlike

other nonprofit organizations, Healing Haiti is classified as being a faith based

nonprofit organization. Their faith is exhibited in their values: Spirit Empowered,

Gospel Led, Holistic Approach, Generous Spirit, and Leading through Empowering.

A description of each value and their accompanying Bible verses can be found in

Appendix A.

Healing Haiti Organizational Structure

Unlike other nonprofit organizations, Healing Haiti’s organizational chart is quite

different due to being classified as a faith based nonprofit. According to the founder

Jeff Gacek, Healing Haiti’s actions come directly from God. While founding Healing

Haiti there was no plan that was created, rather, each day Jeff wakes up and lets

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God dictate where the organization goes. It is important to note that Jeff does not

take credit for the work his organization does; he gives all credit to God.

Discussion Questions

1) In what ways does this organization structure contribute to the service delivery?

a) Be sure to discuss how faith affects Healing Haiti’s structure.

2) In what ways could this organization change their structure to be more effective?

Organizational Services

Healing Haiti believes to lead others well, we must help them to reach their

potential. They are committed to continuously creating an environment that invites

freedom for others to take initiative, make decisions, and exercise their strengths

within their area of responsibility and within the identified boundaries of the

ministry. Empowering people accept their responsibility for their empowerment,

rather than blaming others for what they do not have is imperative. Healing Haiti is

prepared to grow, change and be stretched.

Financially, each year the organization receives about two million dollars in

donations; ⅓ come from other organizations, ⅓ from individuals who donate, and ⅓

from leading mission trips. According to Jeff, 96% of every dollar received actually

goes into Haiti which means they have a very low overhead cost. Healing Haiti

doesn’t have an office, rather, Jeff conducts meetings at coffee shops which helps

them keep administrative costs down to a bare minimum.

Here are some quick facts about Healing Haiti before we begin our discussion…

Healing Haiti is a 100% volunteer, faith based, organization

There are NO paid Americans that are a part of Healing Haiti

Employs 125 Haitian guides

There is a 70% return rate for volunteers

Currently there are more than 4,500 volunteers

In 2010 there were a total of 5 mission trips completed. In 2014, they expect

to complete over 90 mission trips.

Discussion

1) Based upon what you know so far, perform a SWOT Analysis of Healing Haiti.

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Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats

Organizational Effectiveness

Healing Haiti is committed to serving the poor and the vulnerable through our time,

talents, and treasures. As Americans the least important to us unconsciously is our

time, we are giving our time and energy to the people that need it the most, the

children of Haiti. We give our talents to the Haitian people through their everyday

needs. Using physical labor to get the Haitians a helping hand however possible,

helping with filling water jugs at the water truck to patching up the homes of

several in need. And lastly our treasures, not necessarily bringing money and giving

a hand out to the people of Haiti but giving them a hand up and putting a smile on

their faces through items and accessories; young Haitians love soccer, so soccer balls

have been widely known as an item to bring. The service that Healing Haiti brings

is to the Haitian people is to give a hand up rather than a hand out, “We don’t do to

Haitians what they do for themselves.”

Discussion

1) Using what you know of traditional business structure, how do these nonprofits

compare and which do you prefer?

2) Compare and contrast CaringBridge and Healing Haiti. Which structure is more

effective?

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Appendix A: Healing Haiti Values

Spirit Empowered:

Acts 1:8 - “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you

will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of

the earth.”

John 14:26 - “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my

name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

Gospel Led:

John 14:6 - “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes

to the Father except through me.””

Acts 4:12 - “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under

heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

Holistic Approach:

Matthew 25:31-46 - 31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels

with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.32 All the nations will be gathered before

him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the

sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my

Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of

the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and

you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed

clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and

you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed

you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger

and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or

in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of

these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into

the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you

gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a

stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I

was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a

stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of

these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Generous Spirit:

1 Timothy 6:17 - “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be

arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope

in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.”

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Luke 12:48 - “But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment

will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will

be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will

be asked.”

Leading Through Empowering:

Ephesians 4:12 - “to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ

may be built up”

Appendix B: Healing Haiti Interview Transcript

Interviewee: Jeffrey Gacek

Interviewer(s): Brad Plombon & Bret Day

1) What drew you to working in the non-profit sector?

Took over family company at the age of 25

Spent most of his life chasing success; that was his primary goal

Achieving his goals meant success; this got old after a while. Found an

emptiness in chasing success after so many years

Looked to God only when he needed help, when everything was going right,

Jeff felt he didn’t need God in his life.

Finding joy is something that is eternal, happiness is temporary.

2) What skills and traits do you think have allowed you to thrive in a nonprofit

setting?

Healing Haiti does not do for the Haitians for what they cannot do

themselves.

God’s Three Blessings: (Americans value treasures the most, Haitians value

time)

o Time

o Talent

o Treasures

100% volunteer organizations - haven’t paid a penny to any Americans

Website is just like selling products

No vision, no five year plan, only followed Gods plan

3) What organizational features do you think sets nonprofits apart from traditional

for profit business?

Faith based organization: CEO receives no salary

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Non-faith based organization: CEO receives salary and provide services like a

for profit business. “We need a customer who is going to buy this product.”

4) What has made this nonprofit successful? Has anything hindered that success?

Looking at failures - use the tools that God gives us

Failures are not failures, sees them as closed doors and God opens another

door.

Healing Haiti would not be successful if it didn't have people from the secular

for profit world bringing their experiences to us.

World tell us that success should be the goal - Healing Haiti helps you find

significance

96% of every dollar brought in makes it to Haiti.

Appendix C: Bibliography

Gacek, Jeffrey. Healing Haiti. Creative Adrenaline, n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.

<http://www.healinghaiti.org/>.

Gacek, Jeffrey. Personal Interview. 9 April 2014

Clare Healy, Matt Stern, Brad Plombon, Bret Day

4/30/2014

BUSINESS ANALYSIS:

CARINGBRIDGE

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BUSINESS ANALYSIS: CARINGBRIDGE

History and Background

In 1997, before the age of technology, Sona Mehring was struggling with a

personal crisis. Two close family friends had a daughter, named Brighid (pronounced

Bridge), who was born prematurely. As with any medical difficulty, one of the most

challenging things was keeping friends and family up-to-date on Brighid’s condition.

Mehring wrestled with the idea; how does one spread a message across the country

without any travel and limiting time spent making phone calls? The answer that

comes simply to us, came more slowly to Mehring: the internet. The night that

Brighid was born, so was CaringBridge. The first site launched was a blog-style

website that allowed Mehring and Brighid’s family to write posts detailing what

happened that day, how Brighid was progressing and other relevant thoughts.

Claiming to be “the first social media,” CaringBridge remained a forum for other’s to

find information about Brighid’s condition and send messages of support and love to

her family. Not long after the site was launched, Brighid passed away.

Inspired by what Mehring accomplished for their family, Brighid’s

grandmother paid Mehring a visit; she brought money and a proposition- figure out

a way to help other families that are also struggling with the inability to

communicate with their loved ones. This was where CaringBridge began and since

then, out of their Eagan, Minnesota office, the website has grown into a support

network of millions. In 2001, CaringBridge established a board of directors and the

next year they achieved federal nonprofit status. In 2009 CaringBridge expanded

their network to include a Spanish website, reaching millions more users. Last year

in 2013, there were over 46 million visits to CaringBridge websites. A full timeline

can be found in Appendix A.

CaringBridge Organizational Structure

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Discussion

1) In what ways does this organization’s structure contribute to their service

delivery?

a) Be sure to discuss how technology affects CaringBridge’s business strategy.

2) In what ways could this organization change its structure to be more effective?

ORGANIZATIONAL SERVICES

Their mission, “To amplify the love, hope and compassion in the world,

making each health journey easier,” is reflected in their business strategy. McLean

Donnelly, former COO of CaringBridge remarked, “Concern for people rather than

profit creates better product.” [A full transcript of this interview can be found in

Appendix A] All of CaringBridge’s values (compassion, integrity, innovation,

community, and balance) reflect their focus on people and their welfare. By focusing

on the people they are delivering to, CaringBridge serves families of medical

patients in several ways. On the most basic level, CaringBridge provides a platform

for users to “journal” about their medical experiences. This service, the actual

“CaringBridge” is a personalize-able website where friends and family can read a

patient’s journal entry and sign the “guestbook” showing support. They also offer

Support Planning services which enable friends and family to coordinate supporting

tasks like bringing meals, taking care of animals, house sitting, etc. The third

service CaringBridge provides is Amplifier Hub. This service allows volunteers to

make connections with other volunteers to increase awareness and organizational

support. This ability to connect with other volunteers perpetuates the vision of

CaringBridge which is to “amplify caring throughout the world.”

Discussion

1) Based upon what you know so far, perform a SWOT Analysis of CaringBridge.

Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats

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Organizational Effectiveness

CaringBridge has a governing board of 14 members, 67 full time employees,

and over 1,200 volunteers. Because of the breadth of technology they have presence

in all 50 states and over 220 countries worldwide. The people who work and

volunteer for CaringBridge have a passion to help others. Donnelly stated that

“Nonprofits have a different idea of what success is;” for example, CaringBridge’s

idea of success is how can they better people’s lives and how many people can they

help. They have had great success by this measure. Over 46 million people visited

their site in 2012 alone. Since its inception 408,000 personal sites have been created,

and over 500,000 people connect through the site every day. CaringBridge operates

almost solely on donations; last year alone they received over 118,000 donations

from families and individuals using their services. Through those donations, these

families and users of CaringBridge make up about 90% of their income.

CaringBridge was the first to market, Because of Sona Mehring’s background in web

design the organization was able to thrive and grow into the multi-million user site

it is today. Since being founded, CaringBridge has only improved upon its

technology; recently they won two awards for their use of technology in advancing

medical care. The “Connecting Communities” award and the “Experience that

Makes a Difference” award from UX Magazine recognize digital products, systems

and other design initiatives that have meaningful impacts on people’s lives or

society. Even though many competitors have come along in web based caring,

CaringBridge still leads the way.

Discussion

1) Using what you know of traditional business structure, how do these nonprofits

compare and which do you prefer?

2) Compare and contrast CaringBridge and Healing Haiti. Which structure is more

effective?

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Appendix A: CaringBridge Timeline

1997: Sona Mehring creates the first site

1998: More than 50 sites are established

2000: Donor supports begins

2001: Board established

2002: Nonprofit status is granted

2005: Donations top $1 million

2006: More than 5,000 sites established

2007: First national media coverage

2009: Spanish-language access is created

2010: CaringBridge.org visits top 1 billion

2012: 132,000 donors; 110 volunteers

2013: Visits to CaringBridge.org total 46 million

Appendix B: McLean Donnelly Interview Transcript

Interviewee: McLean Donnelly

Interviewers: Clare Healy and Matt Stern

1) What drew you to working in the nonprofit sector?

He started in politics, liked mission driven work.

became interested in doing work "without calling people across the aisle bad

names"

liked the challenging work of the non-profit and that it was not combative

caring bridge recruited him to come work in product development

2) What sorts of skills and traits do you think allowed you to thrive in nonprofit

organizations? How do those differ from traditional business skills if at all?

Effectiveness?

Believes that non-profits need for profit thinking

non-profits like revenue and profits, but aren't as interested in it, much more

concerned with the people and customers-which results in a better product

for them

however, in for profits the efficiency is very high in order to get more jobs

done, they care much more about the bottom line and revenue

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non-profits have a different idea of success, ex. at Caring Bridge it was how

many people can they help

for profits have "cold hard facts" that determine if they have done good or

bad, not the same for non-profits

5) What has made this nonprofit successful? Has anything hindered that success?

caring bridge was founded in 1997 before all the social media

they had a background in web design so they created a website to help a child

named Bridge, after that they started doing it to help as many people as

possible

first to market really helped it take off, the website was key in helping it take

off

a bad thing is that it is really expensive to run tech companies and people in

other places are creating similar companies and maybe moving faster and

creating apps and using other sources of technology

6) We’re working on a SWOT analysis and would like your input.

Caring bridge is gold standard for non-profits

it used to be less competitive but now non-profits are at a disadvantage with

all the social media and how easy it is to find other places to give money to

instead

the tax bracket is outdated with non-profits and if they changed it, it could

really help non-profits

Appendix C: Bibliography

"CaringBridge Wins Two Awards for Using Technology to Advance Caring."PRWeb.

Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC., 11 Apr. 2014. Web. 25 Apr. 2014.

Donnelly, McLean. Personal Interview. 7 April, 2014.

"Who We Are | The Caring Social Network | CaringBridge." Who We Are | The

Caring Social Network | CaringBridge. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2014.

Visiting Nonprofit

Organizational Behaviors

By: Bret Day, Clare Healy,

Matt Stern, Brad Plombon

April 30, 2014

Learning Objectives

Identify the aspects of “traditional” business structure

nonprofits use in their functions and what structural

aspects are specific to the nonprofits organizations.

Develop a greater understanding of the decision making

process, tasks associated with running a nonprofit.

Compare and contrast a large organization

(CaringBridge) with a small organization (Healing Haiti)

and understand how size impacts the way that each

nonprofit functions.

Traditional Business vs. Nonprofit

Structure

Power and Politics

Operations

Communications

Motivation

Video Introduction

Caring Bridge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe2H

_eM05V8

Healing Haiti (0:53-2:20ish)

http://www.healinghaiti.org/pages/OurFoun

der/

Organizational Overview

Healing Haiti Caring Bridge

Mission: To empower and

transform lives through

Christ

Faith-Based

Size

Growth

Mission: To amplify the love, hope, and compassion in the world, making each health journey easier

Technology-Based

Size

Growth

Discussion

Time!

SWOT Analysis

Healing Haiti Caring Bridge

STRENGTHS

Sense of significance

Doing good, meaningful, and purposeful deeds

“Change of Lenses”

WEAKNESSES

Our own humanness

◦ Our priorities

◦ Our faith

◦ Our view on importance

“Tug of War” affect: Moving toward or away from God

OPPORTUNITIES

God’s network is the base of all opportunity

THREATS

Cité Soleil (Slum) - Safety of the volunteers

Disease

Losing faith in God; not wanting to return to Haiti (70% return rate)

Other Minnesota faith based organizations

STRENGTHS

First to market- online social media

CEO has web design background

Defined mission and values

Strong, innovative leadership

WEAKNESSES

Slow to move to social media

No revenue like traditional business

Lack of resources- skills diversity in people

OPPORTUNITIES

Can be expanded to help people with other life issues

◦ ex: eating disorders, psychological problems etc.

Fundraising for charities and individuals

Focus and advocacy for certain disease research

THREATS

Apps are starting to do similar functions

Possibility of laying off high-level employees because of lack of income

Resource scarcity causes higher risk in all decisions

Mission

Inspired by Catholic intellectual tradition, the University of

St. Thomas educates students to be morally responsible

leaders who think critically, act wisely and work skillfully to

advance the common good.