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Supply Chain and Sustainability in the Not-for-Profit and Service Industry Sectors

A Safe Haven is a not-for-profit founded 26 years ago with the goal of helping substance abuse victims regain control over their lives. It soon expanded its efforts by offering social programs aimed towards self-sustainability to those suffering from homelessness, substance abuse, unemployment/underemployment, and poverty. Mark Mulroe, EVP and COO of A Safe Haven, uses his supply chain and business learnings from Loyola’s EMBA-healthcare to more closely match social services demand to their growing customer base.  

Key Takeaways: 

1. Growing demand requires long-term strategy: Key statistics show an increasing need for A Safe Haven’s social services as poverty and homelessness continues to burden communities nationwide. Mark’s team quantifies their “finished good” by the quality of life a person has upon leaving A Safe Haven, and subsequent readmission rates. Similarly, they built their social programming around this same tenet: ensuring a person is prepared for life and self-sufficient when the leave A Safe Haven. This required cycle time analysis to determine the appropriate length of stay to prepare residents while freeing up space for the next group.
2. Sustainable social business enterprises: Mark’s team utilizes relationship management with key partners to provide opportunities to their residents in high-demand industries such as welding, catering, and landscaping. These programs are built to bring in new revenue that goes back into the SBE (Small Business Enterprise) programming so A Safe Haven can continue to expand its footprint and help more people.  
3. Matching supply and demand: A Safe Haven offers social services to its residents including mental/behavioral health, job skills/readiness training, education, and housing. They work closely with service providers in times of fluctuating demand (i.e. Covid pandemic, natural disasters) to ensure a steady flow of services throughout their resident “cycle time”. They also forecast long-term demand for capital planning efforts such as new facility construction.  
4. Covid-19 created need for adaptable service strategy: A Safe Haven converted one of their office spaces into a Covid-positive response unit. This required management to procure the appropriate PPE, equipment, nursing staff, janitorial, etc. Their efforts yielded great results and has reported zero deaths in their unit.  
5. Data analytics vital to funding efforts: Mark works with government agencies that allocate funding to his social programs. Government funding is never guaranteed, and Mark’s ability to translate data into key performance indicators (job placement, re-admission rates, etc.) helps ensure A Safe Haven gets as much funding as possible to support its programming.  

Featured Speaker

Mark Mulroe Executive Vice President/COO A Safe Haven, LLC