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Nobody wants to fund ‘case management’

Message and Case for Support | | Nick Fellers

Two years ago an ED said to me, “Nobody funds case management.” That’s because nobody understands case management – and neither do I. Case management is like ‘management’, ‘overhead’, ‘operations’, etc.

We spend the better part of 30 minutes talking about all the things that a case manager enabled clients to do/achieve. For this org, it was helping women (w/ children) deal with obstacles to permanent housing and family issues such as getting kids to school, domestic violence, nutrition, etc.

We re-branded our case management as a ‘Healthy Families Initiative.’ Allowed us to focus on the IMPACT of the program. Much easier to talk about, sell and share.

Test yourself, if you’re doing something that’s hard for others to understand then work on the MESSAGE. Start with the IMPACT or OUTCOME or WHY of the program and go from there.

This came up again last week. I was with an organization that helps homeless men and women. We asked the same questions and realized that it was not case management but building a Life Track. We are going to get our Life Track Program funded (and they can spend that money on case managers).