Senior center in the black

Deirdre Newman

When Aviva Goelman took over as director of the Costa Mesa Senior

Center, it was spending $180,000 more a year than it brought in.

That was three and a half years ago.

Today, the senior center is in the black, expecting to make a net

profit of $9,000 for the second year in a row.

The nonprofit was able to erase its deficit in various ways. Chief

among them was the adoption of a business-like philosophy.

“We took a business management approach,” said Dell Heintz,

president of the center’s board of directors. “Aviva, myself and the

board said we need to provide certain programs, goals and services to

our clients. We need to grow our revenues and manage expenses, just

like other companies.”

Most senior centers are dependent on the cities where they are

housed, Heintz said. Not so for the Costa Mesa Senior Center.

When the original board members established the senior center in

1992, they set it up so the city would support it over its first five

years and then it would be self-supporting.

That didn’t quite happen, so the city renewed its contract for

another five years.

Now the senior center has a year-to-year contract with the city

but only gets one-third of its funds that way. When Heintz joined the

board in 1996, he introduced a fiscally conservative approach.

“When I came on board, I said, ‘I don’t run my business at a loss.

I have to insist we’re at least cash-flow neutral or hopefully have a

little profit,’” Heintz said. “We stopped the bleeding.”

One way the center was able to manage its expenses was to

negotiate with city officials to take advantage of the rates they get

for services such as plumbing and janitorial. The city also took over

more management of senior center affairs, including the maintenance

of the landscaping and repair of heating and air conditioning units.

Goelman was so adept at negotiation that she also got the city to

re-carpet the entire building -- something the previous eight

directors couldn’t get, Heintz said.

“Ideas are just ideas, but people who can get the job done should

get the credit,” Heintz said of Goelman.

Goelman and members of the board also realized that if they were

going to act more like a business, they needed the hallmark of a

business -- a plan. Using her contacts, Goelman got an MBA student at

Claremont College’s Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management to

create a business plan for the center for his thesis.

“So we have specific qualitative and quantitative data for Costa

Mesa seniors and want to implement it so we can offer goods and

services to today’s post-Depression seniors, as well as a plan for

the baby boomers,” she said.

Goelman and board members hope the plan will alleviate any

trepidation businesses might have about donating to the center.

“Most corporations don’t want to give if they don’t know what the

money will be used for,” Goelman said.

The business plan suggests the center do ongoing market research

on baby boomers generally and Costa Mesa baby boomers specifically.

Goelman and the board will consider hiring a professional market

research firm at their board meeting tonight.

Goelman’s aggressive fundraising has also paid off, as she has

brought in more revenue that way than her predecessors, Heintz said.

The selection of new board members is also done with an eye toward

staying in the black, since wealth is one of the three criteria,

Heintz said. Board member Dr. Gwyn Parry has been an especially

generous benefactor, Goelman said. On behalf of the Hoag Memorial

Presbyterian Department of Community Medicine, he has donated $80,000

for a bus and bus driver, a $10,000 grant so the hours the center

nurse works can be extended and various amounts for a grant writer.

The center also benefited financially from the first bequest it

has ever received. The center received a $650,000 bequest from the

estate of Albert Dixon at the end of December. In addition, it will

receive a smaller amount when his estate closes, Goelman said. The

board will be discussing how to invest the bequest at its meeting

tonight.

The bequest represents the personal attachment Dixon felt toward

the center, Goelman said.

“I attribute that to our relation with Albert,” she said. “The

environment made him comfortable enough that he left half of his

considerable savings.”

When news of the bequest spread through the Senior Center, it

inspired at least one patron to change his will to include the

center, Goelman said.