Joint Programming: Serving Seniors through Shared Services

The East Valley Senior Home Sharing Program in Arizona is a successful partnership of Aster Empowered Aging, AZCEND, and Tempe Community Action Agency, conceived and built around community need to help older adults facing housing instability near Phoenix.  The joint program was created to match seniors as roommates who can share living expenses, and was later broadened to provide a wider range of homelessness prevention supports.

With La Piana Consulting’s guidance, the partner organizations explored how to structure the collaboration and organize the work. Responsibilities were distributed across the organizations, with all three contributing resources and expertise: AZCEND employed and supervised a shared program coordinator, Aster handled grant writing and reporting, and Tempe Community Action Agency managed the program website.

For nonprofits exploring shared services, the case offers points for consideration. What could your organizations accomplish together, and how would you divide the work to make that possible?

Read the full case study about this partnership at Better Together — Serving Seniors Through Shared Services in Arizona.