Page 33 - BusinessWest May 26, 2020
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 Lev Ben- Ezra says the Amherst Survival Center has adjusted how it serves clients during the pandemic, and many of these changes will remain in the ‘new normal.’
know how to take it beyond that point. Out of necessity, we cracked that nut with this expanded delivery program and now have a viable model to do it on a fairly significant scale.”
Nortonsmith agreed.
“We’ve learned a lot about how much our clients value delivery, and we’re organizing our- selves now to incorporate that as a long-term option,” she explained. “We are also hearing from a significant number of clients that they find the outdoor distribution we shifted to desirable in its efficiency — and for some, to reduce the expo- sure to disease, which may be a long-term prior- ity. So we expect to find ways to continue serving people outside the building for the foreseeable
future.”
Meanwhile, Junior Achievement of Western
Massachusetts has altered its model as well, bringing many of its financial-literacy and entre- preneurship programs to students remotely. Moving forward, while the in-the-classroom model will return at some point and to some extent, some programs can, and will, be pre- sented remotely, said Jennifer Connelly, president and CEO of that agency, adding that she is pre- paring for a number of scenarios.
“We’re not in the classrooms, and for at least the first half of this coming school year, the fall, we’re planning on still not being in the class- room,” she said, noting that uncertainty about
just what a ‘new normal’ will look like and how the public — and area school departments — react to it makes it difficult to plan for anything further down the road than a few months.
“We’ve known for some time that transportation is an enormous issue; we had been incrementally increasing delivery to seniors in the months before COVID, but didn’t know how to take it beyond that point. Out of necessity, we cracked that nut with this expanded delivery program and now have
a viable model to do it on a fairly significant scale.”
Those are just a few examples of how COVID has, indeed, made the juggling act that is manag- ing a nonprofit even more difficult. But it has also presented these agencies with options, many of which are here for the long term.
For this issue, we talked with several admin- istrators about this idea of options, and also about how they’re planning for tomorrow — and beyond.
             starts
WITH AN IDEA.
 AND SOMEONE ELSE
who believed in it.
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