Camp Caravan is a van the staff packs with every kind of portable camp paraphernalia. Wyman employees drive it to abandoned parking lots and playgrounds in St. Louis's worst neighborhoods, where, for half a day every day, for as long as a month, they set up "camp" -- a Native American village, say, or an environmental center. For the first time, Hilliard had succeeded in pushing Wyman beyond the boundaries of tradition. The caravan both brought Wyman's services to a larger constituency and generated enthusiasm on the fund-raising front. Agencies reported that the program had positive effects in the communities, and based on that feedback, Wyman landed additional funding from the United Way. But there was still a problem. "We tried to sell it to the same old customers, and we got the same reactions," recalls Hilliard. "'We love it. Give it to us for free."
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What Business Are You In?
By 1989 Wyman's revenues had increased to $800,000, but Hilliard was disappointed in the analysis of those revenues' sources. Only $300,000 were earned revenues; $300,000 came from the United Way; and the local Kiwanis clubs had contributed more than half the remaining $200,000 in private gifts. The Kiwanis Club is a service organization of local businesspeople whose members had for years dominated Wyman's board.
As Wyman's horizons stretched beyond Eureka, Hilliard realized that the board's perspective, too, had to expand beyond the Kiwanians' staunch dedication to Wyman's traditional summer camp. Fran Werner, who was a college friend of Wyman's head of development and the director of global planning for Monsanto, accepted an invitation to join Wyman's board. Under her tutelage Hilliard learned a new vocabulary -- one that provided a foundation for permanent organizational change.
Werner, a former high school biology teacher, summoned Hilliard and his second-in-command, Paige Banet, to a marble and mahogany boardroom at Monsanto. "She hauled out Michael Porter videos, gave us templates, taught us about unbundling our services, and questioned us about how we structure our business," recalls Hilliard. And then Werner got tough. "What business are you in?" she asked. The answer was obvious, Hilliard thought. "Camping," he offered. "You don't get it," Werner challenged. "Camping is your assembly line, not the product that comes off it," she explained. "We were stuck in methodology," Hilliard says. With Werner's coaching, Hilliard and Banet defined and assessed Wyman's four "products":
1. Prevention. The goal of Wyman's summer program was to "take at-risk kids and redirect their lives for success," says Hilliard. "But we had only one vehicle for that -- resident camp."
2. Education. Flanking the camp season were Wyman's "experiential education" programs for schoolchildren. The bulk of those programs, however, were designed for fifth- and sixth-graders; there was a substantial market segment Wyman hadn't touched.
3. Hospitality. To capitalize on its off-season capacity, Wyman rented the camp to other nonprofit groups as a conference site. But Wyman's rustic cabins couldn't compare with the comforts of other facilities.
4. Recreation. Though fun was a big part of the Wyman experience, the camp used recreational activities as channels to teach kids life's lessons. Hilliard wondered whether the camp could market entertainment for its own sake -- say, sell a hayride and a bonfire sing-along. As with hospitality, the competition would be tough.
As he dissected each of those "products" with a newly critical eye, Hilliard saw that there was only one reason for Wyman's being in the education, hospitality, and recreation businesses: to use the assets not consumed by prevention -- Wyman's raison d'être. Why not turn those three products into profit centers? Any "surplus" (as profit is termed in the nonprofit sector) he would plow back into prevention, which, on account of the limited resources of its constituency, remained relatively free from bottom-line pressures. "Fran pointed out to us that the worthiness of the mission does not have to be at odds with selling services at or above cost," says Hilliard.
Wyman's board, which Hilliard had helped redesign to include seven entrepreneurs, six lawyers, four corporate executives, three educators, three bankers, two public-relations experts, and a certified public accountant, assigned him an ambitious five-year goal: make the three ancillary businesses 15% profitable. "Our challenge was to find the customer that values our expertise in the same way we do," says Hilliard.
By 1991 a self-sustaining Wyman Center had started to emerge, and that had meant making difficult choices. "We didn't want to shut the door to needy cases," Hilliard says, but he and the board decided that even the poorest camper should pay $15 a week. And agencies that were accustomed to a free ride from Wyman had to settle for a new deal -- buy one camper space, get one free. "We lost a few friends," Hilliard admits.
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Empowerment-Driven Growth
Determined to find ways to bolster revenue growth, Hilliard had reorganized his staff of 12 into units that represented Wyman's four products: prevention, education, hospitality, and recreation. The four employees who headed those units had autonomy, budgetary authority, and responsibility for meeting the 15% profitability goals set by the board.
Claire Wyneken, who had been at Wyman since 1987, headed education. She recalls that "we started spending much more time listening to school administrators and adapting programs to their needs. And we talked about outcome and impact -- to show them the value of what we were doing." Wyman's clients, accustomed to the "take it or leave it" approach, were impressed. Steve Huber, principal of Normandy Middle School, in St. Louis, sends his seventh- and eighth- graders to an outdoor program at Wyman. He says that "with many vendors, if the program doesn't fit you, you're the problem. But with Wyman, if the programs didn't work, the organization was constantly adjusting and compensating. That made for a very positive relationship." It was the kind of customer service that helped Wyman successfully target affluent school districts, whose schools pass the cost of Wyman's educational programs on to parents.
