Axing the magazine & its staff fractured community relationships. The lack of a business development manager or ‘account manager’ also means that they aren’t able to foster those connections they used to to get new accounts.
And IMO the new Director seems to have little experience in sales development or customer relationship management. In crude terms, their profile presents more of a slash & burn turn around specialist (that might be my own characterization at play). They will leave a vastly different organization than they found. For sure.
So yes. There is not just an underserved community here, but unserved communities as well. While counselling & classes may fill part of that void, there are unmet needs for community & social networking, skill sharing, knowledge & help gaps, relationship & connection building & information sinkholes. Actually, that’s probably always been true.
It may be unrealistic to expect it to do more given its geographical location. IMO, the center only fulfills a few of those needs but we’re fortunate that they still do that even. Coffee mornings aren’t revenue generating, though like the magazine, they inspire attendees to seek classes.
But therein lies the conundrum, the central ambiguity of any charitable work: when the charity gives itself over solely to revenue generation, where is the charitable work? Yet when it devotes itself entirely to charitable work, where do the means come from? Something to ponder, huh!