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Christian Living Communities enters its inaugural year in 2023 and has made progress on multiple fronts, including occupancy and financial results exceeding pre-pandemic levels.
The Denver-based senior citizen organization has launched its own in-house digital marketing agency, Capella Digital Marketing Solutions. “The result is significantly improved lead generation at a lower cost than what we were paying to external agencies,” said CEO Gilles Vitale Orsem. ” Given this success, CLC began looking into offering these services to other nonprofit operators.
CLC began a new strategic review period in January to inform its next chapter, Vitale Orsem said.
Ryan Frederick supports the organization as an advisor. Frederick works with the senior living consultancy firm Nexus Insights, of which he is also CEO, formerly known as Smart Living 360.
Christian Living Communities tasked Frederick and his board members and leadership team with taking a deep look at the organization’s current state and where it should focus in the future.
“I think we’ve done a good job over the last few years in terms of narrowing our focus. It makes sense for us, but we really need to define it in a more aggressive way,” Vitale said. Osem told Senior Housing News.
CLC has spent the past three years reducing its overall community footprint and now has 10 communities across Colorado, six of which are owned by CLC. Although the organization doesn’t have a major expansion strategy ready for the new year, Vitale Ausem said it will likely pursue selective growth in Colorado in the coming years, creating efficiencies and locality. He expressed his intention to continue to do so. density.
“We are very rigorous in evaluating new opportunities based on what we learn. [since 2016],” she said.
Marketing agency helps promote founding year
One of the organization’s major accomplishments in 2023 was reaching and exceeding pre-pandemic occupancy levels. At year’s end, the company had an occupancy rate of nearly 98% in independent living units and 90% in assisted living units and skilled nursing facilities.
To that end, Vitale Orsem said the creation of a new in-house marketing agency, Capella Digital Marketing Solutions, has made a huge difference in attracting new prospective tenants.
Setting up a digital marketing agency was not easy and required hiring additional search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing experts. But doing it this way “costs less and gives you much more flexibility than paying an agent,” Vitale-Ausem says.
“This has resulted in a significant increase in website traffic, lead generation, and inquiries,” she added.
Given how beneficial the agency is to CLC, Vitale Orsem said the agency plans to offer it as a service to other nonprofits as a new line of business, and potentially as a hub for the local market. He said that he plans to provide the service to other businesses outside the country as well.
“We don’t have such large and aggressive growth plans and we only want to work with partners who work with us,” she said. “There are also other organizations that we are currently in discussions with.”
Another success was improving employee turnover, which had been a challenge for senior living companies even before the pandemic. The organization’s turnover rate for all community positions in 2023 was 47%, a decrease compared to the organization’s turnover rate of 59% in 2022. Vitaleosem added that some communities in the organization’s portfolio have turnover rates below his 40%.
Alongside these improvements, CLC also committed to effectively eliminating the use of contingent workers in 2023. Last year, the organization launched a centralized community staffing arm and created an in-house staffing agency called “CLC Flex Team.” As a result, some communities within the organization’s portfolio no longer needed agents, while other communities continued to reduce the use of agency staff.
“It’s not just a question of cost. More importantly, residents deserve care and support from people they know and trust, and our team members work with people they know and trust. It means you have a right,” Vitale Orsem said.
All of this has led to “a renewed excitement and commitment to financial management across the organization,” a significant accomplishment given the challenges the organization has faced since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
“It’s really great to see our culture so strong, especially through difficult times like these,” Vitale Orsem said. “We feel like we’re in a very strong and stable place right now.”
New strategic review underway
Organizations have made progress on multiple fronts, and in 2024, their evolution is far from over. That is reflected in our ongoing strategic review with Frederick.
Over the past three years, CLC has evolved and grown into a leaner organization by reevaluating our partnerships and managed communities. In doing so, the organization narrowed its focus to Colorado.
But that’s just the beginning of what Vitale Orsem hopes to achieve. In January, CLC launched a six-month strategic review aimed at further honing its focus and informing where it can evolve next.
“[For example], where and in which service lines should we grow? What additional services can we provide within the current structure?” Vitale-Osem said.
She added, “Just as it is deciding what to say ‘yes’ to, it is equally important to decide what to say ‘no’ to.”
One of the CLC’s continuing priorities will be its “Civil Rights Model,” through which it has “made great strides in undoing the institutional practices that have arisen as a result of the pandemic,” Vitale Orsem said. Ta.
This model is an approach to aging services that recognizes that “each individual of every age and ability level has gifts, passions, talents, and experiences that can make our community stronger and better.”
CLC may also see growth. The organization last expanded in late 2023 when it began managing a Green House community of 90 Loveland, Colorado residents through Capella Living Solutions Management Services.
“We continue to explore opportunities for growth through acquisitions, mergers, and managing culturally aligned organizations,” Vitale Orsem said. “While our focus is on the mountain region, we will consider opportunities that align with our business development strategy.
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