A dynamic partnership exists between LeadingAge, our state partners, and members around the country. Consider, for example, the ways in which we are each responding to our field’s workforce crisis:

LeadingAge members are determined to tackle workforce challenges head-on in their local communities, where they know the players, the competition, and the market levers better than anyone. With grit and ingenuity, they are testing out myriad small-scale strategies to address staffing shortages—like rebooting HR with new job functions and organizational positioning; creating their own staffing agencies; involving residents in staff recruitment, onboarding, and mentoring; hiring recruitment navigators to walk candidates through the hiring process; providing access to training that leads to new career paths; and investing in technology to create hiring efficiencies. And that’s just a sampling.

Our state partners are dogged in pursuing state workforce solutions relating to funding, regulatory support, and other measures.

And LeadingAge is persistent and emphatic in advocating for bigger, long-term, systemwide workforce solutions that can only be implemented at the federal level. We’re fighting hard for immigration reform, regulatory relief and sensemaking, increased federal funding, and other large-scale interventions. We’re also researching and disseminating information about new approaches to recruitment and retention.

There’s an important lesson here. It takes all of us, working together, to successfully address workforce challenges. This lesson can easily be applied to how we go about addressing many other challenges facing our field in these volatile times.

The bottom line: All of us—members, state partners, and LeadingAge—are focusing on the same issues. We may carry out our work in different ways, in different arenas, and through a different lens, but that work is in perfect alignment. I find this synchronicity to be very reassuring and a cause for optimism. I hope you do too.

The good news? We don’t have to choose between implementing national solutions and implementing local solutions to address our shared challenges. Quite the contrary. We’re much more likely to succeed if we work locally and nationally and if we take both small-scale and large-scale approaches to that work.

I’ll keep you informed about our work at the national level. I hope you’ll keep me informed about your work at home.

I’m confident that our complementary work will move us closer to reaching our shared goal: ensuring that older adults will always have access to the high-quality services and supports they deserve.

 

CEOs and boards of directors at every aging services organization should be asking themselves an important question: Can a strategic partnership help my organization realize our goals more rapidly, more realistically, or more effectively?

It’s a simple question, but arriving at an answer that is right for your organization requires analysis and consideration—and then comes the work of actually pursuing a partnership in a way that aligns with your strategic goals.

Where can aging services leaders start? LeadingAge’s Strategic Relationship Development—part of our suite of governance resources designed for aging services organizations. This robust toolkit contains on-demand video modules, downloadable resources, and an assessment tool to help leaders like you decide whether to pursue a strategic relationship with another organization. 

The materials answer many common questions and are designed to help chief executives guide their boards through the process of developing the rationale for pursuing a strategic relationship, as well as discerning the correct type of relationship: informal partnership, joint venture, merger, or acquisition. 

The resource also explores the steps necessary to evaluate any specific opportunity and make an informed decision about moving forward—including how to craft agreements and establish new corporate structures.

In the current climate, all LeadingAge members can benefit from this information. No longer reserved just for organizations experiencing financial challenges, affiliations can be a smart and strategic option for even the most well-resourced providers. 

Our field is rapidly changing and new complexities seem to arrive each week. You don’t have to go it alone. When done well, partnerships and affiliations make organizations stronger and can ensure sustainability for years to come. LeadingAge’s new resource can guide you toward this outcome. 

Strategic Relationship Development is just one offering in a robust set of governance resources for providers that I encourage you to explore. Our comprehensive package of products can also help your organization build a stronger board that takes a more active role in strategy development, risk management, resource allocation, and planning.

We are reminded every day that our well-being is intricately intertwined with the well-being of others. Our African concept of Ubuntu—”I am because we are”—captures this beautifully. … It is in the simplicity of this philosophy that we draw our resilience. 

Global Ageing Network Board Member Femada Shaman wrote these wise words to describe how her aging services organization weathered the devastating floods that wreaked havoc on South Africa last spring.

Femada, CEO of Tafta, attributed her organization’s resilience to the fact that dedicated team members worked together throughout the crisis to keep residents safe—despite the fact that these team members faced their own flood-related hardships.

I cannot read Femada’s reflection without thinking about our global community of aging services providers.

Like Tafta, aging services organizations around the world have experienced an alarming assortment of hardships over the past several years: climate-related emergencies, the global workforce crisis, the coronavirus pandemic, new worries about financial viability, and the day-to-day challenges associated with providing the best care possible to a growing, and increasingly vulnerable, older population.

How do we go about addressing these challenges so we can build a sustainable system of care and support for the world’s older adults? It seems to me that applying the African concept of Ubuntu to our aging services sector is a great place to start.

I am because we are.

Providers of aging services around the world, and those who support them in their work, represent the “we” in this statement. All of us face similar challenges, no matter what country we call home. Before we can make any progress in addressing those challenges, we must recognize our deep connection to one another and then find ways to work together to implement solutions and approaches that will ensure our shared resilience and sustainability.

To put it simply, providers of aging services across the globe must chart the future together. And we must act quickly. We have no other choice.

This year’s Global Ageing Conference, which takes place Sept. 7-8 in Glasgow, Scotland, offers an invaluable opportunity to begin this process. Fittingly, the conference theme is, “Care about our Future: A Global Symposium for Sustainable Care and Support.”

Together, conference attendees will explore innovative and forward-looking programs and approaches that hold promise for bringing about lasting change in such areas as workforce, human rights, models of care, ethics, leadership practices, and the well-being of residents and clients. Even more important, we’ll engage with colleagues who share a commitment to ensuring that every older adult in every country on the planet can access high-quality services and supports well into the future.

The Global Ageing Network conference comes at a critical time for the aging services sector as we chart our future in a world that is aging rapidly. I hope you will join colleagues from around the world as we prepare for that future by learning, sharing, and innovating together.

Come to Scotland and experience firsthand the power of Ubuntu:

I am because we are.

 

 

 

 

As soon as the results of November’s midterm elections were finalized, news outlets around the country began analyzing the makeup of the 118^th Congress, which convened in Washington, DC, on January 3.

Pundits have spent the last two months trying to predict what lies ahead for the new Congress and, by extension, for the nation. Most wonder what the narrow majorities in both chambers will mean for the nation’s policy agenda. What issues will the new Congress zero in on? And, more important, on what issues of importance to us might legislators reach agreement over the next two years?

I’ve been following these analyses with great interest. But the variety of opinions I’ve heard over the past two months hasn’t changed my response to members who ask, “What will the midterm election mean for us?”

As leader of a nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving quality of care and quality of life for older Americans, I believe recent changes in the Congressional power structure can only mean one thing for LeadingAge and its members:

We will be busy.

Here in Washington, LeadingAge is already busy in three areas:

Policy: We’re hard at work framing our policy priorities to align with bipartisan interests and laying out strategies to work on those priorities. No doubt, issues that SHOULD be bipartisan will get caught in the crosshairs of politics. But it won’t stop us. We will continue to push workforce solutions, including legal immigration and expansion of domestic worker pipelines, Medicaid funding, telehealth, modernization of the hospice benefit, and support for the growing number of older adults with low incomes. We are getting to know new members of Congress and committee leaders—there are many—and identifying new legislators who will help us find key allies to help us move our policy agenda forward.

Leadership: When the majority party changes in either chamber of Congress, as it did in the House of Representatives this year, it sends a ripple of additional changes throughout the legislative branch. Each committee and subcommittee now has a new chairperson with a new staff and a new policy agenda. Adjusting to these changes requires attention, effort, and relationship-building from our Policy Team. Rest assured, our team is up to this task.

Relationships: We have spent years cultivating relationships on Capitol Hill—on both sides of the aisle. We’re very good at it. These relationships shift—literally overnight—after an election. But the important thing to remember is that LeadingAge never stops making new friends. We are getting to know new representatives, their staff members, and their agendas. And we’re making sure these new lawmakers know who we are and what we care about.

This process of intentional outreach will extend well into the new year. Indeed, we’ll be counting on you to help us cement these new relationships when you are in Washington for our Leadership Summit on April 17-19, 2023.

Your presence on Capitol Hill during the summit’s Lobby Day on April 19 is especially important this year. We need Congressional representatives—particularly those who are new to Washington and those who are new to leadership positions—to hear directly from you about the important work you do and how they can help you make a difference in the lives of older adults. We are strongest when we all pull together to advocate for policies that do just that.

Clearly, we have a lot of work ahead of us. I’m confident we will succeed, for two reasons:

First, we’ve been here before. Our Policy Team has years of experience successfully navigating change on Capitol Hill. To a person, they are energetic and enthusiastic. They have a thorough knowledge of the issues that are important to all of us. And they are committed to living out our mission—to be the trusted voice for aging—each day and through each conversation on Capitol Hill. That trust, built over many years, has helped us open many doors on Capitol Hill and will continue to do so well into the future.

Second, we have compelling stories to tell about the amazing and impactful work our members carry out in towns, cities, counties, and states across this nation. We never tire of telling these stories because they introduce you, and the important work you do, to legislators who can support your work. They tip the balance to turn policy ideas into legislation.

Election night may have felt like the finish line for candidates, but it is the starting line for us.

We are on it!

 

Now more than ever, our nation needs centralized and strategic coordination across federal agencies to help us effectively address the critical challenges and opportunities facing older Americans. But make no mistake: the coordination we need can’t happen without leadership and vision from the executive branch of government.

That’s why LeadingAge is urging President Joe Biden to establish a White House Office of Aging Policy (WHOAP). WHOAP, part of the White House Domestic Policy Council, would develop and implement a Comprehensive National Aging Plan that recognizes, prepares for, and addresses the evolving structural, economic, and cultural shifts we’re anticipating, and ensures that older people are engaged, valued, and afforded equal opportunities to thrive well into the future.

LeadingAge believes this “whole-of-government” effort is the best way—indeed, the only way—to address the growing number of cross-cutting challenges facing the older population, including:

• Poverty: Increased age is associated with higher rates of poverty. We need a coordinated plan, involving many agencies, to help us change this disturbing trend.

• Income: A centralized effort could support new models of work for older adults, address workplace age discrimination, and help people of all ages plan for retirement.

• Housing access: Government policies must support equitable access to, and accelerated development of, affordable housing. No one agency can accomplish this alone.
• Service access: Combining supportive services and subsidized housing preserves the health and independence of older people. It also requires complex agreements across federal departments.
• Food insecurity: Multiple federal departments address the issue of food insecurity among millions of older adults. We need a coordinated effort to address the alarming gaps that remain.

• Transportation barriers: These barriers, which contribute to social isolation and make it difficult for older adults to access services, must be addressed through inter-agency collaboration.

• Need for coordinated care: Older adults with multiple chronic conditions would benefit greatly from a coordinated system of acute, primary, long-term, and end-of-life care.

• Abuse: Numerous federal programs address elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation. These programs would be more streamlined and effective if they were coordinated from the top.
• Environmental threats: A coordinated approach involving multiple agencies could help us better address the heightened risk older people experience during natural disasters.

• Inequity: All federal policies must ensure equity and prevent inadvertent discrimination against older adults, particularly people of color. We need WHOAP to coordinate this effort.
• Data gaps: Federal leadership on data related to older people would minimize costs and reporting burdens and maximize the information available to support informed policymaking.

Other countries—including Singapore, Japan, Israel, and Germany—have already taken a “whole of government” approach to aging policy. It’s high time the United States joined them. Our first step must involve establishing a White House Office on Aging Policy that is empowered to coordinate all government efforts to address the issues that are most important to older citizens.

Let’s be clear: LeadingAge doesn’t view this all-government approach as a “like-to-have” policy innovation. Rather, we view WHOAP’s coordinating role as something we “must have” if we are to have any hope of fixing program redundancies and filling gaps that now exist across programs serving older adults.

Fortunately, establishing WHOAP is not a big-ticket item requiring a large financial investment. Instead, it’s a logical step that will give us the best chance to use our existing resources to make a positive impact on the lives of older people for years to come.

LeadingAge is fully committed to working with President Biden to make this happen—and soon. Clearly, we don’t have any time to waste.

Learn more about LeadingAge’s December 14 letter to the White House making the case for a comprehensive national aging plan.

Throughout the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, I gave much thought to the kind of support LeadingAge members would need to get through a health emergency that had disproportionately impacted our residents and clients and challenged our sector like never before.

Now that the crisis phase of the pandemic is behind us, my thinking—and the thinking of my teammates at LeadingAge—has shifted somewhat. We’re still here to support the members who continue to struggle with the residual effects of our global health crisis—full stop. At the same time, we have our eyes focused squarely on the road ahead because we know many of you are struggling to regain organizational strength.

We’ve learned many lessons since March 2020. Three of those lessons have led us to introduce new opportunities for members that, we believe, will lead the way to a brighter future for us all.

Our first lesson: Strong organizations build their capacity to anticipate the future.

The last 32 months have taught us that major challenges can upend an organization’s equilibrium at any time and without warning. We were understandably surprised by the power of the pandemic. But we now have a new appreciation for tools that can help us anticipate and prepare for the next challenges—and the next opportunities—that cross our path.

It all comes down to vigilance, strategy, and governance. An organization’s board of directors must work with the executive team to continually scan the horizon for emerging trends, think deeply about how those trends might impact their organization, and act in a strategic manner to ensure that unforeseen events don’t catch the organization by surprise. This doesn’t happen automatically. It requires a formal commitment to strategic governance, a solid education to ensure that board members and leaders have the knowledge and skills they need to engage in forward-thinking discussions, and a willingness to seek guidance from experts in the field.

How are we leading the way? LeadingAge has developed a robust collection of self-guided tools that support strategic governance. We firmly believe these tools can help members build strong and effective boards that will, in turn, help their organizations successfully navigate our changing aging services landscape. To supplement these resources, we offer LeadingAge Consulting to support members as they adopt a strategic governance model.

Our second lesson: To get where you’re going, you need to know where you are right now.

It was common during the early months of the pandemic to use boating metaphors to describe our organizations. We envisioned ourselves as captains of boats caught in a dangerous storm. We struggled valiantly to make sure we had “all hands on deck” to meet the challenge. We worked overtime to navigate our organizations to shore.

These images remind me of a maxim I heard at this year’s Annual Meeting: “You need to know where you are right now if you have any hope of getting to where you want to go.” Fortunately, organizations like ours have a reliable tool called benchmarking to help us track our current performance and use that information to move our organizations forward.

How are we leading the way? LeadingAge is launching a new national benchmarking opportunity, through which small cohorts of member organizations will share data about their operations, receive a report on their self-assessed performance, and see how their results compare to national benchmarks. Members taking part in the process will have an opportunity to participate in a workshop that will guide them in using their data to improve their readiness to navigate through uncertainty and to steer their organizations in the direction of health and sustainability.

Our third lesson: No one is better equipped than us to solve the big issues facing our field.

LeadingAge members bring their dedication to mission and their years of experience to the work they do. They know their residents and clients well, and they understand better than anyone how to meet the growing need for safe and affordable housing and high-quality services and supports. Many members have developed innovative processes or solutions to address pressing issues. Our challenge as nonprofits is to spread and scale those innovations for broad impact.

How are we leading the way? LeadingAge is preparing to launch the LeadingAge Solution Studio, a nine-month process that will bring together groups of 12 to 20 LeadingAge members to find durable solutions to the thorny problems facing our sector. We’ll be guided in this effort by Quantified Ventures (QV), a B-Corporation that works with a variety of organizations, including several LeadingAge members, to design, capitalize, and scale investible solutions to pressing challenges faced by individuals and society.

We believe LeadingAge members have unlimited potential to find innovative solutions to problems that have challenged our sector and our nation for years. The Solution Studio, and our partnership with QV, represents a very promising way for us to realize that potential.

The last few years have been challenging for all of us. I want you to know that LeadingAge is working hard to ensure that we all emerge from the pandemic with resilience and strength as we tap into the power of strategic foresight, data, and innovation.

It has been another unexpectedly difficult year for LeadingAge members. You have each given your hearts and souls to the battle against COVID. In addition, our colleagues in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas have more recently been stretched to the limit by Hurricane Ian.

Both crises have prompted me to admire your courage, deeply regret your loss, and ask myself two important questions.

• How is it that LeadingAge members are so resilient, determined, and optimistic?
• How do members sustain a generous spirit through the toughest of times?

The answers to both questions come down to two words: values and purpose.

LeadingAge members carry their values to work each day, as do we at LeadingAge. Those values are inscribed on our websites for all the world to see. For LeadingAge, those values embody courage, community, catalyst, and stewardship. For members, those values aspire to excellence, innovation, inclusion, respect, quality, wisdom, care, love, integrity, teamwork, and vitality.

Our values are what social scientist Arthur Brooks calls our “sculpture within the block of jade.” They live deep within our organizations. They give us purpose. They drive our actions. Without our values, we could not have weathered the global pandemic and the new, unprecedented challenges it has thrown our way.

We’ve always held our values close to our hearts, as well we should. But in these increasingly challenging times, we must also talk about those values with pride and conviction. The public, the media, and policymakers need to see our “sculpture within the block of jade.” That sculpture tells the world who we are and what we stand for. It represents what we do for older Americans and their families—and for everyone who will grow older. At the center of our sculpture is what all of us value most: the transformation of lives, organizations, and our sector.

How do we mobilize our generous spirit so it sparks recognition, appreciation, and action on the part of those who can help strengthen our work? Our values and purpose will be our drivers. But we also must call on our expertise, commitment, and insights.

Our expertise is wide-ranging. We know a great deal about aging and about health and well-being. We know about compassionate care. We know that a safe place to live, with access to services, is essential. We know what quality looks like. We know how critical well-trained staff are to delivering on our promise. We know how to lead with honor.

We also know that our system of long-term care in this country is not sustainable—financially or practically. The gap between the cost of care and what we are paid to deliver that care is growing wider and wider. Family members are stretched to the limit as they try to provide support to their loved ones. Our neighborhoods and community infrastructures are not designed to support our shifting demographics. And ageism persists.

How do we bring about needed transformation? We must rally around our vision for the future. We must raise our voices. We must use collective action to help policymakers, the media, and the public recognize and appreciate the work we do.

Transformation won’t be easy, of course. Our sector has always been under scrutiny, often misunderstood, and vastly underappreciated. Coming out of COVID, we find ourselves living under a microscope. There are calls for more transparency, which we support. There are calls for more punishment, which we question.

We must listen carefully to the critiques and respond in good faith, drawing on our expertise and experience.  In addition, we must tell Americans and our leaders how they can support us so that every older American can live the life and get the care they deserve.

Mostly, we must drive the narrative about the future we want to build.

We know better than anyone what’s needed to deliver the quality care every older adult deserves. So, let’s go on offense and tell policymakers what we know about measuring and rewarding quality, about crafting reasonable regulations, and about financing long-term care. Let’s tell them about values-driven, mission-focused care and support. Let’s underscore the importance of paying a livable wage and professionalizing our direct care workforce. Let’s remind decision makers that we’re all aging, and that it’s time to invest in the kind of future we want for ourselves and for our children.

We will have many opportunities to send these messages over the next months and years: through our advocacy efforts in Washington, DC, and state capitals, through the new Moving Forward Nursing Home Quality Coalition, through our Opening Doors to Aging Services campaign, and through many other initiatives aimed at sharing our story—and our values—with a variety of audiences.

Indeed, we have an inspiring story to tell: the story of thousands of organizations, and hundreds of thousands of dedicated people who are driven by mission, by purpose, and by values that transcend profits or power. Policymakers, the media, and the public need to hear this story—and they need to know us.

Each of you gives me hope that when we raise our voices, people will listen. I am so proud of the work you do, the lives you nurture, the souls you heal, the communities you build, and the futures you forge.

We are all LeadingAge. I know that working together, we can shape a better future.

We’re used to viewing August as a welcome opportunity to take a deep breath, relax, and recharge before the hectic days of fall are upon us. Many of us go on vacation. Others simply enjoy a slower pace of life as the news cycle slows and work deadlines ease.

Unfortunately, August 2021 did not offer LeadingAge members such a respite. The emerging Delta variant let us know in no uncertain terms that the coronavirus still threatens us and the people we serve. The safety of our employees and our residents and clients remains uppermost in our minds. Rather than putting COVID behind us, as we thought we would be doing by now, we remain on high alert.

As our Board Chair Carol Silver Elliott noted in her blog last week, we could let this setback discourage us. But that’s not an option.

Instead, we need to work hard to achieve an increasingly delicate balance: stepping backward into battle mode as we renew our fight against COVID-19 while, at the same time, moving forward to re-envision our organizations and strengthen our field so we’re ready for a post-COVID world.

At LeadingAge, we are working hard to achieve this balance.

On the one hand, we are prepared and fully committed to continue supporting you during this protracted fight against COVID-19.

At the same time, we are also prepared and fully committed to helping you emerge from the pandemic stronger than ever and ready for a brighter future.

In recent months, we’ve been working on this second task by developing and disseminating a variety of resources to fortify our field, including new tools to help member organizations strengthen their governance, and strategies to professionalize the direct care workforce.

Next month, we will add to this forward-looking collection of resources by unveiling a package of robust communication strategies, guidance, and tools that you can use to help older adults and their families better understand the life-sustaining care and services that aging services organizations provide.

We’re developing these resources through our Opening Doors to Aging Services initiative, which we launched in January to better understand and address public perceptions of our sector. Over many months, we conducted surveys and focus groups with stakeholders from our field and adjacent sectors, LeadingAge members, current and potential consumers of aging services and family members, and current and prospective staff. The illuminating findings from that research are now available for your review.

A few highlights:

• More than twice as many Americans view the aging services sector favorably (45%) as those who view it unfavorably (20%).
• The majority (68%) of people who have had direct experience with aging services say it was a positive experience, most often citing quality as the reason.
• Consumers hold our care professionals in high esteem, describing them as compassionate, dedicated, essential, and professional.

Notably, a third of Americans (35%) say they don’t know how they view our sector. This tells me that we have a great opportunity to introduce ourselves to these Americans—many of them women and those over age 45—and, in the process, to begin rewriting the unfairly negative narrative about aging services that was written by others, including the media, during the pandemic.

In my mind, this new narrative could take the mystery out of the work we do. It could focus, honestly and transparently, on the people we serve, the professionals who provide care in our settings, our high-quality services and supports, our dedication to mission, and the compassion and sense of community that older adults and their families can expect from our sector.

Let’s work together to bring this new narrative to the public arena. I encourage you to review the Opening Doors research findings that are now available and to take a long look at the communications resources we will release next month. Work with your team to determine how those resources fit your organization, your market, your community, and your brand. And then open your doors by telling your story to all who will listen.

Our research shows that when we talk about our field, public confidence increases. The more we can speak with a collective voice, the stronger our sector will become.