LOGAN’s vision is to serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in all their needs, including their right to work.
Our team's initial course of action for the project was to understand LOGAN's current operations, together with current laws and policies specific to the nonprofit sector that affect people with disabilities. Our inquiries, together with the on-site visit, helped us better understand the specific problem LOGAN faces. The main risk to LOGAN Industries’ current operations is the possibility that, like other states, Indiana will eliminate the 14c certificate. Like a subsidy or government welfare safety-net, certain policies and wage models have been used to employ underprivileged and disabled communities, as a way of providing some form of equitable support. We then conducted secondary research on similar organizations and connected with human resources professionals to gain further perspective and information. Using these findings, we developed various financial models to perform a sensitivity analysis on a new wage model for LOGAN's AIM program.
The problem was multi-faceted and had to be analyzed and attacked from various viewpoints. Through the course of our analysis we primarily looked at internal and external drivers that could help alleviate the problem. We analyzed the productivity aspects of LOGAN’s existing workforce and facility, their bargaining power with customers, and the potential exploring avenues for building relationships with other for-profit and nonprofit organizations to enable better outcomes for the existing AIM program. To support the outcomes of these analyses we also performed financial modeling to see the cost implications to LOGAN for various scenarios.
We recommend that LOGAN Industries improve productivity and efficiency by providing training for their clients. By identifying their strengths and interests, matching them to suitable roles, and offering vocational and skill-building training, LOGAN could offset labor costs through increased productivity. Additionally, identifying areas for improvement in business processes and reducing repetitive tasks can streamline operations and reduce costs. Furthermore, leveraging bargaining power with customers by negotiating better terms and prices, and building strong customer relationships can increase profitability and reduce the financial burden of shifting to a wage bill.
Parallely, LOGAN could make efforts to increase revenues by raising prices by 10-15% and targeting new corporate clients through partnerships and networking. Diversifying their revenue streams by contracting with the government or other businesses in new work areas and building relationships with community employers can create new opportunities without directly having clients on their wage expenses.
LOGAN Industries can also advocate for changes in state funding structures, such as increased funding for disability services or Medicaid, to improve their day programming rates. By working with other disability service providers to push for policy changes that benefit the industry as a whole, LOGAN can better serve their clients and improve their financial stability.