Pine Street Inn, hopeFound Announce Merger

Boston-based Homeless Service Agencies Combine to Offer Better-Coordinated Services to Homeless Men and Women

(Boston–January 30, 2012)  Pine Street Inn and hopeFound, two top organizations dedicated to ending homelessness in Boston, today announced that their boards have voted to formally merge the two organizations, under the name and management of Pine Street Inn.

“By merging Pine Street Inn and hopeFound into one organization to deliver a comprehensive and coordinated range of services, we will better support Boston’s homeless men and women, accelerating their transition from the streets and emergency shelter into permanent housing,” said Corinne Ferguson, board chair of Pine Street Inn.

Lyndia Downie will serve as president and executive director of the merged entity. Mary Nee, executive director of hopeFound, will step down from her position and will serve as a consultant with Pine Street Inn during the transition. The merger is expected to be complete in March 2012.

The two organizations began informal discussions about the merger in late 2010 when Nee raised the possibility with Downie that a combined entity could be more effective in achieving mutual goals, especially around housing placement for hopeFound clients.

Strategic analysis conducted by hopeFound in 2010 suggested that the best long-term course of action for carrying out its mission would be a merger. Pine Street Inn was seen as a great fit because both organizations shared similar missions and offered many complementary services and strengths. After a thorough due diligence process, the boards of directors of both organizations recently voted to merge.

“We decided to merge because hopeFound’s mission, the focus of board discussions for many years, requires us to keep innovating to help end homelessness, and we realized the best new idea this time around was to partner with Pine Street,” said Stephen Skinner, board president of hopeFound.

At a time of limited resources, this alignment is expected to manage resources more efficiently and to make a bigger impact on the problem of homelessness in Boston – the ultimate goal of both organizations separately and combined.

“As two of Boston’s leading agencies providing services to our city’s most vulnerable residents, I applaud Pine Street Inn and hopeFound for their decision to merge. Now homeless men and women in Boston will have better access to the services they need to get off the streets, out of shelter and into permanent housing, bringing us one step closer to ending homelessness here in Boston,” said Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

The merger discussions were advanced with financial support from the Catalyst Fund, a unique five-year fund launched in September 2010, created through a partnership of The Boston Foundation, Boston LISC, The Hyams Foundation, The Kresge Foundation and United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley, and managed by Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF). The Catalyst Fund is a source of financial and technical advisory support as a catalyst for promising voluntary collaborative ventures and mergers among nonprofit organizations.

“The Pine Street Inn and hopeFound combination is a shining example of how, with the right approach and support, two high performing and financially strong nonprofit organizations can use strategic collaborations and mergers to respond to a changing economic landscape in which new, innovative and more cost-effective ways of doing business are essential for achieving continued, meaningful improvements in the lives of individuals, families and communities of need,” said Bill Pinakiewicz, Director of the New England Program at the Nonprofit Finance Fund.  “The Catalyst Fund is proud to have been a supporting partner in this bold and thoughtful action by both organizations and their Boards that significantly advances Boston’s dialogue about the community benefits of nonprofit collaborations and mergers.” 

In the coming months Pine Street Inn will carefully assess the best way to coordinate the delivery of services and to maximize the strengths of each organization to deliver all the services homeless men and women need to move toward permanent housing, stability and their highest level of self-sufficiency. The combined organization will offer a range of services, including permanent housing, emergency shelter, street outreach, substance abuse treatment, and job training and placement.

Read article in The Boston Globe

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CONTACT:
Barbara Trevisan
617.892.9174
617.460.3022 (cell)