Using a Background in Finance to Help Older Americans

In a difficult economy where many charities are dropping services and laying off workers, Volunteers of America is about to expand. Last month the 113-year-old human-services group announced the appointment of Rosemarie A. Rae to a new position, executive vice president for strategy. She will oversee a new series of programs to help people continue to live in their own homes as they grow older. The goal is to develop a supportive network of friends and neighbors who can help people manage on their own.

“I am astonished by how many older Americans are truly alone,” says Ms. Rae, who is 47. “If we can keep this group together, I really believe aging is going to be more enjoyable and rewarding for them.”

Ms. Rae is in a position to know if Volunteers of America can afford to take on the challenge: Until December, she was the group’s chief financial officer. “We have a healthy balance sheet, and I’m proud of that,” she says. The charity will finance the program in part with fees for its services as well as with government and foundation grants. Ms. Rae will be paid $200,000 in her new position.

The charity, based in Alexandria, Va., received 300 résumés for the new position but turned instead to Ms. Rae, who joined the organization in 2006. In addition to her duties as chief financial officer, she also oversaw the human-resources, technology, and purchasing divisions, and was responsible for supporting the group’s 38 affiliates nationwide.

“She knows the organization, which is a big asset in a federated organization with local chapters to have those relationships already built,” says Charles W. Gould, president of Volunteers of America. “She is quick, she gets solutions, she knows what it’s supposed to look like, and she is nimble enough to duck and weave as the environment throws new blows.”

Volunteers of America has a $900-million annual budget and a history of helping the elderly, among other groups, which also include people with mental illnesses and people with developmental disabilities. The charity provides nursing care, runs assisted-living facilities, and provides daytime care for physically impaired older adults.

Its track record of offering services to the elderly will make it easier for the group to help its affiliates put the new program in place, says Ms. Rae. The focus on the elderly was partly driven by increased needs the group observed in its other programs, such as those that serve homeless people and veterans. In addition, state budgets are strapped and can no longer afford to deliver care in the traditional venues of assisted-living or skilled-nursing facilities, she says.

The charity’s new effort, says Ms. Rae, “has a simple goal: to help those who are aging remain in their homes regardless of income and regardless how frail.”

To that end, in the next decade Volunteers of America hopes to foster the development of 160 settings where residents will help take care of one another. They would do so in part through a volunteer-service bank, swapping chores such as watering plants and sorting mail.

The charity will focus on apartment buildings where large numbers of needy or middle-income older people live and ask them to pay a monthly fee for services, including maintaining the volunteer bank and medical care. The fee would vary depending on a person’s financial condition.

Volunteers of America also plans to open 30 centers that will serve the medical, social, and nutritional needs of people eligible for Medicaid and Medicare. Local governments would pay the charity a set fee for its comprehensive services. The goal is to keep people as healthy as possible at home, while bringing them to the centers for as many days per week as they choose, says Ms. Rae.

While the charity has no plans to abandon the host of other services it provides, Ms. Rae says the need has “never been greater” for programs focused on the elderly. “The states are going to have to start changing their thinking on how they are going to take care of the age wave that is coming,” she says. “We want to be in place when that starts to happen.”

In an interview, Ms. Rae discussed her new position.

Why did you take this job?

How many people get a chance to think about and be a part of groups of aging experts who are thinking outside the box and trying to come up with innovative solutions? It’s about choice. It’s respecting seniors’ choice. I could tell you a thousand stories about the loss of sense of self when you get older because people make choices for you. You really know what is best for yourself. It’s about not treating people who are aging as objects but rather as individuals.

Do your beliefs in this model come from personal experience?

I have a grandmother who is 98, suffers from dementia, and lives in a skilled-nursing facility. It would be less depressing if she were in her own home and if she wants to have a cocktail at 5:30, she can. Right now she doesn’t have that right where she is, because she’s in an institutional setting.

What will be the biggest challenge?

Many people expect me to say funding, but I don’t believe that. It’s our time frame. We have the baby boomers, who are aging rapidly, and we want to address that need. We are trying to engage older Americans at a point earlier than when they have to make a decision about where to go for care, such as when they fall and break their hip.

Why aren’t you worried about money?

We are going to increase our fund raising by looking for foundation partners and creating sliding-scale, fee-for-service models. VOA has not had much support from foundations in the past, so that is a new avenue for us. Also, states can no longer afford to deliver care for seniors in the traditional way of assisted-living or skilled-nursing facilities, so they will be looking at homeand community-based services, which is what we are planning to offer.

Aren’t other nonprofit groups doing similar work?

Lots of them are doing great work but may lack a national footprint. We are hoping to take this to scale so it’s meaningful for our country, the way smaller organizations may not be able to. Also, there are a lot of smaller nonprofit health groups that are struggling. We are looking at the idea of merging and consolidating with some of them if they fit into our strategy.

Why does nonprofit work appeal to you?

It’s my mom’s fault. She’s been a psychiatric nurse for 35 years and has come home with a broken ankle, stitches and bruises, all from interacting with her patients, but keeps going back. She passionately believes her service to her patients makes a difference in the world. My dad is a retired Navy veteran. I never recalled a time when my parents asked me how much I made. It was, rather, tell me something good you did for the world.