Over the past 12 years, Bay Aging, a Gloucester-based nonprofit organization that provides services for seniors and other vulnerable populations, has worked to develop income sources that don’t rely on government grants and private contributions.
It has been so successful with its business model approach that its revenues have increased from around $12 million in 2015 to a projected $64 million or so in 2025, with 81 percent of its total budget for 2025 coming from contract work rather than grants and contributions, which have remained essentially flat over that time.
“We work for a living,” said Bay Aging’s CEO Kathy Vesley proudly.
Vesley, who has been at the helm of Bay Aging throughout this economic transition, said the additional money has allowed the organization to make up the difference in programs whose funding from state, federal and local grants and contributions regularly falls short of the growing need in a 10-county region that contains four of the five oldest counties in...