The Rotary Club of Boise Sunrise has supported Hope House in Marsing, Idaho for over 20 years. HH is a residential school that focuses on children from failed adoptions. This organization was run by a single founder for over 50 years and in 2024, it became clear that a succession plan was a critical need.
In addition to this plan to replace an aging founder, there were numerous urgent needs for bringing best practices to this non-profit in the form of an effective board, sustainable fundraising and accounting, and documented policies and procedures. This was made significantly more complicated by the founder rebuffing numerous attempts to start this process. Trust was the first thing that had to be established here and that was a team process defined by patience and gentle persistence. Without Donna Lee’s trust in this team, we were never going to make any progress here and Rotary’s focus on Service Above Self and our track record of tangible support of Hope House played a major role here. Rotary and its reputation combined with a faith based authentic dialogue with IP4G enabled this critical project to finally get out of the starting blocks.
Boise Sunrise partnered with Idaho Partners for Good (IP4G) to address this challenging set of goals. It was clear to all involved that this would take 1-2 years and that we had to earn the trust of this founder, who held almost all the institutional knowledge as well as the vision for what she hoped HH would be going forward. In the end, a phased process was used so that achievable and sequential goals could be identified and met before moving to the next phase. Costs were well controlled along the way with members of Boise Sunrise offering assistance and organizational excellence pro-bono.
Funding came from Boise Sunrise’s primary annual fundraiser, Lobsterfest. Project management came from IP4G. One of the experts atIP4G agreed to become the new executive director at HH for at least 3 years. Thus, excellent continuity and detailed follow-up to ensure smooth implementation of these carefully crafted plans was achieved with this critical position now filled on the Hope House staff.
This project took a lot of authentic communication and persistence to succeed. Earning the trust of the founder was a challenge followed by populating the new board with motivated and trained individuals. We believe that the phased approach was unique and a lot of learning took place along the way. What was delivered was a sustainable management model that was verified by HH comfortably passing an audit by Idaho State Health and Welfare. The lessons learned are now being applied by IP4G in their consultation work with dozens of other nonprofits in Idaho.
Rotary brought resources (funding from generous donors!) and management expertise to this project. Candid conversations with Hope House and Idaho Partners for Good enabled us to invent an approach that has been effective and should deliver an organizational model at Hope House that we believe is sustainable and will be on solid footing for a long time.
At Boise Sunrise, our motto is that “we seek to leave it better than we found it”. When we combine that with Rotary’s motto of Service Above Self, exciting success stories like the one at Hope House can result. We are thrilled that this worked out so well and we are grateful for the excellent partnerships the club enjoys that truly delivered on a quietly urgent need. This is one shining example of how we all benefit from living a life of purpose and applying that desire to a real-world problem that needed our attention. Thank you to all involved!
Posted by John Lodal
