Update on ANCOR’s Center for Business Acumen

In this week’s update, we are focusing on the work of the Business Development Learning Collaborative.

The Business Development Learning Collaborative (BDLC) was initiated in 2018 with a very different focus than that of the Business Acumen Learning Collaborative overviewed last week.  This new group was brought together with Community Based Organizations (CBO’s) interested in preparing their businesses for operating in an integrated care environment.  The focus of the group was to test the application of the second module of the Toolkit, “Step 2: Plan”.

“Step 2: Plan”  invites CBO’s to use business intelligence to build their strategic plan.  It focuses on four general areas:  Analyze, Prioritize, Organize and Manage.  Within these focal areas there are tools and tips on how to best organize the information you know or discover through an environmental scan and SWOT analysis developed in the first module, “Step 1: Prepare”.  

This Collaborative is comprised of teams from three states: Illinois, Minnesota and Virginia.  While we identify them as teams, they differ from the Business Acumen teams in that they are all working on individual organization change plans.  These independent plans have differing goals based on their own environmental scan and SWOT analysis and their intersection with the organizations’ individual visions and missions.  It is the intention of “Step 2: Plan” to walk CBO’s through a decision making process, refinement of strategic goals, identification of resources and the development of operational plans for maximum impact.

The BDLC has been e-meeting weekly for two months to review their learning and plan development as the elements of this module build upon each other.  They have been pushed to think through the application of this process in a very condensed timeframe and are coming together in person from April 2^nd through April 4^th to discuss their progress and the applicability of the toolkit.

Next week we will review the outcomes, learning and “ah-ha moments” from the in-person meeting with both Learning Collaboratives.  Stay tuned for updates!