Aging in Community

Two Models of Developing an Aging-in-Place Village

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In my previous post, Creating Community as a Pathway to Developing an Aging-In-Place Village, I indicated that developing village help services within the context of an already-engaged village community, formed early in the planning process, is a better way to of knowing what is likely to be successful when the membership organization becomes operational than assumptions based on the experience of other villages.  Below I list 10 ways in which the Prescriptive approach (based on other villages experience) differs from the Community-Based approach (from our own identified needs).  I also suggest ways in which the Community-Based approach may be better (and more enjoyable) than the Prescriptive approach.

Note:  I could not find a way to present each point in a side-by-side table for direct comparison, but corresponding numbered paragraphs in each list present direct comparisons.

Prescriptive (from other Villages experience)

  1. Social community opportunities are conceptualized as services to be delivered, along with help services, at some future time when the village becomes operational.
  2. Community based on work; work gets done because people are committed to ideas and good things are promised for the future when the village ‘launches.’ (Less fun, higher drop-out rates.)
  3. Work planning process attracts a narrower range of people who are dedicated to doing the work of planning a village.
  4. Planning for help services in the village’s geographic area (in my Village: SW Portland and surrounding areas) is based on other villages’ experience and geographic area-wide needs assessment.
  5. Up-front asset mapping and needs assessment entire village geographic area for existing services/assets to help define what complimentary help services should be identified and/or developed.
  6. Marketing/selling help services to seniors in village geographic area that we hope they will want and dealing with ‘not ready yet’ to prepay for help services they may or may not need (Reluctance).
  7. Package of services offered to within the geographic area for a predetermined, fixed-cost, membership fee.
  8. Forecasting village income and expenses based on future sales of memberships to seniors (. . . and to a lesser extent based on projected utilization).
  9. Packages of help services offered to seniors at 1-3 levels of service.
  10. Estimated need for 1% of 10,000 seniors 65 or over in village geographic area to sign up for package of services for village be financially sustainable. (Higher risk, higher initial cost, have ‘not ready yet’ problem).

Community-Based (from our own identified needs)

  1. Social community created early in the village planning process, and then in the context of the social community, people can decide how they can contribute towards the work of planning help services.
  2. Community based on affiliation and connection; work gets done because people are committed to each other and because they are engaged and want to keep a good thing going and growing. (More fun, lower drop-out rates).
  3. Likely to attract a more diverse group of people to the village planning process and community activities, and creates more enthusiasm.
  4. Makes possible the planning for services that already have been identified as wanted by those in the village community. (Smaller needs assessment needed; less work).
  5. Might need to only assess village geographic area for the subset of existing services/assets that are wanted and important to the existing village community. Additional work later as new services are wanted by the community. (Less work and helps avoid collecting asset information that may become outdated).
  6. May reduce initial marketing efforts; the village community already has a sense of what help services they want. New help services can be offered gradually, perhaps based on the volume of unmet requests for help from the community.
  7. Possible to have a gradual shift from informal and individual help to funded and coordinated services during the planning process, based on what village community decides it wants. Likely to start with lower membership costs, and result in gradual increase in membership fees as needed help services are added for those who want them.
  8. Known by willingness of village community to pay for what it wants may make forecasting of income and expenses less uncertain. Pay as you go for what you know you want. May be possible to calculate cost / utilization ratios for contemplated services, reducing the cost uncertainty.
  9. May allow gradual expansion of services when the village community says it wants them into as many tiers as are manageable.
  10. Have a village community that is ready to fund the services it wants and needs. (Lower risk, lower initial cost, reduces ‘not ready yet’ problem).

One potential disadvantage of the Community-Based approach is that the demographics of the community already engaged in the planning process may not represent the demographics of the entire geographic area to be served by the village.  If that is so, diligent efforts to understand the help service and community needs of the diversity of people in the geographic area served by the village, and the addition of new services to meet their needs, should be taken.

John Dougherty,   Portland Oregon