‘Learn from History, or We’re Doomed to Repeat It’
It is Len Solfa’s responsibility as Chief Operating Officer to look at hard numbers, then react, and plan, accordingly. The hard numbers indicate that even though we’ve enjoyed modest membership growth for the first time in years, we must look at doing some things very differently if we’re going to keep our promises to the kids and seniors under our care.
By KURT WEHRMEISTER
Chief Operating Officer Leonard J. Solfa Jr.
> Before Leonard Solfa earned his law degree from Chicago’s DePaul University, his first bachelor’s degree was in history. So it was natural that he would give more than passing attention, in his address to Saturday’s Joint General Session, entitled “A New Direction,” to the history of once-powerful companies and organizations, both nonprofit and for-profit, which now exist only in history books. There are “graveyards,” he said, “filled by companies that failed to heed history and re-direct their focus by adapting . . . and remember, failure is not isolated to the for-profit business world.” He paraphrased thusly a classic quote of philosopher George Santayana:
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
In contrast, Solfa also cited recent examples of companies that were badly stagnating and losing market share--but recognized the need for new direction in time: Chrysler Corp. in the early 1980s under Lee Iacocca; Apple Inc. once Steve Jobs was brought back as CEO in 1997; and most recently, the re-energized McDonald’s Corp.
Solfa reviewed the most recent half-century of Moose history--citing our steady membership increases throughout the 1960s and ’70s, then a long period at a crest of over 1 million in the Loyal Order of Moose and nearly 500,000 in the Women of the Moose. We peaked at more than 1.8 million men and women in 1991, then slowly but steadily declined every year for 15 years--until a sharp drop in 2006 with the premature introduction of Centralized Dues; then this year, an across-the-board increase for the first time since ’91.
While membership has declined, however, Solfa noted, the dollars necessary to keep our commitments to children and teens at Mooseheart Child City & School in Illinois, and to seniors at the Moosehaven retirement community in Florida, have only increased -- to $20 million and $12 million annually, respectively. Operating both Mooseheart and Moosehaven, under their current scenario, demands annual return on Moose International’s investments of 8 to 12%--and in years in which equity markets don’t perform that well, we must dip into principal to make up the difference--an unhealthy way to do business.
“Where do we proceed from here?” Solfa asked rhetorically. “Are we prepared to accept challenge that dictates change?”
While Moose Centers must change to become more welcoming to existing members and attractive to potential members, Solfa said that organization-wide, our patterns of philanthropy must also change. While we have been proud of our fraternity’s record in Community Service, he said, a tough financial forecast may demand that we concentrate on “an old maxim: Charity begins at home.” Mooseheart and Moosehaven, he said, “are that charity” -- through donations to Moose Charities.
And, he said, we must consider significant changes to the operating model of Moosehaven. For the Florida campus’s first 20 years it was operated essentially as a communal farm and was largely self-supporting--but since the late 1940s it has been operated strictly as a retirement community on the basis of an entering member turning over his or her assets.
“The asset turnover concept is NOT one that we will abandon for our current members,” Solfa emphasized. But: “We cannot continue to operate solely on the asset-transfer concept if we are to make Moosehaven an independent entity capable of survival . . . Moosehaven can generate its own income and must do so . . . We will not break our established trust with our current membership but we will look to create fee-based housing that will allow us to operate in a financially stable and sensible way in the future.” (For more detail of Executive Director John Capes’ address, click here.)
“Our charge is to change the face of our organization while not breaking trust without our history, our members,” Solfa said. “Your charge is to act on your instincts, your cares, your concerns: Does Mooseheart matter to you today: Can we all be counted to ‘Gimme 5’--10 cents a day, $36.50 a year?. . .Believe in us, our missions; believe in a New Direction--and you will begin the dream of tomorrow today!”
