United for women's lives
WELCOME TO the wedding of two Boston nonprofit agencies, where the sum of one plus one is meant to equal one -- but a better, stronger one. As they announced last week, Crittenton, a human service organization, and the Women's Union, which provides services and advocacy, intend to merge on July 1.
It's the marriage of a social worker and a data-driven preacher that could affect people, policies, and other nonprofit agencies.
Both organizations are old-timers. In 1824 Crittenton was founded as the Boston Female Moral Reform Society to help ''fallen girls" who were pregnant but not married. Today Crittenton houses homeless women and children, and provides a range of other services.
Dr. Harriet Clisby founded the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in 1877 to help poor and middle-class women, including immigrants. Today the Union's strength is in research and advocacy, which have relentlessly shown the huge gap between what poor people earn and how much it costs to live self-sufficiently in Massachusetts.
The larger issue: How many human service agencies does Boston need? The city is full of agencies that offer life-changing help. But there are service duplications and fights over funding. Partnerships or mergers could help agencies to focus on their strengths. In this case, both Crittenton and the Women's Union were led by women who had decided to step down, making it easier to join forces.
Beth Babcock, who will become CEO of the new Crittenton Women's Union, says the organization will build more ''effective and complete ladders" to help people climb out of poverty. Programs should grow, and serving more people will generate more information. Babcock wants to close the widening gap between rich and poor, a goal of these organizations since they were founded. It's a matter of helping people shed despair and of providing the economy with energized workers.
One plan is to track clients' progress. Armed with this data, the union can test new ways to help. And it can help both funders and policy makers set their agendas.
The work of blending staff and board members is underway. The next step is to turn the rich inheritance of two venerable organizations into a single source of wealth.
