Your Center’s Sustainability Journey

community call

Nov 20

On this recent Community Call, Cathy Stackpole from Ferry Beach Retreat and Conference Center in Maine and Mohan Aguirre from Mount Madonna Center in California co-facilitated a conversation about RCC’s recent Sustainability Study. This study was conducted by a Cal Poly University student team of industrial engineers and the resulting Sustainability Toolkit is one step in a larger movement toward sustainable retreat center business and program models.

View the full meeting video by clicking the image above.

Or scroll down for takeaways from the conversation.

Sustainability Toolkit

Review and download the PDF

Toolkit Practical Applications

The sustainability study didn’t identify a universal solution for the wide variety of financial challenges faced by retreat centers everywhere.

Deferred maintenance - the toolkit did not address deferred maintenance in detail. There’s an opportunity here to talk about different use cases for different buildings, depending on the type of maintenance they require. The solutions require more complex financial analysis.
The Calculator Tool - The spreadsheet tool helps, but it doesn’t get at all the nuances.
Seasonality - For some centers, the shift to year-round programming is beneficial, but the weather is a challenge. Buildings need to be winterized, etc. Many centers simply can’t be at full capacity in the winter season.
Volunteers - The study suggested engaging more volunteers to cut costs, but many centers have worked over recent years to transition away from volunteers to a paid staffing model. Recent cultural and economic shifts mean that the time and resources necessary to volunteer are less accessible to more people. Equity concerns have also motivated centers to fairly compensate labor.
- Labor regulations in areas with a high cost of living often require centers to have paid staff.
Climate risks - centers in different geographical locations are prone to different levels of risk, requiring different levels of preparedness (insurance, buildings, energy, water, power). These variables were not taken into consideration in the study.

Community Discussion

Participant discussion unpacked areas of the study that could benefit from more complex analysis and more nuanced solutions.

Values-aligned programming - To maintain nonprofit status, centers are seeking to find a balance between unrelated business income and mission-related income. This percentage might be different for each center, but it is very important to categorize these revenues appropriately.
- How does your center determine a values-aligned retreat versus a rental/out-of-mission event? Who makes that decision? How? Who’s the sponsor?
- Ask facilitators to check themselves against the center’s mission; e.g.: Is your program spiritual, religious, educational?
- Onsite bookstore - do the products on the shelves reflect the services/mission of the center?
Incorporating as a for-profit - For those who have significant land assets, there may be a need to incorporate as a for-profit to keep up with the care of the land.
Incorporating as a B-Corp - Some centers are exploring what it means to incorporate as a B-Corp.
Pay attention to the trade-offs - It can take as much effort to do a one-day group as a 3-4 day retreat and the returns are terrible.
Find mission-aligned companies to work with - Many companies and industries are changing—valuing compassion, contemplation, nature, and giving their employees space to rest. Working with these companies may open more opportunities for the future.
Organizational transformation - As community needs change and retreat centers respond to a changing market, we need to ask what is important to conserve and pass on from our existing models of retreat business.
- Develop a multi-year financial projection to show the trajectory our centers expect to go in. This builds confidence and helps with buy-in.
- To be effective and sustain what is dear to us, we have to work together.