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ABSTRACT
The Restore Ministries case presents the story of a social entrepreneur, Scott Reall, who successfully created Restore, a behavioral healthcare venture, within the YMCA. Despite the initial collaborative success, Restore was at a crossroad. Growth following a "ministry mindset," a mindset in which the goal was to meet everyone 's needs regardless of their ability to pay, had produced an inconsistent fee structure, confusion among stakeholders, and branding questions. It also created concerns over business model scalability and sustainability. A key question was whether Restore and the Y were adequately prepared to undertake Reaall's vision to the next stage of growth?
Keywords: Social entrepreneurship, opportunity, growth, sustainability, business model
INTRODUCTION
Scott Reall, Director of Restore Ministries, sat alone in the somewhat dimly lit, cavernous community room of the Green Hills YMCA Youth Center in Nashville, Tennessee. The building was relatively empty this early hour in the morning. Projected onto the empty white wall was the current version of a strategic plan that was being prepared for the board of Restore Ministries (Restore), a sponsored program of the YMCA of Middle Tennessee, a member organization of the national YMCA. Reall was joined a few moments later by Rebecca and Charity who served as Head Counselor and Head of Group respectively, and by Victor Enzork, an outside management consultant engaged to guide the Restore team in their strategic planning. Reall approached Enzork eight months earlier and was frustrated by the fact that Restore had previously commissioned three previous strategic plans for growth and saw no benefit from any. Both agreed that the previous attempts lacked clear definition with respect to goal alignment between Restore and the YMCA, and failed to develop an actionable growth plan that Restore's staff could understand and support.
Over the last eight months, Reall worked closely with his program team, senior managers of the Greenhills YMCA, and key executive staff of the corporate YMCA of Middle Tennessee. Under Enzork's guidance, the goal was to develop a strategic plan that would capture Read's vision of hope and healing for those "whose aches and longings run much deeper than the physical" (Newman, 2008). He felt strongly that the steps which helped him overcome his own spiritual and emotional struggles would also...