Imagine, a consolidation with zero job losses. It’s going to happen and will be marked with a ceremony Friday as Hawaii’s Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies unite under one statewide organizational umbrella.
The unification ceremony for Big Brothers Big Sisters Hawaii, to take place on Oahu, will include chief operating officers from each island, a proclamation from Gov. Neil Abercrombie and other invited guests.
"We’ve talked about this for at least a decade," said CEO Dennis Brown, who has been involved with the organization for 14 years, but actually has longer ties to the agency as he was the first Hawaii "little" to be matched with a "big" nearly 50 years ago.
Bigs are volunteer big brothers or sisters who agree to mentor children ages 6 to 18.
The mentoring can be educational, recreational, talk-story time or a combination thereof. The goal is to foster relationships that have a lifelong positive impact on the kids.
Serving "littles" in Hawaii since 1963, staffers and board members of the various regional offices will be one big happy family in time for the 50th anniversary of Big Brothers Big Sisters in the islands.
The economy likely was more pressing a driving factor for unification than just the idea of unification itself; however, the concept does predate the downturn.
"Even before the recession … our national organization has encouraged states to think about ways to pull in, especially smaller agencies, in rural areas," Brown said. "In Hawaii, our neighbor islands qualify as rural and it’s been so tough for them to operate independently, given the limited population base, resources and corporate support."
There are presently 350 Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies in various states, where there used to be 500. The once-active Hawaii island office was among those that closed, for instance.
Happily, a new Hawaii island office opened earlier this year and the Kauai office opened about five years ago. Big Brothers of Maui was established in 1975 and by March 1976, after a pilot program, the organization became Big Brothers Big Sisters of Maui, a name it will retain.
"As time’s gone on, there’s been both a sensibility and a need to look to how we can consolidate, and benefit from having a single statewide back office," Brown said.
Attaining economies of scale will help with cost savings, so that each island’s office will not need its own human resources, accounting and other support services.
No Big Brothers Big Sisters jobs are being cut.
"We were … so small that we could not have afforded to eliminate positions," Brown said. The Maui staff is "down to about five," while there are three staff members on Kauai and 18 in Honolulu. Hawaii island has just one part-time person at the moment and plans are in the works to add a Kona operation.
As for governance and fiduciary responsibility, a new, statewide board of directors will have from 15 to 20 members with neighbor island representation, while regional resource boards will be established for neighbor island operations.
"Their primary responsibilities will be fundraising, volunteer recruitment, marketing and publicity," Brown said.
An immediate task to complete before the end of the year is to come up with "good charters, so each island board will be meaningful and have a say."
"We really want to move our organization from success to significance, and having a really great model of one-to-one mentoring of children and youth," Brown said. "We served 600 kids on Kauai and Oahu last year and we’re hoping to get into the thousands with this expansion."
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On the Net:
» www.bigshonolulu.org
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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com, or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
