Summer Holiday for People with Disabilities
SWALLOW'S PALACE
Organizational Vision
Citizen Base Strategy
How It's Working
Lessons Learned
Peter Orban founded Swallow’s Palace to serve as a year-round vacation resort for people with disabilities. The grounds are fully equipped with facilities and services to meet the special needs required by the disabled. Orban, a teacher of special-needs students, developed the idea for Swallow’s Palace following a desire, to take his special-needs students on a summer holiday. However, Orban could not locate a facility capable of accommodating the needs of his students; Orban realized that appropriate vacation facilities simply did not exist. Now, more than 1,400 people with disabilities spend their holidays in at Swallow’s Palace every year.
Identify Partners’ Resources and Link Them to Mutual Interests
Orban recognized the need to identify partners with a mutual interest in establishing and maintaining a vacation resort for people with disabilities. After securing seed money from a local philanthropist, Orban approached doctors and health care experts who shared an interest in creating such a facility. His plan was to develop a mutually beneficial partnership with these stakeholders by sharing the cost of building and subsequent facility maintenance over a ten-year period. Orban believed that mutual contribution would create shared responsibility for the success of the project and also shared benefits from resulting successes. The strategy was designed much like a vacation resort time-share. In this case, partners would purchase a two-week time period for each of the next ten years to bring their individual patients/clients to the resort.
Throughout the process of seeking and engaging potential partners, Orban worked to ensure sustainability of his resources. He strove to improve his professionalism so that donors and investors would view this endeavor as a business and him as a professional entrepreneur. In presenting the project idea to potential partners, Orban emphasized his plan to carefully shepherd resources and the impact those cost savings would have on his strategic vision to create long-term partnerships. Since sustainability was critical, he had to demonstrate not only where the resource would come from, but also how he would effectively utilize it.
Orban recognized that his strategy would have to be one of organic development. “From the start,” he says, “you find yourself in a new situation. The problem is easy to see, but not the solution. So you take the first step, and then you must sit back and evaluate. Then you decide on the next step. Often it is very intuitive, and not necessarily planned. But you take these steps, and when it is all over, you look back at how and why it happened. Then you create rules and laws that are adaptable for others."
Demonstrate Competence with a Winning Recipe for Success
Since Orban began with nothing but a great idea, and knowing he had to earn the trust of his potential collaborators, he created a list of questions and concerns he believed might anticipate theirs. He then did his research and provided knowledgeable answers and solutions to these questions. Orban built his case for Swallow’s Palace by identifying key principles and strategies he believed would address and satisfy investor needs. Orban used the following questions as a guideline to increase his chances of gaining commitment from potential partners:
1) What aspects of the project proposal would invoke emotional attachment to the idea?
Establishing what is called the emotional need is a key question every entrepreneur needs to answer in order to sell the value of his or her solution. In this instance, the emotional hook was the timeshare concept. Orban understood that everyone wanted to “own” something. Participation in the timeshare would give them this opportunity and create both literal and emotional buy-in.
2) How could he demonstrate to financial investors that his plan was the most cost-effective approach?
To build confidence, Orban provided verifiable proof that mutual participation was the best and most logical way to build such a center. He also presented his investor/partners with a complete package of operations succinctly laid out in a business plan.
3) Why would another organization working with the disabled participate in the timeshare?
In order to sustain the momentum critical for success, Orban knew that he had to develop the rationale for mutual self-interest. Orban presented the benefits of cost sharing among investors to construct the Swallow’s Palace facilities, and the savings it would provide over trying to solve the issue separately.
Secure Support and Resources Simultaneously
Orban designed the agreement signed by partners to reflect his “timeshare model”. In return, funding parties paid reduced costs for use of the facilities during these weeks.
Since not all of the interested partner organizations were able to commit funds immediately, Orban looked at alternative means of contribution and created a fundraising plan for them. The original 20 signatory organizations joined their fundraising together. Since funders often have a specific funding interest, such as mental disabilities or a specific disabling disease, there was a high probability that one of the 20 organizations would be able to provide the expertise that would satisfy the need of that donor. Funders also were attracted by the timesharing principle. It showed that Orban had created a long-term committed and sustainable model to keep Swallow’s Palace running for years into the future.
Orban’s plan and planning was effective. He attracted partner organizations with a vested interest, pooled their resources, and created Swallow’s Palace – a task that neither he nor any of his partners would have been able to accomplish alone.
- Orban engaged 25 partners to fund the project, generating the first 10 years of funding
- Swallow’s Palace hosts more than 1400 people with disabilities per year for a two-week vacation
- Orban initiated a new precedent in Hungarian civil society for long-term funding
- Be prepared. When generating resources, anticipate questions from a diverse audience and prepare potential responses.
- Be aware of the needs of others. Recognize the needs and self-interests of collaborators and use them as a starting point before offering a top-down solution.
- Cater to your audience. Request resources and/or funding appropriate to potential investors. Survey potential investors for reasonable resources and work with them to achieve a mutually beneficial relationship. Expand network of funding sources.
- Find compatible partners. Engaging partners with a similar social mission can increase sustainability and reduce dependence on a single source of funds.