Business Leaders: Perkins School Evolves With Area's Needs | Conroy remains committed to running nonprofit like a business
Twenty-one years ago Dr. Charles Conroy brought business skills to the nonprofit Doctor Franklin Perkins School, determined to show that good fiscal management, short-term and long-term planning and proper organization shouldn’t be limited to for-profit companies.
It was actually his management, fiscal and fundraising skills that helped him beat out 96 other candidates for the job, including five other finalists.
“The board wanted a combination of someone with management experience in special education. I had been a development director and at that time the school had no fundraising activity,” said Conroy, this year’s Nonprofit Business Leader of the Year.
Obviously, the board made the right choice.
When he joined the school, which focuses on teaching mentally ill children, it had a $2 million budget. In 2008, its budget reached $20 million.
“Our focus here is kids and our mission is serving them, but we can’t go broke in the process,” Conroy said.
Education Evolution
The focus of the school has changed over time from serving a population of developmentally delayed children and adults to serving a range of mentally ill children. The broadening of the school’s focus also led to services for children and adults without mental health issues.
Since his arrival, with the backing and help of the school’s board of directors and the staff, 11 buildings have gone up at the Lancaster campus. The number of students has also climbed, increasing from 34 children to 150, split almost evenly between day and residential children. The staff has grown as well from 140 to about 330.
“We had to diversify and we had to pursue programs beyond the 34 children who were all residential,” Conroy said. “We’ve created a mental health clinic, a summer camp for inner city kids, a large daycare program and a horse-riding program.”
One local educator who has worked with him for years said that the Doctor Franklin Perkins School has changed under his leadership.
“He has transformed that place into a model of how private schools can operate and he has his pulse on the needs of area school districts,” said Elaine Francis, Fitchburg State College’s dean of education. “He is up on all the latest research and he cares for the children deeply.”
As part of that transformation Conroy used another business tool — focus groups — and applied it to managing the school. “We developed focus groups from the community to hear what it was the community needed before we started anything new,” Conroy said.
That process led to the opening a year ago of a daycare center that serves average children, which has been very successful. It now has 55 participants and it is certified for 65, he said.
Last summer brought the school’s first summer camp for children from Fitchburg, which was also successful, he said.
Of course every new program can’t be a blockbuster. The school opened a daycare for the elderly, which it ended up closing five years later. “It’s the only program we’ve opened that hasn’t been a raving success,” he said. A combination of fewer participants and changes in Medicare reimbursements led the school to end the program.
Operating in a smaller community has also allowed Conroy to develop relationships with all types of people, including many business people. “I think it’s great that I’m exposed to all kinds of processes and I can take those back to the school and use them successfully,” he said.
Conroy looked to the community for guidance because its members would know what was needed, but also because knowing the viewpoint of the wider community outside the walls is important for any organization.
“Good, honest criticism helps you better monitor you programs and reshape them if necessary,” Conrad said.
Listening to criticism from parents is also important for such a school, particularly when they feel disenfranchised and without rights.
“The parental perspective is very important. When parents don’t feel they are being heard, they feel they are at a big disadvantage. They know their kid and should be allowed to disagree,” Conroy said.
Taking It Home
And he can empathize. He has two grown daughters, and for the last six years he has been a foster father to Justin, who is now 15. Justin graduated from the Perkins School and is now a student at Wachusett Regional High School and still lives with the Conroys. While his daughters helped him understand parenting in general, it was Justin and his brothers who taught Conroy that all the good intentions in the world couldn’t necessarily change reality.
He took in the three brothers, but it was only a matter of months before it became clear that the situation wasn’t making things better for any of the boys. “It was chaos,” Conroy said. Justin remained with him, while one brother is now in a foster home with a Perkins School employee and the other is in a group home in Waltham for older children.
“I think they’re closer now than they ever were. My goal was to keep them together and I think we’ve been successful because they see each other all the time,” he said.
He has also used his ability to help his own organization find its place in the larger community as a board member of community organizations, like Clinton Hospital, and more recently the hospital’s foundation.
“He has great insight with interpersonal relationships and any time I call him he has great insights,” said Cathleen Davilli, Clinton Hospital’s development director.
The hospital needs to be aware of its role in the community, she said, and Conroy is sensitive to the role a health care organization plays in an area.
Managing a school full of teachers and other staffers and serving as a board director for numerous organizations has not prevented Conroy from keeping his hand in teaching over the last two decades. He is an adjunct professor at Fitchburg State College. He enjoys teaching several classes a year and now has a built-in community of area educators he can discuss programs with because many have been his students over the years.
“He puts it all together as an educator. We asked him to join our curriculum committee because he so much to offer,” said FSC’s Francis.
He has also been an adjunct professor at Clark University and was part of a focus group the university formed to develop a master’s of public administration, said Alice Smith, director of Clark’s master’s of public administration program.
“He attended quite religiously and he was very vested in making sure we developed the best executive program we could have,” she said.
“I can’t think of anybody better to help leaders become visionaries, develop their goals and meet them,” said FSC’s Francis. “It’s evident in everything he does. Truly, his great concern is always about the children and he never loses sight of that as an administrator.”
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