Hope Services is a nonprofit that cares about profit.

Historically, a key business of Hope Services has been its Salvage operation.  Hope collects secondhand goods from residences and then resells them to a national used goods retailer.  However, by 2011, the Salvage operation was becoming less profitable by the year and was actually beginning to lose money.

Hope called on CWR for help.  We provided a comprehensive strategic marketing analysis to answer critical questions such as:

• Why was the operation losing money?
• What were the influential trends in the overall salvage market?
• What was the competition in the market?
• How should Hope respond, both in the short term and long term?

Guided by the CWR report, Hope implemented a number of changes.  One of the most important steps Hope management took was to renegotiate its agreement with the national retailer buying the collected goods.  The Hope CEO, John Christensen, pointed explicitly to our findings to document his case that current market realities required better financial terms for Hope.  The retailer was forced to concede.

Two years after CWR's work, Hope reported that the changes had resulted in a $1.2M positive swing in revenue.  More disabled individuals are getting served -- and for Hope and CWR, that is our bottom line.