With cuts being made in state and municipal budgets and the prospect of conditions getting worse, the mantra has been to regionalize services and generate savings through consolidations.

Yet that is not how the Warwick non-profit community is looking to meet growing social service needs while they are tightening their fiscal belts and trimming costs wherever possible. Their idea is a mutual aid agreement among the various Warwick non-profit agencies.

“This is not about acquisitions and mergers,” says Jeanne Gattegno, President and CEO of Westbay Community Action.

Gattegno chairs a group of Warwick non-profits that, in the past year, have come to be known as “The Warwick 13.” At their recent meeting last Tuesday, directors and board members from each agency discussed how they could work together to serve the community and cuts costs at the same time.

Arlene McNulty, President and CEO of the Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership, compared each of the agencies to a house with a door. To gain assistance, people need to go from one house to the next. The aim of the 13 is to reduce the number of doors. For example, when a family is seeking child assistance, they become aware of CHILD Inc., the Boys and Girls Clubs of Warwick, Kent County YMCA and the Westbay Children’s Center through one door instead of many.

The intent is to streamline the application process, so people don’t have to fill out similar forms at multiple agencies. Clients are also pointed to services and agencies they may not know about. Gattegno sees the 13 as strengthening the human services safety net.

“Our mission is to ensure that people in need get the services they need,” she said.

Further, the objective of the 13 is also, “to design ways to get services to people while figuring out ways [for agencies] to stay alive.”

Staying alive is critical.

Like all levels of governments, non-profits are experiencing declining revenues when grants and donations are reduced or cut. Meanwhile, the needs are growing. People are losing jobs, exhausting their savings and can’t afford food, mortgage payments or rent.

Gattegno said the group “is looking at joint ventures around backroom operations.”

“We all buy copy paper,” she says to illustrate how the 13 will seek savings through consolidation. Technology and transportation are other areas Gattegno imagines the 13 can benefit from.

The 13 is an outgrowth of the Warwick Coalition of Non Profit Executive Directors started in the 1980s. An ad hoc group, directors from the city’s non-profits came together periodically to discuss issues affecting the community and how they might work cooperatively. They were active in creating the We Care Coalition that sought a solution to prolonged teacher contract talks.

The group became more structured when Westbay Community Action board chairman David Feeney and Mayor Scott Avedisian pulled them together about a year ago.

As Avedisian recalls the thought of bringing the coalition together again came about at a press conference announcing Community Development Block Grants.

“I had mentioned to the grantees that they were all getting grants that year in spite of cut backs from the federal government. That surprised everyone until I told them that it was possible because one of the agencies that usually got money from CDBG funds had closed its doors,” the mayor said.

The agency was Friends Way that put together a successful consolidation with Gateway Health Services.

That led to a discussion of possible consolidations and collaborations and a resurrection of the Warwick Executive Directors meetings.

The group was able to secure a $10,000 grant from the Rhode Island Foundation, enabling the retention of Jane Arsenault, who as a facilitator has done an assessment of the agencies, kept them on task and developed steps to proceed.

“The goal has been for non-profits to work well together,” Avedisian said Monday. As an example of relationships that can be built between agencies the mayor cited Cornerstone Adult Services and Saint Elizabeth Community. The two are working together to provide a continuum of services to the elderly.

Apart from any savings, Avedisian said “the more important result is the fact that they are all at work now on a single point of entry so that all of the agencies can better coordinate services that they are providing and to make sure that they are not duplicating services to families.”

One of the first steps of the group, says Gattegno, will be to take the concepts agreed upon by directors and bring them to their staffs. The intent is to bring staff members together so “that we can educate them on all the agencies.” Part of it is knowing the services of various agencies, but just as important is knowing the people involved.

The reach of the Warwick 13 is vast. Gattegno did not know how many people the agencies serve collectively. Warwick Community Action alone provides services to 9,500 families and about 17,000 individuals over a year, she said.

David Lauterbach, President & CEO of the Kent Center said the agency has seen a 20 percent increase in client in the last two years while experiencing a cut in reimbursements and donations.

“It’s a pressure cooker situation,” he said.

Lauterbach called Warwick “unique” in that non-profits have long worked together.

“Anything we can do begins with trust and mutual respect,” Gattegno said.

In addition to Westbay, the Warwick 13 is comprised of Cornerstone Adult Services, Bridgemark, CHILD Inc., the Elizabeth Buffum Chace Center, Rhode Island Family Shelter, the Kent Center, the Warwick Boys and Girls Clubs, the Ocean State Center for Independent Living, the Kent County YMCA, the House of Hope and the Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership.