Homaar
Drawing on their experience in child and adolescent psychiatry, two therapists chose an approach different from traditional clinical care. They resigned from their jobs and founded Homaar vzw. Six years later, this small-scale growth center is highly successful, but its future remains uncertain. Demand from other provinces is high, and the founders are unsure about the way forward. Should we expand into Flanders? The world wants that, but what do we want?
With the help of Siska and Koenraad, they make strategic decisions together, using both their heads and their hearts. But S&L also rolls up its sleeves and helps with fundraising and overseeing a merger.
The customer
Homaar vzw offers accessible services in the Ghent region for young people who are struggling emotionally: a warm, supportive environment where young people can come to discover themselves and their talents.
The question
The organization is receiving more applications than it can handle, and everyone—including politicians—is full of praise for it. The only problem is… there isn’t a single grant program that fits this type of project. So Homaar vzw relies on donations. And that’s a heavy burden.
The founders draw their energy primarily from their work as therapists with young people. But to secure a financially stable future, it seems necessary to expand Homaar to every province in Flanders. There’s enthusiasm for this, but also some uncertainty and fear of becoming too big, too “professional,” and less warm and welcoming toward the young people.
The impact
Together, we explored the impact the organization aims to make and developed a strategy, implementation plan, and timeline to achieve that impact. In doing so, we paid particular attention to the motivation of the two founders. We also coached them through the implementation process.
We began by holding individual meetings with all team members and executives. This gave us a good understanding of the organization’s culture and the level of motivation.
With a core team of four employees and one director, we defined our collective ambition and developed an impact strategy to bring that vision to life. Don’t view this impact strategy as an abstract concept, but rather as a highly practical action plan with a timeline. Along the way, we also took quite a few detours. For example, we quickly developed a legal structure that makes it easy to scale up by merging with existing nascent projects from other regions or by setting up new teams with separate funding.
As is often the case, the major breakthrough didn’t lie in the goals the organization had set for itself to achieve in the outside world. We delved deeply into the organization’s business model and finances. By identifying the right levers here, we were able to make significant strides forward.
Throughout the process, we naturally involved the board of directors of Homaar vzw, but we also decided to fully include Vonk vzw—our partner in Antwerp—in the process. We guided the establishment of a staff union, from group dynamics to the bylaws. Along the way, we helped establish contact with government agencies and policymakers in the search for stable funding.
fifteen months after we began providing support, Homaar has teams in East Flanders, Antwerp, and Brussels. It is currently setting up a new team in Flemish Brabant. It has already managed to double its impact on young people experiencing emotional difficulties in the short term.
The challenge
When it first started, Homaar vzw was an organization with few certainties. Not only was its funding uncertain, but the building where they had set up their space for growth was temporary, and their previous location had burned down. But Marieke and Nathalie remained calm. Homaar vzw is an organization that wouldn’t exist without these two remarkable women. They remain crucial to the organization today and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.
It is the founders' vision and charisma that ensure funding is always found or that a generous citizen simply makes a new building available to them.
There were two major challenges during this process. The first was to develop a strategy focused on making an impact. In theory, that wasn’t all that difficult. The biggest challenge was accurately assessing whether that strategy could actually be implemented, taking into account the founders’ talents and motivation.
The second major challenge was to move to the concrete and practical level fairly quickly. Strategy requires abstract thinking, but if that takes too long, it can cause people to lose faith in the strategic process.
“Especially given the startup vibe that Homaar was still immersed in, it was important to get things up and running quickly. We kept energy levels high throughout the process by moving fairly quickly to establish a staff union.”
The collaboration
The collaboration was enjoyable. We often ate cake together. We took a road trip to Antwerp together. Between sessions, various Homaar employees would often drop by for an hour of advice on the specific challenges they were facing.
Now that the strategy has been defined and is being successfully rolled out, we meet every two months to discuss the smaller challenges that arise during implementation.
One for the road—tips from Marieke Degryse, co-founder of Homaar
- Do you have big dreams but aren't sure if they're achievable? Turn your BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) into your ambition!
- Make sure to set aside enough time to work with your core team together to embark on this process—it’s time-consuming, but it’s definitely worth the effort.
- S&L adapts to your needs and questions, so be sure to let us know what you’d like us to explore in more depth—or what you’d rather we skip.
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