The Woman Behind Ecumen

“I think what marks Ecumen’s emergence is the services we can bring in, like our wireless technologies,” Ordahl says. “It can be very cutting edge. And the way we build and design our facilities is tailored to the communities they’re in—they’re all market driven and there is no cookie-cutter mentality.”

Another Roberts hallmark has been her determination to get Ecumen further into the potentially vast field of serving seniors beyond the “sticks and bricks” of housing and nursing homes and reaching them where most will always live—in their own houses. A model for that effort is Mill City Commons, a “virtual village” designed to help people stay in their neighborhood for life.

The members of Mill City Commons—who are not solely seniors—live in condos around the Guthrie Theater. By joining this “virtual village,” members have access to a wide variety of services, including transportation and personal assistants. All residents are connected on line via a members-only information and social networking site. Having helped the residents set up Mill City Commons, Ecumen is looking into taking the idea to other neighborhoods or organizations.

The Ecumen brand name is only six years old, and one of the company’s goals is to continue to build equity and recognition for that name. It has built the brand largely “from the inside out”—making certain that employees know how Ecumen differs from the Board of Social Ministry. The vast majority of its external “marketing” is word of mouth via the Internet, current and past customers sharing their experiences, employees touting the company, and various public relations endeavors.

“Our profile is increasing,” Roberts says. “We’ve become linked with congregations around the United States who have heard of Ecumen as another Evangelical Lutheran Church in America affiliate who’s providing great services for seniors.”

(Not all the attention that Ecumen has received has been positive. A recent Star Tribune series on nursing-home falls cited an incident in which a disoriented patient at an Ecumen facility died after a fall. Ecumen was not the focus of the series.)

Roberts adds that “there are lots of congregations around the country whose dream has been to provide services for their aging members. While these churches have land, they’ve always wanted to provide senior services, but don’t know how to do it.”