Congrats to our Top Company 2016 winner: Big Brother Big Sisters

This year’s Top Company winners and finalists represent large and small, old and new, high-tech and high-touch businesses and organizations in 11 industry categories. Like Colorado itself, these enterprises have undergone changes, endured tumultuous economic times, and overcome various hurdles to achieve distinction in their respective fields.

To be eligible for Top Company consideration, companies must be based in Colorado or have a significant presence in the state. Deloitte, a longtime program sponsor, selects up to three finalists per industry category from applications submitted online at cobizmag.com. A panel made up of ColoradoBiz magazine’s editorial board and representatives from the business community then selects the winners based on financial performance or other relevant metric, achievement in one or more operational aspect of their business, and community involvement.

Read on to learn about our 29th annual Top Company Awards nonprofit winners and finalists.

NONPROFIT

Winner

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Colorado

www.biglittlecolorado.org

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Colorado provides mentors for children facing adversity. The organization, founded in 1918, serves 1,350 kids in metro Denver and 350 in the Pikes Peak region, mostly low-income children in single-parent homes.

The nonprofit world is challenging. “In the for-profit world, when you add a customer, you add resources,” says CEO Dave Ryan. “In the nonprofit world, when you add a customer, you deplete resources.” BBBSC runs a lean organization. It uses technology such as cloud-based data systems to track staff progress. It works with multiple school districts in Denver and Colorado Springs and gets data from many of them on grades, attendance and behavior. Size is a competitive advantage, and BBBSC can operate more efficiently through economies of scale.

Technology also helps the group reach more kids, and to reach them when they don’t necessarily want to spend an afternoon with a volunteer. The mentor2.0 program, launched last year, will add a new freshman class at Sheridan High School every year. The program combines weekly onsite activities and emails between mentors and teens. “We’re seeing early success with this program and couldn’t be more thrilled with the community response,” Ryan says. “Our first class of 93 students had over 263 volunteers fill out applications to be mentors.”

BBBSC has 50 full time employees, some of whom have been there more than 10 years. Many are inspired by the stories that the mentors and their “Littles” tell, everything from still keeping in touch 30 years after being matched, to the many stories of children who faced violence and other adversity yet stayed in school and succeeded.

“My employees will walk through fire if they think doing so will help a kid,” Ryan says. “They are the most committed group of people.”

FINALISTS

Medical Group Management Association

www.mgma.com

Englewood-based Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) is a network of medical executives and administrators that help practices deliver high-quality, cost-effective patient care. MGMA’s 33,000 members lead practices that provide more than 44 percent of the health-care services delivered in the U.S. In 2015 MGMA launched a volunteer program, and employees recently volunteered with Project C.U.R.E. to deliver Kits for Kids, which provides parents in developing nations with packages filled with personal hygiene and basic medicine cabinet items that are scarce in the developing world. MGMA recently announced that it was joining the Catalyst Health-Tech Innovation hub, a collaborative office space in Denver, so the company can work together with Colorado-based health-care peers.

HopeWest

www.hopewestco.org

HopeWest is a comprehensive, community-based hospice and palliative care organization serving more than 7,000 square-miles of Western Colorado. It has five offices, a Hospice Care Center, a restaurant called Spoons Bistro, a coffee shop called the Artful Cup, three retail resale stores called Heirlooms for Hospice, and Charmed, an Annie Sloan chalk paint store. Last year HopeWest provided services to more than 3,500 individuals through eight different clinical programs. The organization has won several Best Places to Work awards, and the CEO keeps in touch with all employees with a monthly luncheon of staff who joined the organization in that month of the year.