Leaving an age-banded network behind
The Water Project was stuck with a regional health insurance network, and costs were simply too high. Moving to Justworks spelled big savings — not to mention a streamlined platform.
Takeaways
The Water Project needed a simple way to offer benefits and take care of their team so they could dedicate their full attention to the core mission.
Justworks helped provide better coverage and support at a better value while streamlining day-to-day processes.
Justworks' all-in-one platform enables this nonprofit's leadership to focus on what's next — like growing the team.
How It Began
The Water Project is a nonprofit organization based in Concord, New Hampshire providing clean water solutions to schools and communities in Kenya, Uganda, and Sierra Leone.
“We’re in the business of trying to make sure that no one gets left behind in terms of clean water,” said Dan Kim, Director of Operations. Dan started his career in the tech industry but worked in the nonprofit sector several years ago. After another stint in tech, he joined The Water Project in January of 2019.
“It’s been good to get back into nonprofit, especially in the world of water, which is the most core and essential need,” he said. “If people don’t have clean water, then everything suffers.”
Why The Water Project Chooses Justworks
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Searching for Better Benefits
When Dan came on board with The Water Project, he had his work cut out for him. “One of the first tasks that I had was to do a complete account audit — payroll, benefits, all that,” he said. “What I kept hearing was that our health insurance wasn’t good. ”The problem? In New Hampshire, The Water Project team was limited by a regional network with few provider options. Plus, the state is age-banded, meaning that insurance carriers can charge higher premiums for older employees over younger ones to cover increased costs.
“We have lots of families here,” Dan said. “Whenever you added a kid to the plan, the rates went up. Whenever you added someone older, the rates went up. It was just crazy what we were paying. ”Having worked with a PEO in his last nonprofit role, Dan was familiar with the model and knew it could be helpful to the organization. After crunching the numbers with Justworks, making the switch was a no-brainer.
Better Coverage, Big Savings
As a nonprofit running a lean operation, budget is critical for The Water Project. The savings they found by switching to Justworks, and out of an age-banded network, were substantial.“It really came down to unbelievably better value for what we could get through Justworks,” Dan said. “Now, a family is a family, and single is single — it’s one rate. That really made a difference to the tune of saving roughly $5,000 per month, while also allowing us to go from a high-deductible health plan to a zero-deductible one.”Of course, the dollar savings are only part of the picture. Dan is also happy to know that his team is getting much better coverage than they were before.
Joining a nation-wide network, and electing to offer rich plans to employees, has been a huge win — and will support the organization’s future ability to add new staff regardless of their location.“Everyone is amazed by the new simplicity of their health insurance — to be able to go to the doctor and not have to guess or fear what may or may not be covered,” Dan said. “It also makes it a lot easier from a finance perspective, from a board strategy perspective, when we know that we’re providing really, really good insurance at significantly less cost than we were before.”
Streamlined and Ready to Grow
While the switch to Justworks helped The Water Project team gain access to better benefits, it also helped Dan in other ways, too. The all-in-one platform brings multiple back-office functions together, making operations easier. “Being able to have that all combined in Justworks, having it all integrated and automated and super simple, has just been awesome for me,” Dan said.
With his day-to-day streamlined and his team enrolled in better benefits, Dan’s time is freed up to think about what’s next. While The Water Project isn’t planning on growing the team exponentially in the near-term, bringing on a few new people is certainly in the roadmap. Adding to their headcount is much more realistic now, given the savings gained by moving to Justworks. “One of the things we value here at The Water Project is taking care of our employees,” said Dan. “I felt like by moving to Justworks, we were able to do the right thing for the employees and the organization. It was a win-win.”
