It’s challenging to innovate for tomorrow and meet the mission-critical needs of today.

As a leader, you know the big problems holding back your sector and your organization. Yet you are often not resourced to initiate, scale, or maintain full-blown innovation efforts. Even if you are fairly well resourced you may wonder whether its best for your organization or team to go it alone?

That is why LeadingAge and Quantified Ventures are partnering to offer the Solution Studio innovation platform to LeadingAge members. The Solution Studio provides aging services executives an immersive innovation experience working with a select group of peers and cross-sector experts to build real-world solutions to challenges facing the sector. Participants get a hands-on experience that reveals what to do and what not to do when pursuing innovation efforts in your organization and with partners, all while developing a novel solution.

Solution Studio cohorts will launch in Q1 2023, bringing together a group of leaders in the aging services sector and guiding you through a 9-month process to enable disruptive innovation.

Sector Issues That Need Solutions

Too many older adults’ homes are neither safe nor aging friendly. How can we provide broader access to remedies, and not only those targeted at the high end of the market?

There are more job openings in our field than qualified or interested candidates to fill them. How can we find new candidates and/or integrate the flexibility of the gig economy into our employment structure?

Too many vulnerable older adults become victims of rampant abuse and fraud.
What can we do to combat this?

Solution Studio cohorts require executive-level engagement and are limited to a small group of participants per topic. The more you put in, the more you will get out of this experience.

Solution Studio 9 Month Innovation Process

We curate a dynamic, interactive process that leverages cross-sector expertise to innovate from the problem out. The key ingredients to our solution development process are:

Get the right blend of people committed to a rigorous, proven methodology
Be open to whether the final solution should be a financial, tech, data, or advocacy solution
Be agnostic as to whether the final solution takes the form of a new company, a new nonprofit, a new service, a new product, etc.

Our work unfolds in three stages during the course of nine months:

Collaboratively sharpen the problem
Ideate and test solutions with experts and customers
Iterate and winnow down possible solutions
Prepare sharp set of possible solutions for shark tank #1

Select solution for further analysis and development
Create solution prototype, then demo, iterate, re-test prototype
Develop capitalization plan; engage experts and founding team
Prepare solution prototype for shark tank #2

Refine prototype
Additional market testing
Go-to-market plan
Capitalize and launch with founding team

What Participants Are Saying

**Dan Lindh**
President and CEO, Presbyterian Homes & Services

“It’s rare to find a balance of strategic thinking, business experience, creativity, and action orientation in one event like Quantified Ventures’ Shark Tank. They were extremely knowledgeable and willing to dig in with us on our ideas and give us their honest insights, which I believe made me better and the ultimate solution a winner!”

Jill Wilson
President and CEO, Otterbein Senior Life

“It was great to be able to step out of running my current business and apply what I've learned over the many years to some broader and more strategic thinking and actions with my peers. I never would have thought we could have landed where we did, yet I think it's a game changer. More than that, I grew from the experience and am interested to continue learning as our new business evolves.”

**Celeste Golonski**
President, SeniorCare Network, Inc.

*“The Solution Studio process gave me the time, tools, and structure to innovate for transformative change – instead of the more traditional incremental change often practiced in our work.”*

**Christie Hinrichs**
CEO, Tabitha

“The ‘shark tank’ was where it all came together for me. The sharks were both incredibly smart and encouraging through the sometimes-uncomfortable process of improving our ideas by 10X. We left that event headed in a completely different, but better direction!”

**David Gehm**
President and CEO, Wellspring Lutheran

“This process initially attracted me because Quantified Ventures has a track record of accessing different streams of capital while relentlessly focusing on social and environmental outcomes. As a participant, I saw great value in QV being able to push the group to innovate together in a rigorous way – to get us all out of our comfort zones.”

Mission-Driven Innovation Examples

Quantified Ventures has launched a half dozen high-impact, investable, and scalable solutions during the past few years. Learn more about the making of these solutions, our partners, and the solution impact.

Peace of Mind and Proactive Services for Retirees Living Independently

Problem: There are 54M Americans over age 65, and 90% of them prefer to continue living in their own homes instead of moving into a senior living community. This means foregoing the expertise and services that come with those communities and, instead, coordinating daily needs like home maintenance, transportation, and meal preparation on their own through a potpourri of providers.   

Solution: A new company (called Dorvie) that provides peace of mind and support for retirees and their families by delivering predictable and proactive concierge-based amenities – including home services, local experiences, and wellness offerings. Quantified Ventures partnered with executives from 13 of the largest non-profit aging services providers around the country to understand the market forces at play, develop a tech-enabled solution, and raise seed funding to launch a startup to revolutionize aging services for independent living.

Outdoor Recreation Catalyzes Growth and Resilience

Problem: Rural communities are facing tough financial times and searching for new ideas to breathe life into their local economy. Natural assets (e.g., forests, rivers, lakes, parks) can be developed into recreation destinations to diversify the economy, but this requires up-front investments in people, plans, and partnerships that most rural communities are not resourced to make.

Solution: The cities and towns of southeast Ohio are seeing a surge in visitors, tourist revenue, new jobs, and investments in local businesses thanks to the economic growth brought by the Baileys Trail System, an 88-mile premier mountain biking trail in the Wayne National Forest. Our pay-for-performance financing framework that blends economic development principles with outdoor recreation asset development has spurred cross-jurisdiction collaboration, attracted $11MM+ in funding and financing, and built local capacity to take advantage of future opportunities.

Novel Financing for Cleaner Water and Flood Management Through Nature-Based Solutions

Problem: Government leaders face a common challenge with infrastructure projects: choose the business-as-usual approach or choose innovation, which may create better outcomes. Because it’s tested, the rational choice is typically business-as-usual, leaving innovation on the sidelines. Take Washington, DC’s combined sewer system, which needed upgrades to manage a growing population and increasingly severe storms that caused environmental damage to rivers and health risks for residents.

Solution: Quantified Ventures designed the first Environmental Impact Bond to make innovation the rational choice – in this case financing new green space to soak up more of the problematic stormwater. If it worked as predicted, DC would pay the investors back like a normal bond. If it didn’t, investors would absorb some of the cost, minimizing the risk. This new way for governments to pay for riskier projects connects project performance directly to the bond buyers’ return on investment so investors win when the city wins.

A Healthier Alternative to Shelter or the Streets

Problem: When individuals experiencing homelessness are discharged from the hospital, they often have limited options – and nearly 75% of these individuals end up in a shelter or on the streets. Many return quickly to the hospital or emergency room, creating an expensive cycle of declining health.

Solution: Value-based contracts with local Medicaid managed care organizations put Volunteers of America on a path to double Washington, DC’s capacity for the specialized housing solution called medical respite that aides individuals experiencing homelessness. This proven solution drives improved health and social outcomes for patients at materially reduced costs.

A First-of-its-Kind Community Health Outcomes Fund

Problem: Demand for services from community-based organizations is increasing and is only amplified during public health emergencies, economic crises, and spikes in substance use and overdoses. But these organizations are already severely constrained – working overtime to try to meet the current economic, health, housing, training, and social needs of the at-risk people they serve.

Solution: A first-of-a-kind loan fund that non-profit service providers can use to increase service provider capacity to address the health-related needs of more people. The fund is initially focused on expanding a program that supports pregnant and parenting women with substance use disorder through comprehensive residential, outpatient, and community-based-services – allowing children to stay with their mothers. This fund is paired with efforts to build more reliable and sustainable revenue for community-based organizations through value-based contracts with Medicaid health plans – giving Medicaid health plans a vehicle to pay for what works and what improves member health.

Cultivating Returns from Sustainable Agriculture

Problem: Despite the benefits of regenerative farming practices – like reducing and removing greenhouse gases and harmful chemical runoff into waterways; improving biodiversity; and producing healthy, resilient, and productive soil – adoption rates remain low across the US. New practices often mean new costs and a perception of new risks, and farmers need incentives to participate.

Solution: The Soil and Water Outcomes Fund, which pays farmers to profitably implement regenerative practices with easy enrollment, an expert agronomy staff, and payments generated by sales of greenhouse gas emission reductions and water quality outcomes. Nearly 200,000 acres of farmland across 12 states has implemented these practices, unlocking $3.5 million+ in payments, preventing 2 million+ pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus from contaminating waterways, and sequestering carbon dioxide equivalent to eliminating 25,000 cars for a year. Recent awards from the USDA put the fund on track to grow to 5 million acres across 27 states.

Frequently Asked Questions

Innovation means something different to everyone. We categorize innovative solutions into three buckets:
— Disruptive solutions that can create brand new, out-of-the-box pathways to faster future success;
— Adjacent solutions that are highly relevant to most organizations’ growth strategies; and
— Operational solutions that play a key role in any organization’s relentless pursuit of both efficiencies and scale.
We try to avoid aiming our Solution Studio efforts at just one innovation bucket.
We engage cross-sector experts in our process to provide challenging perspectives and ideas as solutions evolve. We have found that most durable solutions eventually operate at the intersection of these three innovation buckets.
Our 9-month Solution Studio follows the 3-stage framework outlined above.
Participants should be able to fully engage throughout the process. We want participants to be fully present during Solution Studio virtual meetings and in-person shark tank events, and we designed our processes to limit the amount of outside work we add to your already full plate. The more you put into the Studio process during the meetings, the more you will get out.
We understand that that everyone may not be able to make every meeting…and that is fine. We are happy to discuss the merits of sending a delegate in your stead based on where we are in the initiative lifecycle. We will make these decisions together.
The Solution Studio cost is $25,000 per participant.
All cohorts are first come, first served, and will begin in January 2023.
You will join a group of 12-20 participants in each cohort. We ask each prospective participant to indicate their level of interest in each of the three ‘problems to solve’ – Home Modifications, Blending Aging Services and the Gig Economy, and Elder Abuse – when you complete the form on this page to express interest in the Studio.
We guarantee the Solution Studio will produce a novel solution and that we will provide an experienced and agile team able to advance the solution with appropriate investment.
As a participant, you and your organization will benefit from:
— Change Agent Experience: It’s powerful when you realize you have the tools to drive change in a big way
— Disruptive Learnings: Exposure to new thinking and approaches provides a new perspective on existing challenges
— Inspired Collaboration: Creatively solutioning with peers in your sector in a time-bound environment is invigorating
There is no universal toolkit or roadmap for innovation and as such we do not provide a packet of materials or weekly digest. However, we do build in time to reflect on our collective journey and to discuss the key elements of the hands-on process that are relevant to initiatives in our organizations.

The Solution Studio Difference

There are four primary ways the Solution Studio differs from other incubators, accelerators, or a homegrown innovation program.

Experiential Innovation

Our track record of producing innovative solutions in the environment, health, and social sectors helps us understand the macro forces and nuances of the fields in which our Solution Studio participants operate. Each Studio cohort selects a critical problem in their sectors, and together – as a team of C-Suite leaders, subject matter experts, and cross-sector “doers” – we co-develop an innovative solution in real time. Participants are immersed in the process of rapid and real-time building, testing, and learning, without needing to be responsible for any more deliverables and outcomes than you already have on their plates.

Launchpad for Success

Each Studio cohort is paired with an action-oriented development team that takes on the work of market research, prototyping, and market testing – in addition to engaging and drawing inspiration from our network of cross-sector experts to help design and capitalize whatever solution results. We take a solutions before staffing approach – first, we collaboratively develop the right solution, then we find the right team to take the solution to market.

Crossing Boundaries and Silos

We know that innovation is risky, so we choose not to go-it-alone. By developing an innovative solution as a cohort, we break down constraining silos across the public and private sectors, allowing us to bring new perspectives to old problems and the resources needed to create, iterate on, and launch the right solution – whether it’s a new program, product, team, or company. Our focus on putting resources behind these early-stage solutions means that you aren’t asked to make this commitment to innovation on your own.

Power of Purpose

We are launching impact-first companies and solutions. We initiate each Studio cohort for the beneficial outcomes a new solution might provide. Quantified Ventures is a B Corporation that believes in good business, and in doing good for people and planet. We are focused on working with and creating value for mission-driven organizations and enterprises.