Michigan AIDS Coalition Merges With Matrix Human Services

DETROIT/FERNDALE – Earlier this month it was announced that the Michigan AIDS Coalition has joined forces with Matrix Human Services, a Detroit-based nonprofit. As a result, MAC will now be known as MAC Health, a new Matrix program. MAC's prevention, advocacy and education services that are key to the legacy of MAC will be added to the medical case management, home health care, mental health, non-medical case management, linkage to care, and early intervention services of the existing Matrix Ryan White program, providing a full scope of services to the community.
"The affiliation of Michigan AIDS Coalition and Matrix Human Services represents a progressive, entrepreneurial approach to driving the mission of fighting this horrible epidemic," said Terry Ryan, the chief executive officer of MAC since 2012, who will now be known as the director of MAC Health. "In combining these complementary programs, we are ensuring that the work of both organizations will carry forward, while giving confidence to our supporters that we continue to be successful in an ever more efficient and effective manner."
The news marks the second time in a year that one of the community's oldest AIDS service organizations announced a merger. In March it was announced that AIDS Partnership Michigan had merged with the HIV/AIDS Resource Center to become Unified – HIV Health and Beyond. But is the Matrix-MAC pairing really a merger or an acquisition?
"The official term here, in legal terms, it's an 'affiliation and an assumption of assets,' but most of the general public doesn't understand that. So for public consumption, we use the word 'merger,'" Ryan said. "We've become a program within Matrix."
According to Ryan, MAC has been looking to partner with another agency for some time.
"This was a planned strategic move on the part of our board," he said. "It really reflects the rapidly changing nature of HIV and also changes in health care coverage, like the Affordable Health Care Act. What we see across the country is rapidly now our health systems (are merging), for example, look at the hospital mergers in the Detroit area. Now also among HIV organizations across the country there was a need to link or partner with some larger more comprehensive health systems. So our move is strategically in response to that."
In short, the merger will allow MAC to provide the same services they always have along with even more.
"Matrix Human Services is a much larger and stronger agency financially," said Ryan. "They have about a 40 million dollar annual budget. They have numerous programs that also serve inner city populations as we do but, more importantly than that, they have an extensive HIV case management system and that pairs well with what we do. Our focus is HIV prevention, counseling and testing and this gives us an opportunity to directly plug in HIV positive clients to case management."
Ryan said not much will change at MAC's Ferndale office. "We're keeping the office in Ferndale because they wanted an Oakland County presence," he said. "Basically it's business as usual but with enhanced services."
All of MAC's staff has been retained and additional case managers have been brought in. And four members of MAC's board of directors will now join the Matrix board.
"We had a lot of longtime board members, and I mean people who had been committed a long time who were really ready a year ago to step back and retire from that," Ryan explained. "When we began two years ago talking about the idea of looking for a larger partner, those members agreed to stay on until we found a partner and a merger was completed. But we have four board members, some of the newer ones, who have been elected to the Matrix board and that allows us to feel a strong confidence that our programming stuff and other issues are being cared for at a larger level. Matrix has been hugely gracious."
Karen Bisdorf, chief operating officer of Matrix, said that the 109-year-old nonprofit was proud to continue the legacy of excellence and care represented by MAC.
"This merger creates a full service spectrum for the communities we serve," she said. "None of these services are duplicative, so the scope of care and assistance now available to the community is greatly enhanced and fully connected under the Matrix umbrella of programming."
Press materials for Matrix identify the agency as a social service organization offering a range of programs devoted to maintaining and supporting the family unit and improving the quality of life for individuals of all ages. Their mission is to fight generational poverty and offer positive life experiences, assistance with basic needs, education and supportive services that defuse crisis, treat individual and family problems, and prevent abuse and neglect or criminal activities. MAC was created in 2009 when the Midwest AIDS Prevent Project, which had been founded in 1988, merged with the Michigan AIDS Fund, which had been founded a year later.