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Charging for Services

Case Study

Caregiver Support Service Part I:  Establishing true service costs

A multi-service human services agency offered two caregiver support programs: comprehensive caregiver counseling and volunteer respite services for caregivers of older adults.  Program leadership decided that the program should implement a sliding fee scale to be more intentional about seeking support from program participants for the services they received than just sending out periodic appeals for donations.

With the help of finance staff, program costs were identified for the services. Both direct costs and indirect costs, including general administration were allocated to the programs. All costs, both indirect and direct were divided between the two programs and then divided by the units of service.  An hourly rate for each service was established.

Click here to see more details about how they determined the unit cost:  “Caregiver Support Cost Summary Worksheet”