Community Action Agency Board Members
Toolkit in a Nutshell
This Toolkit for CAA Board Members focuses on a few topics:
·
Community Assessment
·
Results Oriented Management and
Accountability
·
Planning
·
Basic Choices
·
History and future of community action
·
Organization and responsibilities of a board
·
Program monitoring and evaluation
·
Quizzes to help solidify knowledge
·
Resources and hotlinks
· An Introductory Overview for new Board
Members is available in a separate publication from the Minnesota CSBG office:
please see EOGBoardTrainingBook.pdf
Table
of Contents
CHAPTER ONE. Planning Overview
A. Background
B. The Planning Committee and the Planning Cycle
C. Board Roles in Planning
D. The Complete Planning Cycle
E 1. Steps in a Typical CAA Planning Process
2. What Types of Strategies do CAAs Use?
3. Strategy Development
4. More Anti-Poverty Strategies Needed
5. Thinking about Social Change in American Society
End-of-Chapter Quiz
CHAPTER TWO. The Twelve Big Problems in Community Assessment
The Sources of Most Social Change in a Society.
CHAPTER THREE. Introduction and Overview of Community Assessment
Community Assessment and Planning.
Step 1. Review Background Issues in Assessment and Planning.
Issue #1. What is Poverty?
Issue #2. Is the glass half-empty or half-full?
Issue #3. Framework.
Issue #4. Root causes of poverty.
Issue #5. Isolating how our economy operates.
Issue #6. Understanding how the economy works.
Issue #7. Structuring Discussions.
Issue #8. The Political Environment and Political Trends.
End of Chapter Quiz.
CHAPTER FOUR: Community Assessment and Planning
Community Assessment and Planning.
The Six Steps in Community Assessment
A. The Six Steps in Community Assessment
The Changing Face of California.
End-of-Chapter Quiz.
CHAPTER FIVE. What is ROMA?
A. What is ROMA?
B. THE SIX ROMA GOALS
C. OUTCOMES AND INDICATORS
D. REPORTING
E. APPROACHES to IMPLEMENTATION
Specific Tools: Scales, Ladders and Surveys
F. MEASURING YOUR PROGRESS TOWARD ROMA IMPLEMENTATION
G. ROMA. What is an outcome and how do I develop one?
End-of-Chapter Quiz.
CHAPTER SIX. BASIC CHOICES for Board Members
End-of-Chapter Six Quiz
CHAPTER SEVEN. History and Future of Community Action
A. A short history of anti-poverty programs in the U.S.
B. Evolution of CAA Management Frameworks Over Time and Horizon Issues.
Horizon Issues
End of Chapter Quiz
CHAPTER EIGHT: Preparing for the Next Phase of Anti-Poverty
Work
1. People who work must earn a living wage
2. We need new types of work that produce income
3. Creating Social Capital
4. Creating Financial Assets
5. Expanding unique approaches to Human Development
6. We need to better understand the causes of poverty
7. Reduce public expenditures for charitable functions
End of Chapter Eight Quiz
CHAPTER NINE. Organization and Responsibilities of a Board
A. Basic CAA Board Functions
B. Tripartite Composition of the Board
C. Reasons for the composition requirements
D. Types of CAA Boards
E. Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws
F. Sources of Authority of a Board
G. Basic Decisions of a Board
H. Legal Responsibilities of Individual Board Members
I. Community Problem Solving
End of Chapter Nine Quiz
CHAPTER TEN: Board Recruitment and Retention
a. Build a positive image of your CAA in their mind
b. Recruitment strategies: building your image
c. Retention strategies
d. Additional approaches or steps in board recruitment
e. Board Orientation
End of Chapter Ten Quiz
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Board Development: Preparing an Individual Development Plan for a Board Member
Board Member Individual Development Plan (Draft format)
End of Chapter Eleven Quiz
CHAPTER TWELVE: Reducing Busywork, Focusing More Board Activity on Community Issues. 93
End of Chapter Twelve Quiz
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CAA Board and Staff Relations
Summary: The Successful Board/Executive Director
Relationship
End of Chapter Thirteen Quiz
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Evaluation of the Executive Director, Funder Relationships and of the Agency Itself
A. Executive Director
B. Board and Funding Agency Relationships
C. Self Assessment of a Community Action Agency
End of Chapter Fourteen Quiz
Additional Resources
Acronyms and Definitions
A. Background
Systematic
planning is one method for identifying the strategies and programs that will
have an impact on poverty. Every
CAA should have a planning process and produce an anti-poverty plan.
B.
The Planning Committee and the Planning Cycle
Planning is a
continuing cycle of program implementation, evaluation and refinement.
Planning consists of:
- Studying the community to decide which
of the causes of poverty are most important and can be affected by the CAA.
- Deciding which problems and
opportunities are the most important and will receive greater emphasis by
the CAA.
- Deciding on the strategy that the CAA
will attempt to eliminate the causes of the poverty problems.
- Deciding on goals for definite time
periods, for example; six months, one year, five years.
- Deciding the resources (money,
volunteer time, from other agencies) that are needed.
- Deciding the ways that achievement of
the goals and progress toward the goals will be measured by the Board, e.g.
how you will measure outcomes and results.
- Communicate these decisions to the CAA
Executive Director; and giving the Executive Director sufficient authority
to carry out the Board's decisions.
- Maintain an active Board role, exerting
community leadership by pursuing some of your objectives yourselves, instead
of simply assigning all tasks to the staff.
The
primary responsibility for making sure that planning takes place rests with the
CAA Board. One of the major reasons
that plans do not get completed or implemented is because Board members do
not have a very compelling reason for doing planning.
Here are a few; which apply to you?
What other reasons do you have for planning?
- Clarity of purpose -- with more
specific goals, strategies and objectives, the agency will be able to better
see where it is -- and where it wants to go.
- More effective strategies -- with more
careful selection of strategies, the CAA can more effectively change the
causes of the problems in their communities.
- Focuses the Board's attention -- A plan
focuses the energy and attention of both Board and staff in a systematic
way. The plan is results-oriented.
The
Complete Planning Cycle has four generic stages:
- Plan for Planning.
- The Planning Process.
- Implementation of the
Plan (e.g. Program Operations).
- Evaluation for feedback
to future planning.
- The
Plan for Planning.
This
describes the planning PROCESS. It
includes the steps to be taken, the calendar, the assignments.
- The
Planning Process Itself.
There
are many types of planning systems.
The
big issue is not which planning system you use.
There are three big issues for CAA’s.
(1) Whether you use any formal, long-range planning system -- or
you just run day-to-day. (2)
Whether you run a community-based planning process with lots of involvement --
or a pro-forma, staff-written job that is rubber-stamped by the Board.
(3) Whether you adapt the
generic planning process you select to the mission of the CAA -- or just try to
use it in a lockstep fashion.
This
is your “instant conversion kit” to adapt one of the generic planning
systems so it will work in your CAA. This
CONVERSION KIT is based on a simple but very
powerful analytic concept that is used in many CAA’s.
That concept is to take each poverty problem identified during the
planning process and to separate the elements of the problem into two components
(1) the problem CONDITION and (2) the CAUSES of the problem.
Most CAA’s will do this during their community assessment.
1)
The CONDITION of poverty is the result of the causes.
The CAA sets a GOAL to change
the CONDITION. The GOAL is phrased
in terms of a change in the condition.
2)
The CAUSES are the dynamic factors, the underlying social values, beliefs
and behavior of specific individuals or groups of people that produce the
condition.
By
adopting STRATEGIES that modify or eliminate the CAUSES of the poverty
condition, you will achieve your goal. The
strategy is phrased in terms of a change in the cause.
This
workbook has two approaches to planning. The
succinct version is found in the planning workbook that John Ochoa, CSD, wrote
and it is here in MS Word format.
The second and longer, more comprehensive approach to planning follows.
E
1. Steps in a Typical CAA Planning
Process
You
do not have to do them in sequential order.
Take a building block approach and add elements as you have time to
create them.
- CREATE YOUR VISION for
the future.
- REVIEW the MISSION.
- NEEDS and OPPORTUNITIES
ASSESSMENT.
- PROBLEM RANKING.
After they have identified the problems, the Board can RANK the
poverty problems in terms of their magnitude and severity.
-
RESOURCE ANALYSIS
- PRIORITY SETTING.
- GOAL SETTING.
- This is where most
CAA’s also develop RESULTS MEASURES
- STRATEGY SELECTION.
- OBJECTIVES.
- ACTIVITIES.
CAA Board members may emphasize a particular strategy, or they may create
combinations of strategies.
Some strategies do NOT need any funds.
They require only the energy of the Board members to implement.
These strategies may focus on changing existing laws, programs,
procedures, or attitudes so that a poor person could receive the equal
opportunities or public benefits to which he or she is entitled. It is crucial
that the Board separate those elements of the strategy that the board can do
best from those which the staff should do.
If the Board delegate everything, they are chopping off a major force for
change -- their own effort.
- INSTITUTIONAL
CHANGE. These strategies
include promoting changes in other social, economic and political
institutions.
- COMMUNITY
ORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT. This
approach helps low-income people act on their own behalf.
-
PROGRAM COORDINATION. This is
an area with as many definitions as there are practitioners, but the basic
concept is that all monies within a community being spent for a particular
purpose should be coordinated to (1) prevent duplication of effort, and (2)
to promote synergy between programs.
- RESOURCE
MOBILIZATION. In addition to
coordination of existing resources, the idea here is to expand the total
amount of resources available to help low-income people.
- OUTREACH
AND INFORMATION AND REFERRAL. The
strategy is to reach-out, and bring the person who could benefit into the
other program. This can be as
simple as passing out a brochure. Or
it may involve referring people to another agency.
It can include performing the intake, assessment and placement in
another program.
- FAMILY
DEVELOPMENT AND CASE MANAGEMENT. A
case management system provides the ongoing contact to enhance personal
growth in individuals and families. Utilizing
Case Management techniques (drawn from the social work profession), the CAAs
try to obtain or provide all the services necessary to make a person more
functional, regardless of where these services are located.
- OTHER
DIRECT SOCIAL SERVICES
. Some county and state
government agencies prefer to contract out their service responsibilities.
Most CAAs now provide direct service
with public money from many funding sources.
In addition, on a nationwide basis, many CAA’s now use most of
their CSBG funds to provide direct service.
- SELF-EMPLOYMENT.
These activities help people earn money by being self-employed, often
in a home-based business.
- SOCIAL
ENTERPRISE. The CAA runs the enterprise to provide work for people.
So these are some of the strategies used by
CAA’s. Do you have others?
3.
Strategy Development
In the community assessment exercises we completed earlier, we have
prepared an overview of our community with a description of the problems and
assets, with the causes of these problems.
The causes are often found in (a) how the economy operates, (b) social
value choices as translated into public policy, and (c) decisions by individual
or families, and just plain (bad) luck. Fortunately,
strategies can be developed to address all of these types of causes.
A
strategy:
a.
Eliminates or reduces the cause/s of a problem.
b.
Describes a course of action (method, means to be pursued).
c.
Indicates who will be involved in implementing the strategy.
One challenge issue for board in writing strategies is that Board members
bring assumptions, often unconscious assumptions, about how the world works into
the strategy development process. Based
on their experience and personality, people have very definite ideas about how
long we should wait for a strategy to produce results, about how difficult a
strategy is to implement, and about how much a strategy might cost relative to
the number it will help. It is VERY
useful to bring these assumptions to the surface before you get into developing
a specific strategy. The following
link will take you to the exercise that will help you do that.
Link
to Strategy Preferences
Exercise
4.
More
Anti-Poverty Strategies Needed
One challenge in creating new anti-poverty strategies is that we are in
serious trouble in terms of anti-poverty theory.
I have been working on a book review of Poverty
Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S.
History written by Professor Alice O=Connor.
She traces the theories-in-use from the end of the Civil War to the
present. This is a powerful book
for us and offers much insight and guidance.
I urge everybody to read it.
There are more than dozen ways that change occurs.
Change is driven by:
i.
economy,
scientific
breakthroughs (ability to measure nicotine, tar, ozone, pesticides, etc)
technological development (microcomputers),
globalization of industries
ii.
changing social values,
media attention,
increases in general educational levels,
a crisis of some kind,
national leadership, Congress “takes off” on it,
international
events that are perceived as economically or politically important, e.g. oil
embargo, war.
directed
social change =
a group of people decide to make it happen.
iii.
demographic change
All of these types of change can be supported, or worked against, or used in a
“piggy back” fashion to produce some other change.
This brings us to the key concept for people who want to create change in
human services policy and programs.
1.
Most directed change in human services occurs because a group of
volunteers decide they want to produce a change and just keep grinding away
2.
Ten times as much change occurs in America
as a result of demographic, economic, technological and social value shifts than
occurs because of governmental action. That
is why it is so important to keep track of those trends.
In many respects, the Congress is just a mirror that reflects compromises
between social values and groups that have already “cut their deal” years
before Congress gets into the Act (pun intended).
3.
It was the shifts in social values in and the economy in the l960s that
both prompted and made possible the passage not just of the Economic Opportunity
Act, but the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act, the Medicaid Act, the Food Stamp Act.
4.
All the purposes and themes of the EOA had been debated in American
society for twenty to fifty years prior to passage of the EOA; the EOA was
another step in an ongoing and much bigger debate (as was the case with the
creation of the CSBG in 1981).
5.
The Executive Branch is one other place where change occurs in this
country.
6.
In America, there are many, many opportunities and mechanisms by which
desired change can and do occur if a group of people decide they want to make it
happen. Alex de Tocqueville, the
French sociologist, said over one hundred years ago that America is one of the
few societies in the world that empowers a group of people to get together in
their community to IDENTIFY or define or that a problem exists, and where people
can DECIDE what is desirable social policy for their community -- and then can
ACT on it. The premise is that people on a CAA Board and people who work in a
CAA are people who want to make change happen.
So the tasks to help our CAA board operate
in the future are (a) to identify and unravel the major social and political
trends, and (b) to identify local concerns, problems or issues, and what we want
to do in our community, e.g. do we want to ignore, stop or support the trends,
(d) how we as individuals can influence them, and (e) how our CAA can influence
them.
Questions
to stimulate thinking and to identify a few of the key points made in this
chapter.
1. Who has the primary responsibility for making sure that a CAA
plans?
2. List at least one reason why YOUR CAA should engage in
long-range planning activity. (List
as many as you can, or brainstorm answers among board members)
3. Why is it useful to have a plan-for planning?
What is at least one benefit of having a plan for planning?
4.
What is “the conversion kit” for changing any generic planning system
in an anti-poverty planning system?
5.
What are some of the typical steps in a CAA Planning Process?
Which of these has your CAA already completed, and which remain to be
done?
6.
Do all CAA’s use the same strategies?
What are some of the types of strategies that CAA’s use?
Answers
to Chapter One Quiz
1.
The board.
2.
List the purposes most important to your board.
3.
A plan-for-planning should include a timetable, and a description of the
assignments who is responsible for completing different parts of the plan.
4.
The ‘conversion kit” involves sorting any ‘problem’ into the
conditions of the problem and the causes of the problem.
A goal is then developed that describes a change in the condition; and a
strategy is developed to attack one or more of the causes of the condition.
5.
The first few steps of the planning process include creating the agency
vision, values, mission and goals.
6.
No. CAA’s use a wide
variety of strategies depending on what needs to be done and what other
organizations are doing.
CHAPTER TWO.
The Twelve
Big Problems in Community Assessment
There is no agreement about these issues in America, in a state, or in most
communities. You have to find a
compromise that works for your community.
- What is poverty -- and
what is not poverty? The
poverty index is hopelessly out of date.
- What is bottom-line
responsibility of the individual? Of
the family? Of neighbors? Of
religious or other organizations? Of government?
Who is supposed to do what and why?
- Which do we select as
our unit of analysis -- the nation or the individual.
When we start with the nation and the demographic/economic and social
trends, it leads us into public policy.
When we start with the individual, it leads us into what that
individual should do or we can do to help that individual.
- For most human
development and community development strategies, the difficulty of
establishing a cause-effect relationship between action and results is
somewhere between extremely challenging and impossible.
- We use rhetoric that is
too imprecise. There are about
ten times as many programs that are labeled anti-poverty programs than there
are programs that in fact significantly reduce or eliminate poverty.
Most of them are human development programs (Head Start, basic
education, training immigrants about American culture) or anti-destitution
programs (food, homeless shelter).
- Most people think that
anti-destitution programs (to create a minimum quality of life) are
anti-poverty programs. But
there is a difference between a strategy that helps create a minimum quality
of life and an anti-poverty program.
- Part of the confusion
is that many people perceive that Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs sets
up a ladder that you must go up, starting at the bottom, satisfying the
needs of security and food first then moving upward to self-actualization.
I think people can enter and exit his or her hierarchy at any level.
- Another challenge in
developing anti-poverty strategies is that about 5% to 10% of the people you
serve never get better.
- Even if you do
high-level community assessments, by the time you get down to the funded
program level, all they really want an analysis of the numbers of people who
meet their specific eligibility requirements.
- The purpose of planning
is for the power figures to reach agreements with each other about the
nature of the world and what you are collectively going to do about it.
- The attitudes of Board
members vary, just like the rest of America. Some people think that American Society is just fine--
and it the responsibility of the individual to find their way in it.
Others think that major changes are needed in the socio-economic
structure -- and until we make them millions of people will continue to
fail. There is probably some
truth in both of these ideas, the challenge is to find an agreement.
- We have probably gone
about as far as we can go in extending the concept of entitlements and
“rights” e.g. the “right” to housing, or the “right” to a decent
income. Instead of being
seen as absolute rights, these are now seen as temporary support systems,
and are available only to those who are first in line, or available only for
a limited amount of time.
The Sources of Most Social Change in a Society
These
elements act separately or in linkage with each other to explain most social
change.
Some
people show public policy as a 4th circle.
I don’t because most public policy is a function of what has happened
in the three domains shown above.
Chapter
2 Quiz
1. What are some of the problem areas in community assessment?
2. Which of these have been ‘issues’ in your CAA?
3. What is at least one major source of change in American
Society? Think of how one of these
has affected low-income people in your area.
Answers to Chapter 2 Quiz
1.
See the list.
2.
For the issues that have been a problem in your CAA, discuss
these openly and work out agreements about how to address them.
Perhaps an ad-hoc committee or a task force can help grapple with them.
3. Three of the powerful sources of change are the economy,
demographics and social values.
CHAPTER THREE. Introduction
and Overview of Community Assessment
There are two basic ways to do community assessment.
The first way is that you start with the people and what they tell you or
staff through individual conversations, group discussion, meetings, or surveys.
Then, you try to add up what they have said.
Although individual action is crucial to avoiding poverty or to getting
out of poverty, it is only part of the picture.
The other basic way to do community assessment is to start big, and work your
way down. You look at the patterns
in the economy and in society, and see how they affect the individuals and
families in your community. The
patterns in the economy create the opportunity structure -- the types and
numbers of opportunities for people to earn income.
The patterns in social beliefs and values describe what the public thinks
about the responsibility of the individual, the state, of religious
organizations, or of nonprofit organizations.
The age-old debate about whether poverty is “caused” by the individual or
caused by the economic and social system was resolved in 1988 by Mary Lou Evert,
one of President Reagan’s appointees in H.H.S. said:
“It is now generally recognized by conservatives and liberals alike
that there are both individual causes and societal causes of poverty.”
What is poverty and
what are the causes of poverty?
In doing the community assessment and planning there will be much discussion
about what is poverty, what are the causes of poverty, and what can be done
about the causes of poverty. This
is exactly the discussion that should take place. Several areas where there is
substantial confusion are listed next, then expanded after that.
1.
What is poverty, anyhow? And, what is “not poverty?”
2.
There is no agreement about the “model” of society.
We present one here that will be useful.
3.
What are the causes of poverty?
4.
We have to un-bundle the elements of society
5.
Most people do not understand how capitalism works.
6.
The assessment of the political environment and political trends are
time-consuming.
So what is poverty and what is a condition
of “not poverty?”
Regardless of the combination of factors
that you might select to define poverty, this workbook assumes that (1)
household income (the amount of disposable income) is important, (2) that work
is the primary way most people get income, and (3) there are many ways income
and benefits arrive in a household and we should be reviewing and counting all
of them, and (4) income poverty alone does not capture all the elements and
dynamics of poverty.
Discussion.
In 1963, the poverty rate was about 1/2 of the median income for a family
of four. In 1999, the poverty rate
was down to about 1/3 the median income. ALL
of the alternative methods of measuring poverty will increase the percentage and
numbers of people who are poor. We
should open up the discussion of the poverty rate. We should agree to include the benefits (Medicaid, food
stamps, etc), and we will still come out with a higher rate. This will TAKE AWAY the argument that government benefits
offset the effects of poverty.
The “living wage” discussions are useful in that they help identify the
actual costs of living in an area. Depending
on the area this can range anywhere from $12 an hour to $20 an hour.
The downside of the “living wage” approach is that nobody has even a
hint of a plan that would enable most people to achieve a living wage.
A few states and CAA’s are now considering development of a “plan to
end poverty” for their area.
Most community analysis now is shifting
away from a focus on needs and toward a focus on strength.
The latest trend is based largely on the theories of Northwestern
University Professors John (Jody) Kretzman and John McKnight.
You need a framework into which you put the
information; a framework that illustrates and explains how America works.
Those elements would include:
1. The
population (demographics; the characteristics of the people).
2.
Social
values (What people believe,
especially about: who is responsible for what, who deserves what, the individual
versus the society, fairness, and equity).
3. The
economy (includes science and technology).
The interaction of these three dynamic
elements then results in
4.
Public policy.
Public policy typically lags behind changes in the three key building
blocks anywhere from years to decades.
Personal choices
10% People sometimes
do/choose stupid or self-destructive things.
Happenstance
10% Example 1: Bad luck. Example 2: The length of
time it took for a hospital to forward medical records to a Medicare
recipient (to send to SSA for a payee name change) actually cost him
opportunities.
Social values
30% We just don’t care
that some people are poor, or we can’t quite translate a social value to
help the ‘deserving poor’ into action.
The economy
30% Jobs
disappear for a variety of reasons, sending those without family support
or other assets into poverty. This
is the way economic systems work -- the issue is what do we do about it.
Public
policy
20% Much of the poverty in
the U.S. is a collective decision about who should be poor, or a decision
that we will not help certain people become un-poor.
The root causes of poverty are
difficult to unravel in part because they are usually found in the dynamic
interaction of two or more elements of the society, such as:
·
the structure of the economy and
especially in the rapidity of technological change,
·
the social attitudes, particularly
about who-is-responsible for what, and about race and gender.
The social values are then translated into:
·
public policy – especially around
the rules governing the economy, about civil rights, and human development
including education, job training, child care and health care.
Capitalism as an economic system can be
analysis as a thing unto itself and can be shaped and adjusted with no threat to
our democratic values or our civil liberties. We already have a mass of rules regulating the economy.
Capitalism is an open market system in
which people exchange goods and services. Demand
and supply set most prices. About
2/3 of all economic activity is consumption, of food, clothing, cars, and the
other ‘stuff’ and services of everyday life.
About 1/3 is capital investment.
Economic growth occurs primarily because of (a)
population expansion, e.g. more people either domestically or internationally
buying goods and services, (b) changes in fashion and fads that prompt people to
buy different versions of the same thing (clothes, cosmetics)
(c) competition, in which one supplier puts out a version with better
features, (d) investment, people spend money because they think it will produce
a future benefit, and (e) advances in science and technology that are adopted by
the makers of goods and services.
There is an enormous “churning” of people in
and out of jobs. Think of it as a
gigantic game of musical chairs.
A fourth feature of any economic system is unemployment.
A 2% unemployment rate is called “frictional” unemployment and occurs
because of deaths, retirements and other job departures.
The tolerance for unemployment varies significantly across societies and
over time. In the U.S. in the
1960's a 4% rate was considered too high. Today,
people seem willing to tolerate 6%.
George Will is quoted as saying that capitalism produces the rough justice of
the market; it is the job of government to take the edges off the roughness.
So we turn to the social system, and the cultural beliefs and social
values translate into government policy that shape the operations of the
economy.
There are many, many rules created through public policy about how the economic
system should operate. These are
tools for shaping the economic system by regulating how the enterprises
(corporations and other types of businesses) operate.
Yet, too many assessments just take the economy as a “given,” and
assume it is unchangeable. Wrong!
How do we structure a discussion to focus on the causes of poverty and on
how to increase household incomes? Using
earned income – how people get money from their job – as a focal point for
discussion, we can look at (a) the operation of the economy, (b) compensatory
programs to give people money or services because they do not earn enough, and
(c) other quality of life programs.
1.
We can adjust
the rules about how the economy operates (on the demand side)
2.
We can strengthen the programs needed to develop our human resources (the
supply side)
3.
We
can work to change the social values that affect the operation of the economy
B.
COMPENSATORY PROGRAMS
These compensate people for the fact that they do not earn enough money
from their j-o-b to pay for desired or needed goods and services using only
their income So as a society we
provide:
Child care
C.
QUALITY OF LIFE PROGRAMS
For people who are not earning income due to age or
health, as a society we want to provide a certain minimum standard of quality of
life.
Senior centers.
Independent living.
Issue #8.
The Political Environment and Political Trends
I left this until last because it is all
that some people want to talk about and therefore they never get around to
talking about the economy. As we
survey the current “state of the world and nation” and what is affecting us
now, in the year 2005 we would have to list:
1.
Terrorism at home and abroad.
2.
The Patriot Act with its dramatic expansion of the powers of the Federal
police.
3.
War in Iraq and Afghanistan.
4.
Deficits at the Federal and State levels.
5.
A philosophy about the role of the Federal government in which it divests
many of its 20th century responsibilities either to state governments
or to faith-based organizations.
One significant
consequence of these political realities is the enormous amount of clock-time
they consume.
1. What are the causes of poverty in America?
In your community?
2. Why are people afraid to talk about our capitalist economy?
What are some of the areas in which we can structure our discussion about
how the economy operates?
3. Name one important way that a discussion of politics hinders
rather than helps us develop approaches to poverty?
Answers
to Chapter 3 Quiz
1. These are several types of causes of poverty.
2. Our economy has produced more wealth for more people than any
other form of economic organization.
There are masses of laws and regulations that shape and structure the
operation of our economy, yet any discussion of any type of change whatsoever
raises a hue-and-cry that it will wreck the whole system.
We can structure our discussions around (a) adjusting
the rules) (b) strengthening our human resources, and (c) changing social
values.
3. “Talking politics” (a) takes up a huge amount of time,
(b) generates very strong feelings, and (c) is only one way that we make
progress in America.
CHAPTER FOUR: Community Assessment and Planning
This section
includes an outline and methods for developing a CAA
strategic plan for reducing poverty.
Some elements of this chapter are hyperlinked.
If there is http or www at the start of the underlined
item, clicking on it will take you to a website for additional information.
If the underlined item does not have a www, then clicking on it will jump
you to another document in this workbook (which may be on a CD or on the
Cal-Neva web site).
To start, read through this chapter to get the general idea of the structure and
contents, then go back to the top and start clicking away. Feel free to modify
any of these materials for your own use. You
can do some or all of these pieces, and you can do them in any order.
1.
Learn about the economy and how it operates.
2.
Map the social values that shape our society and your community.
3.
Describe the composition of the population and the trends (demographics).
4.
Describe the physical environment.
5.
Assess political realities and trends.
6.
Review the assessments done by other organizations
The Six Steps in Strategic Planning
7.
Identify problems and opportunities – the existing conditions.
8.
Identify existing and potential community resources.
9.
Develop goals.
10.
Develop outcome measures.
11.
Set priorities.
12.
Create strategies that really affect the causes of poverty.
These steps always appear on paper as linear, sequential activities.
The reality is that you will skip around.
Clicking on a hyperlinked item takes you to background information and exercises
that are on this CD ROM, or in the longer version of this Toolkit that is on the
Cal-Neva website. (Currently at www.cencomfut.com.toolkit.htm
)
Step
1) Learn about the economy and how
it operates.
a. Basic principles of
capitalism.
b. Unbundling the
economic opportunity structure from the rest of our society.
Step
2) Map the social values that shape
our society.
What people believe,
especially about fairness rights, civil rights, equality, who should do what for
whom.
a. Demographic trends
and discussion of possible implications
b.
Key issues:
Immigration, migration and social mobility.
Step
4. Describe the physical
environment.
Step
5. Assess political realities
and trends.
Step
6. Review the Assessments Done by
Other Agencies
Review the community assessments and other people’s plans. Don’t re-invent the wheel.
Then
– moving into the six steps of anti-poverty planning.
Step
7. Identify problems and
opportunities.
Step
8. Resources in the community.
Who is already doing what?
Step
9. Set Goals.
Step
10. Develop Outcome Measures.
Step
11. Develop criteria for
priority setting.
Step
12. Strategy Development.
------------------------------------
Demographic information is available from the
excellent U.S. Census Bureau website at www.census.gov.
Use the American Factfinder.
For
California, the Public Policy Institute of California has two excellent reports.
They are found at:
http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=478
and
http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=153
You
can find the same data elements for your county or city through your regional
council of government or the State Data Center.
------------------------------------------
1. Name at least one of the steps in Community Assessment.
2. Name at least one of the steps in Strategic Planning.
3. Where can we get information on demographic trends in the
U.S. or in California?
4. Is immigration an important issue in community planning?
Why?
Answers
to Chapter 4 Quiz
1. See the list of 6 steps of community assessment.
2. See the list of 6 steps in strategic planning.
3. The U.S. Census Bureau, and the Public Policy Institute of
California.
4. Yes. The voters
have tried to reduce or eliminate services to immigrants who do not have legal
authorization to be here.
1. What
does “ROMA” stand for?
ROMA stands for Results
Oriented Management and Accountability.
2. What is the purpose of ROMA?
ROMA is a set of principles and tools to
guide CAA program planning, operations and reporting.
The intent of ROMA is to help CAA’s to produce clearer and stronger
results and to provide ways of measuring those results and reporting on them.
3.
Is ROMA a new way to address poverty in our communities?
No.
ROMA is not an anti-poverty strategy in and of itself, but is a new way
of measuring the results of our anti-poverty work by measuring the changes that
occur as a result of the services we provide. ROMA is a set of management
principles and tools to measure results or “outcomes” for individuals,
families and communities. Community Action Agencies (CAA’s) must still figure
out the causes and conditions of poverty and how to eliminate or reduce those
causes and conditions in their local communities.
4. Why do we have to use ROMA?
In 1993 Congress
required all Federal agencies and programs to produce strategic plans and ways
to measure results. In 1998,
Congress amended the Community Services Block Grant legislation (CSBG) to
mandate ROMA or some comparable system for CAA’s.
The Federal Office of Community Services (OCS) administers the CSBG
program. There is no “comparable
system,” therefore ROMA is the OCS required system for complying with the
Federal law.
5. Who developed ROMA?
In 1995, the Office
of Community Services (OCS) set up the Monitoring and Assessment Task Force (MATF). It is made up of 50 representatives of the Community Action
Agency (CAA) network from around the country.
MATF was charged with developing ways for CAA’s to change the focus of
their work from delivering services to ending poverty and to develop
methods for measuring the results of this work.
6. Will ROMA last, or is it just
another passing fad?
ROMA is the system
for the foreseeable future. ROMA
has been endorsed or adopted by all of the national organizations that work with
the CAA network including the National Community Action Foundation (NCAF), the
national Community Action Partnership, the National Association of State
Community Services Programs (NASCSP) and by the HHS Office of Community
Services.
7.
What
are the national goals for use by CAA’s?
There are six ROMA goals developed by the
MATF and adopted by OCS for use by all CSBG “eligible entities,” most of
which are CAA’s. They are:
The Six ROMA Goals
Goal
1.
Low-income
people become more self-sufficient.
