A.
Background
Systematic
planning is the 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.
Statistics about poverty need to be supplemented with
“people contact.” In addition
to knowing that Ms. Smith makes less than $7,000 per year as head of household,
it is also important to know she is reluctant to work more than that because she
knows she could lose medical care. It is this people contact that puts life into
statistics.
B.
The Planning Committee and the Planning Cycle
Members of the
Planning Committee or the Executive Committee have the opportunity to be the
Board's liaison in the people contact process.
Involvement at the neighborhood and people level is paramount to the
Planning Committee's meaningful evaluation of the needs of the poor and the
selection of effective strategies, goals, and results measures.
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. (See
the section on Sorting Community Input)
-
Deciding which problems and opportunities are the most important and will
receive greater emphasis by the CAA. (See
the section on Ranking Problems)
-
Deciding on the strategy that the CAA will attempt to eliminate the
causes of the poverty problems. (See Types of Strategies,
Strategy Elements and Exercise, and New
Antipoverty Strategies Needed)
-
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.
C.
Board
Roles in Planning
The primary
responsibility for making sure that planning takes place rests with the CAA
Board. It is legally responsible
for CAA operations; it is ultimately responsible for the effectiveness of the
CAA. The staff, neighborhood
organizations, low-income people and other community interests should
participate in the planning process. 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.
-
Educating the community and building support.. When you are
out there asking questions and sharing ideas, you can tell your story, make
friends and develop allies for the future.
-
Better organization
-- Board and staff members will have a
greater understanding of their respective responsibilities and a greater sense
of unified purpose and direction.
-
Responsiveness to low-income people. The CAA can
provide for involvement of the people in the community in making the plans that
will affect their future.
-
Provides a decision making framework. A plan provides the
criteria, against which most day-to-day decisions can be made.
-
Effective resource utilization. The CAA will be able to
identify the specific resources needed and to direct its resources toward
long-range benefits.
-
Helps solve accountability problems. Makes it easier to
show the community and funding agencies where money has been spent and what it
has accomplished.
-
Simplifies assessment of staff. There are goals against
which performance can be measured.
-
Reduces crisis management. Planning can help to avoid
crisis situations that soak up so much time.
The Complete Planning Cycle has
four generic stages:
1.
Plan for Planning.
2. The Planning Process.
3. Implementation of the Plan (e.g. Program Operations).
4. Evaluation for feedback to future planning.
The first two
of these four stages is discussed in this workbook.
The first step
is to prepare your plan-for-planning. The
Executive Director assumes a vital role in the planning process.
The CAA Board makes requests to the Executive Director for gathering,
analyzing and presenting information for their use in making decisions.
The Director is responsible for the accomplishment of these tasks in a
timely manner. The Director will
delegate many of these tasks to staff and then report back to the Board.
Let’s look at the first two stages.
1.
The Plan for Planning.
This describes
the planning PROCESS. It includes
the steps to be taken, the calendar, the assignments -- who will do
what, how the community will be involved, and the dates on which draft products
will be reviewed. The Executive
Director drafts the Plan for Planning for modification and approval by the
Board.
2.
The Planning Process Itself.
There are many
types of planning systems. A few
are: zero-based budgeting;
Planning-programming budgeting system, strategic planning, management by
objectives, market-oriented planning, and
program budgeting.
No one of these
systems is so much more powerful for CAA purposes than another that it cries out
to be used. 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. Assuming
you will use a long-range planning system and that you will involve a
large number of people, how do you adapt a generic planning process for CAA
purposes?
Regardless of
which planning system is used, you will want it to focus on the unique social
planning responsibility of a CAA: to analyze poverty problems and to develop
solutions to those problems, and to seize other opportunities that will benefit
low-income people.
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.
It is the statistical representation of the problem.
It is a static snapshot of the problem we see in the census data and
other social indicators. “X
number of people with characteristics L and M live in a condition of N and O.”
It is the people who are “in” poverty.
The CAA sets a GOAL to change the CONDITION.
The GOAL is phrased in terms of a change in the condition.
For example: “We will
reduce the total number of substandard housing units in our community from 400
to 200.” Or, “We will increase
the number of units of one-bedroom housing in Z County that rent for less
than X amount from the present total supply of 100 units to a total of 150
units.”
(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. These may be acts of
omission or commission by somebody at some level of society, e.g. nation,
region, community, family or individual, in one or more sectors of society,
e.g. economic, political, social, etc. Ms.
Mary Evert was appointed by President Reagan as Director of HHS/OCS.
At the 1988 NACAA Conference she said:
“It is accepted by conservatives and liberals alike that there are both
social and individual causes of poverty.”
The planning task is to sort it all out and develop a strategy to change
the causes. This is an important
point -- both social and individual causes.
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.
“To finance the rehabilitation of the 200 units in our goal, we must
overcome the unwillingness of the city to create a new bond issue to finance the
costs of rehabilitation.” Or,
“To overcome the 'bad attitude' of individuals with these characteristics, we
must...”
This approach
is essential in order to sort out the individual, the family, and the group -- and the political and economic
-- causes of
poverty. If you do not use this
methodology, the concepts get blobbed together in a way that it is almost
impossible to figure out WHAT happened and WHY it did or did not happen.
Also, it is
very easy to slide off into constantly repairing the condition, i.e.
band-aiding new victims, but failing to address the causes. With this in
mind, we now run through a brief description of a poverty problem-solving
planning process used in many CAA’s.
This workbook
has two approaches to planning. The
succinct version is found in the planning workbook that John Ochoa, CSD, wrote
and it. The second and
longer, more comprehensive approach to planning follows.
You may not
have to do every one of these steps, but a planning process would have most of
these steps in it. 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.
1.
CREATE YOUR VISION for the future. What
do you want your community to look like 20 years from now? The vision is usually bigger than any one organization can
accomplish. It takes a community to
realize a vision. This is a good place to clarify the values that will guide the
organization. Values are the
principles that serve to keep you on the road.
2.
REVIEW the MISSION. The next
step in implementing your Plan for Planning is to review the MISSION STATEMENT
of your CAA. Why are we here?
What is our purpose? Should
the Mission Statement be modified or used as is?
3. NEEDS and OPPORTUNITIES ASSESSMENT.
You can identify a wide range of poverty problems by looking around,
through meetings with low-income residents, evaluations of existing
programs and by talking with community leaders and government officials.
There is no scarcity of problems and opportunities.
The focus during the community assessment is on sorting the poverty
problems into their CONDITIONS and their CAUSES. (See the section on Sorting Community Input). The CAA Board may ask the Executive Director
to help them:
-
Obtain data that describes the CONDITIONS,
-
Suggest the full range of CAUSES of the problems.
This presentation is not just a Xeroxed batch of census charts.
There are very powerful TRENDS in American society.
The Board must understand these demographic, economic, political and
social trends, and how they may affect your community.
These trends are the context within which the CAA plans.
A trend may create a major problem in your community, or it may solve one
without your help. Learning about
these trends is a vital part of planning. A
review of these national trends and analysis by a “futurist” is an excellent
topic for a one-day Board retreat.
-
Conduct special studies or
surveys.
-
Report on staff opinions concerning community
needs.
Give them a place to “put” their ideas so you can tell the difference
between what they think and what the other people that they have talked with
think.
4.
PROBLEM RANKING. After they
have identified the problems, the Board can RANK the poverty problems in terms
of their magnitude and severity.
·
Magnitude is the size of the problem; the total number
and/or the percentage of the population who experience it.
You can set up a scale of one to five, i.e. over 40% = 5; 30% to 40% = 4;
etc.
·
Severity addresses the urgency.
Is it life threatening? Or
just inconvenient? You can develop
a numerical scale and assign problems to it.
Very severe = 5; severe = 4; etc.
Then MULTIPLY
the Magnitude factor times the Severity factor for the final ranking.
The Executive
Director can be asked to draft criteria for Ranking for modification and use by
the Board, or the Board can do it themselves. (See Ranking
Problems)
5.
RESOURCE ANALYSIS. After you
have ranked the problems, then determine what public and private monies are
already focused on solving the problem. Perhaps
some problems are well covered. Others
may be new or unpopular and have almost no resources devoted to them.
Others may be beyond the scope of your organizations mission, interests,
resources or capacity.
The
Executive Director can obtain data on public and private resources that already
exist and are being spent on each problem.
The Board must find out the amount of the existing public and private
resources already focused on those problems to measure how much of the problem
is already being met.
6. PRIORITY
SETTING. After you
know the other resources that are devoted to the ranked problems and
opportunities, you can set your own priorities.
This is a subjective process that reflects the values of the people who
make the decision. It is what YOU
the Board members want the CAA Board, staff and volunteers to work on.
Some of the factors that will affect your decision are the:
a.
Ability of the agency to improve the situation.
b. Length of time and amount of funds required to achieve results.
c. Enthusiasm that Board members have for personally working on a topic.
d. Interests of other stakeholders.
The Executive Director can help to organize and facilitate
meetings of target area groups at which Board members will be present to discuss
community issues. This community
meeting or hearing is required by many states or CAA’s.
It is an excellent way to determine the “fit” between board member
perceptions and the opinions of people who may be affected by those decisions.
7.
GOAL SETTING. Back to GOALS.
Now that the Board has selected some problems or opportunities as the
priority areas they want to work on, you can test out some GOALS that are
phrased in terms of changing the conditions of that problem.
Goals are typically multi-year because it usually takes two to five
years to make a significant change in a social problem. Use the ROMA goal
framework as an agency-wide framework.
8. This is where most CAA’s also develop
RESULTS MEASURES. How will you know when you have accomplished your goal?
What changes will you see OUT THERE in the community or in families or
individuals?
9. STRATEGY
SELECTION. There
are often a variety of ways to accomplish a goal.
The strategy should modify the CAUSES of the problem so that the GOAL can
be achieved. The strategy should be
sufficient to accomplish the goal but use the least amount of resources -- financial, energy, political clout, staff time, etc. The
strategies and programs are then related to the ROMA goals. (See Types
of Strategies, Strategy Elements and Exercise,
and New Antipoverty Strategies Needed)
10.
OBJECTIVES. After the Board
has selected the GOALS and the STRATEGIES, the Executive Director can work with
the staff to convert them into specific objectives.
The objectives are annualized, with quarterly measures to determine
progress. The objectives,
activities and attendant budgets are typically what is included in a “program
plan” or “grant application.” These
are generally written by the CAA staff and reviewed by the Board of Directors.
The depth of the review performed by the Board is affected by a variety
of factors, such as funding source requirements and whether you are a public or
a private CAA.
At
this point, you will again review possible private and public resources and then
proceed to mobilize those resources. Those
resources may take a variety of forms such as money, transportation, volunteer
services, space, etc.
11.
ACTIVITIES. These are the
nitty-gritty assignments to staff; the realignment of the organization and
staff responsibilities to achieve the goals.
The Executive Director is responsible for this.
NOTE:
The material in this section was excerpted from the
CAA Executive Directors Manual and The
Planning Manual for CAA=s,
both published by the Community
Action Partnership back when it was the National Association of Community
Action Agencies.
CONDITIONS,
CAUSES and STRATEGIES THAT ADDRESS CAUSES
This exercise illustrates the challenges in just trying to sort out what
people are saying, and to organize the information in a way that action can be
taken on it.
Instructions.
Read the list of comments from the Needs Assessment community meeting (on
the next two pages). Assume that you were there as a CAA representative.
You were assigned to keep track of what is said in the meeting relevant
to HOUSING and EMPLOYMENT.
· Pick out the issues that might be of interest to a CAA.
·
Put the number of each statement about your problem on the
worksheet. E.g. #8, #12
·
Share the results of your efforts with the larger group.
· You have 20 minutes to complete this exercise.
NOTES
from a “typical” local community planning meeting.
Present:
26 residents, of whom 6 are Head Start parents. Several CAA staff are present.
The CAA Planner stated that the CAA Board Planning Committee was asking
for ideas about which problems the CAA should address.
The Planner stated that needs are to be looked at in terms of problems
and opportunities in the community, not from the perspective of existing
programs. Further, the CAA uses the
definition of PROBLEM as “a barrier or condition that prevents individuals or
families who are poor from realizing their full potential.”
The CAA is also looking for opportunities or strengths in the community.
A brainstorming process was used to identify problems/needs, and persons
present made the following statements:
-
Transportation is a major problem affecting both young and old.
People can't get to doctors. If
cars break down, it's impossible to get anywhere, even in emergencies.
-
If Weatherization program funds are cut, this will really hurt people.
-
The system isn't fair. Resources
are not distributed evenly, some get lots of benefits and others get little.
Example: some people get
both Social Security and retirement benefits or Social Security and a government
pension. It is now nearly
impossible to get disability.
-
There are no jobs for anyone now. People can't get off welfare because: a) no jobs are available, b) baby sitting and transportation
costs eat up the benefits of working at a minimum wage and low pay jobs.
This affects single mothers especially hard.
-
Single-parent
families have special needs. When
you are the only parent, it is nearly impossible to get away from the kids for a
break. Could a group of program
participants get together and trade off caring for each other’s kids?
-
When you feel like you have had it with your kids, there is nowhere to
turn. Could a HOTLINE be set up for
someone to talk to?
-
Are there resources for spouse abuse?
If so, they need to be supported... there is a need.
-
Is the Home Health Care Program going?
There is a need to expand the program.
-
Community action is needed because it 1) takes at least one kid out of
the program participants' hands for a while, 2) Has made kids “independent”
or “self-sufficient,” 3) teaches manners, 4) teaches sharing instead of
stinginess, and 5) helps kids learn and listen.
-
Can we get/ use the community action agency bus for a Senior Citizen's
Bus? The local taxi service has
prevented this from happening in the past.
-
The meals programs keep many people out of shelters, especially the Meals
on Wheels program and the WIC program.
-
If Community action goes down it will mean that 20 kids will not get
assessed by the mental health center, have proper dental care, get at least two
good meals a day, learn shapes and colors, etc., have speech and hearing
problems identified and corrected, or will not have interaction with other kids.
Many kids in our County are living in rotten situations without any help.
At least for some time each week, the kids are in a stable environment
with people who care and are interested in the child when they are in Community
action.
-
Legal aid is really needed. The
County Attorney has not been responsive in the past, especially in spousal-abuse
cases.
-
The Food Stamps program is already being reduced.
Meals program Title XX certification is affected.
One person was cut who just cannot fix a meal and many cannot pay for
meals.
Needs
Assessment/Problem Analysis Worksheet
I.
Who are the affected groups?
II.
What statements pertain to each target group?
III. Assign the statements made to one of the following categories.
(It is only necessary to list the numbers of the statements used in the
appropriate category.)
a. Conditions that exist in the community.
b.
Causes of the conditions.
c.
Strategies to affect the causes.
d.
Information or other data.
Exercise
in Problem Analysis
Have your board or staff sort out these typical statements made at a
public meeting on housing and employment problems.
The key insight is that you can have a problem with a
high rank, but as you continue through the planning process and look at
resources and priorities, your agency does not necessarily address every highly
ranked problem. This may be because
(a) somebody else is already doing it; (b) it is outside your mission, expertise
or resources; or (c) your CAA is addressing some other priority first, etc.
Agency priorities may be different from the severity and magnitude --
from the rank of a problem.
2. What
Types of Strategies do CAAs Use?
Most CAAs use a variety of strategies.
CAA Board members may emphasize a particular strategy, or they may create
combinations of strategies. Some
strategies eliminate the factors that will cause other people to be low-income
in the future, i.e. they go after the causes of poverty for a social group.
Other strategies change the condition of poverty as it affects one
person. This leaves the underlying
social causes untouched. This section reviews the types of strategies typically
used individually or in combination with each other by a CAA.
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.
Other strategies require funds to hire staff or buy materials.
The CAA may use its own funds to do this either because there are no
other funds available, or the solution cuts across multiple program
jurisdictions and no other source is flexible enough to do it.
Many strategies will be developed or implemented through partnerships. An
excellent workbook on partnerships was developed by John Ochoa, CSD. It can be
found at http://www.cencomfut.com/EOGBoardTrainingBook.pdf
The Executive Director can help the Board assess the costs and benefits of
each strategy. The Executive
Director must be able to implement each strategy that is selected.
Different strategies address different issues. Most strategies are stand-alone -- they will not accomplish
anything but their own ends. For
example, you can ameliorate conditions of poverty with money and other stuff,
like food, but this has only a very weak linkage to a person's ability to earn
money. You can help people
develop their capacities through individual and family counseling, but it is
unclear that this has an impact on earning power.
You can help a person increase their income through self-employment, job
finding, or job creation through economic and community development; and this
has almost no correlation with their attitude, mood or personal habits.
You can do community building, but this is on a plane different from
economic activity. You can fix bad
social institutions and seek equity and anti-discrimination.
Some of the approaches are described in more detail below.
1. INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE. These
strategies include promoting changes in other social, economic and political
institutions. They might be changes
in laws, community practices or in the procedures of public agencies. The changes might be implemented in the selection procedures
for housing, or the hiring procedures of a public or private employer.
An interesting feature of this strategy is that it does not
necessarily involve coming into contact with large number of low- income people.
They focus is on the social and political institutions that affect
low-income people. The focus is to change society so that it is a better place
for all people. President Richard
Nixon reduced the poverty rate among senior citizens from 34% to 14% when he
signed the Social Security Amendments of 1971 into law. This income strategy was an anti- poverty program that helped
millions of people.
Some people believe that only these approaches can create
permanent changes that have a lasting effect in removing obstacles and barriers
for poor people. They argue that
these changes will benefit large number of people now and in the future -- and
that these are people the CAA may never come into contact with personally but
who will benefit from the CAA operations. This
can include activity to reduce or prevent discrimination based on race, sex, or
age.
2.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT.
This approach helps low-income people act on their own behalf.
They might focus on solving a community problem, creating a new
opportunity, on correcting a social injustice or some other self-help effort.
It usually has community leaders in the forefront with the CAA staff and
board providing assistance to them.
These approaches involve advocacy and sometimes even direct
political action. Many feel that
community organization and community development strategies help low-income
people obtain the sense of empowerment and obtain the skills needed to solve
both the immediate problem and future problems.
This can include economic development, i.e. creating new
businesses that provide opportunities for people to earn money.
3.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.
Duplication is the same service being provided by more than
one provider to the same people at the same time in the same area.
If the total amount of services being provided is more than is needed,
then by eliminating the duplication some of those resources can be devoted to
another task. If there is less total service than is actually needed, it is
hard to make an argument that duplication exists, even if more than one agency
are providing the same services.
A claim was once made that the CSBG was in and of itself a
“duplication” of the Social Services Block Grant. The General Accounting Office,
an arm of the U.S. Congress, did a study in 1986. The GAO found that the CSBG-funded activities and CAAs do not
duplicate the activities provided under the Social Services Block Grant.
Another element of the coordination strategy is to ensure the
best possible fit or synergy between the efforts of various service providers.
Otherwise people can “fall between the cracks.”
An example of this might be a transportation program in one agency that
operates from 5:00 pm to 8:00 p.m., but people are still coming out of a nearby
location until 10:00 p.m. By
coordinating the type and time of one service so it picks up where another
leaves off, you are improving program coordination.
Needless to say any time you are on the “turf” of other public or
private agencies it can be a delicate or even controversial activity.
What is one person’s effort to make things more rational often affects
somebody else's prestige or power. Nevertheless
this strategy can produce benefits for low-income people.
4.
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. This may be a single fundraising event, or the development of
an new flow of funds that will continue for a long period, or shifting money
from some other purpose into low-income programs.
5.
OUTREACH AND INFORMATION AND REFERRAL.
The basic idea behind this strategy is that there are many effective
public and private programs, but that not all people who could benefit from them
do so. So 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.
Many public programs are set up for walk-in traffic, and many
eligible people never get to programs because of the lack of awareness,
motivation or transportation. Even
in today's information age, many people simply do not know a program that might
help them exists. CAAs historically
provided and still do provide the outreach and enrollment activities for many
public programs.
One concern about Information and Referral (I&R) is that
it does not automatically ensure that a person will be helped by the agency to
which they are sent, or that they will receive the services or benefits to which
they are entitled. It may be just a
hello-and-goodbye system.
6.
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.
These approaches use basic social work theory and me
