CHAPTER 3: INITIAL STRATEGIES

    An overarching theoretical construct for a new way to think about and address poverty is necessary, but not sufficient. While the theoretical construct provided in this blueprint fills an important gap in the nation’s approach to poverty and capacity building, it does not get it done. Similarly, neither do the independent strategies we as a nation currently pursue that are not leveraged toward a common objective.  Recognizing that neither a construct nor independent strategies alone can get the job done, strategies built upon and aligned with an overarching construct are needed.

    A first set of strategies that begin to put the construct into action are described in this chapter. The descriptions provided can be used to further develop the strategy and to develop operational plans for specific projects that can be immediately initiated. Recognizing that any strategy conceived now is only the beginning of a long-term process, the strategies described in this chapter serve as initial learning platforms for future work and as mechanisms for moving forward toward the long-term vision. 

    These strategies represent a mix of short- and long-term, operational and strategic, broad and specific, and well- and minimally- developed in concept. They involve some sectors while missing key others, but serve as a beginning to establish momentum toward broader engagement and planning by every sector of society to effectively address poverty. All of these strategies require further development and operational plans.

Community Future Search Strategy

    The Community Future Search Strategy would employ a specific system theory-based methodology (Future Search) to convene six to eight communities across the country in discussing and planning for their future, with poverty as the topic. These convenings are intended to create the conditions in which open dialog can occur, common ground can be found, systemic ownership can be established, effective plans can be created, and commitment for action can be built.

    The goals of the Community Future Search Strategy are to:

Based on these goals, four phases are envisioned for this strategy. They are:

1. Start up planning and community leaders workshop
2. Community conferences
3. Policy development conference
4. Assessment of learning for replication and future projects

Start-up Planning and Community Leaders Workshop

    The start up and planning activities would be designed to initiate community interest in participating and then to cull down the resulting list of interested communities into a group of 6-8 participating communities. Communities in regions throughout the U.S. would be invited to submit an application to participate. 12-15 communities would initially be selected (based on specific criteria, one of which would involve the existence of a local champion/leader willing to see the community through the process) to send two to four champions/leaders from their community to attend the Community Leaders Workshop. The workshop is intended prepare them for championing their community effort and allow them to see the methodology to be used in the community conferences (phase 2) and experience such a convening first hand.

    The Community Leaders Workshop will:

    By participating in the workshop, participants will not only build their capacity as community leaders, but they will determine the extent to which their community is ready to engage in a Community Conference. Based on their own assessments, it is expected that 6-8 communities will be determined ready to engage in a Community Conference. Using this model, a team of ready, willing, and able community leaders will have been identified and mobilized to lead a community-based effort to create more a viable community future and in so doing, help significant numbers of residents avoid or overcome poverty. In addition, the leaders from the communities who assessed themselves as not quite ready for the Community Conference experience will have increased their own capacity for community leadership.

Community Conferences

    The topic for the 6-8 Community Conferences will be "The Future of [Community]" or some close variation that addresses the issue of the community’s approach to poverty and more broadly, to building community capacity. Each of the conferences will get the "whole system" in the room using the Future Search methodology to:

    The conference methodology provides only the structure and environment in which to engage the community. It does not prescribe specific strategies or actions for the community to take, nor does it determine what is appropriate or not appropriate for the participants to discuss. The structure allows the whole system to review the past, explore the present, create ideal future scenarios, identify common ground, and make action plans.

    Everything else about the Conference—the participants, dates, times, location, etc.—will be determined and implemented by a local steering group. Each team of community leaders who participated in the Community Leaders Conference will recruit their own steering groups to plan—with the help of an experienced conference mentor—their Community Conference. Up to 60-70 people in each community, representing the "whole system," will participate in the Conference, including residents, teachers, business leaders, human services leaders, youth, local, state and federal officials, health care providers, church leaders, etc.

Policy Development Conference

    After all of the Community Conferences have taken place, a Policy Development Conference would be convened among the local, state, and Federal officials who participated as stakeholders in the Community Conferences. This conference would be similarly designed and include the policy stakeholder/participants from all of the Community Conferences, as well as other stakeholders in developing and implementing policy at the Federal, state, and local levels. This conference would use the collective learning from the Community Conferences as a basis for its topic, "The Future of Policy in Providing Enabling Conditions to Communities" or a similar variation that creates ideal policy circumstances that would provide the enabling conditions for communities to carry out the action plans they developed during their Community Conferences.

    The Policy Development Conference would build on the original commitments participants made in the Community Conferences and create new, policy-specific commitments among policymakers in creating a policy environment that enable and empower communities to effectively address their communities’ poverty. Since many of the participants in the Policy Development Conference are stakeholders in both the community and the policy development "system," the combination of the Community and Policy Development Conferences will help create a link between and joint ownership among communities and policy makers for new ways of addressing poverty and building capacity.

Assessment of Learning for Replication and Future Projects

    The first round of the Community Leaders Workshop, Community Conferences, and the Policy Development Conference would be used to develop a model that can be repeated each year for five years. This replication could lead to the involvement of several thousands of residents in 40 or more communities across the country and hundreds of policy makers, all focusing on addressing poverty and building capacity in new ways.

    If this strategy is successful, we would see:

    During the course of this initiative, two parallel themes emerged – we must create a human service delivery system that is person-centric, not program-centric; and in order to create this person-centric approach, the current human service delivery model must literally be turned upside down. Most new federal initiatives begin with demonstration projects to test the assumptions made through research and feedback from those impacted. This model is no exception. The community demonstration strategy is grounded in the assumption that there is a better way to deliver services; this better way will lead to better outcomes (fewer people in poverty); and the tools to do not exist in today’s federally mandated program structure.

    Therefore one of the key next steps is to put the ideals of the construct in this blueprint to the test in communities to be able to translate the work into real progress that can demonstrate that this approach will produce better results than have other efforts. We know that human services can be delivered in far more effective ways than they are in any place today. We know that it takes all sectors of a community to be successful in following a new path and that there must be community ownership of the process. 

     There is a strong belief that applying the principles in the construct within a community will produce better outcomes for those in poverty than have other approaches. This will remain a theory until it is tested in real places under real conditions. Essentially there are two major aspects that need to be tested: the first is how a community can come together to find new ways to approach poverty as a comprehensive issue and the second is how service delivery can be shifted from a program based orientation to an individual focused approach that begins to look at the whole person and removes the barriers to accessing services so that the individual’s needs take precedence over program requirements. Neither of these are new concepts and both have been tried in differing degrees but they have not been put to scale or studied for impact.

    To take the construct presented here to the next level, the concepts need to be demonstrated in live settings and compared to other ways of doing business.  Therefore, there is a need to have, optimally, a series of demonstration communities, but minimally, at least one, which will devote their collective energy to testing the precepts and being pathfinders for the rest of the country.

    The ideal scope of the demonstration models would be to have all the principles of the construct incorporated into a few communities, as noted above. However, there could be a range of options that start with less intense engagements that include the essential elements of a community planning component, an individual-focused service delivery strategy, and an evaluation component to determine if the model produces better outcomes. The service delivery component would ideally include the full range of human services available to support individuals in poverty.

    It is even possible to start with a limited number of human services programs and to create a person-centered strategy for those investments -streamlining eligibility and opening up delivery options to look at different models. On a broader scope, the precepts could be mixed with ongoing foundation or other funding sources that would give the demonstrations greater flexibility and be able to include more services in the mix. There is obviously a need for longer duration investigation that will be able to look at changes over time.

    In no case do we expect there will be quick changes in outcomes and we also know that any community engagement strategy is a long-term activity. Therefore we must ensure, however these principles are tested, they are given sufficient time to take root and to have a chance to make a difference in a community. 

    There is a great deal that can be learned from what has taken place already as part of community change models. What is evident is that the activities to date have been limited in scope e.g. focus on housing or focus on infrastructure. There is also much to be learned from other Federal initiatives in integration of programs. One area for focus is the One-Stop Career Center initiative under the Workforce Investment Act, which brought together a series of mandated partners to deliver workforce development services in local areas.

    The major components of any demonstration effort should include:

    Each of these factors should be employed in assessing potential community readiness to engage in the demonstration process. There should be an internal exercise of determining the relative weight of each of these factors and creating a rating scale to be used in selecting communities to participate in the demonstration process. Optimally, this process should involve national, state, and local stakeholders who will then become champions for the model and can give the process greater credibility. To the extent feasible foundations and national interest groups could play vital roles in the process as well.

    Success will be measured through two aspects. The first would be achieving a demonstration project in at least one community that tests both the community engagement and the human services integration to some degree. The term demonstration does not imply that a separately funded effort must be instituted.  Success could be defined as an existing community effort that already is underway and adds elements to it that reflect the foundation provided by the theoretical construct. 

    The second aspect of success will come later in the process when the actual demonstration is completed and there is evidence that the interventions have made a positive improvement on metrics determined during the development stage but ultimately relate to people being better off - moving on their journey to achieving their own goals.

Sector Rooting Strategy

    Recognizing that every sector of society has a role in addressing the nation’s poverty, the Sector Rooting Strategy is intended to begin embedding the theoretical construct into one sector as a test for learning how to embed it in other sectors. Embedding the construct means that the vision, mission, imperatives, and principles included in the construct are incorporated into the sector’s strategic direction and that its operations (and ultimately the culture) are aligned accordingly. Effectively aligning operations with the components of the construct would fundamentally change the way the sector (or a specific component or operation of the sector) does business and ultimately improve the sector’s performance in building the capacity of its customers to avoid or get out of poverty. Such capacity building would provide sustainable economic benefits back to the sector.

    The public human services sector could be the initial "test sector" in which embedding the construct could be attempted. The public human services sector is uniquely positioned to play an important role in the larger societal change toward a fundamentally different way of thinking about and addressing poverty because it:

    With these reasons in mind, the public human services sector is in the unique position to see the systemic nature of the conditions of poverty and its many parts. Therefore, it makes the sector an attractive starting point for change. The initial product of this strategy will be the plan itself—the specific approach and operational plan for beginning to embed the construct into the strategic direction and operations of the sector. Since this initial trial with public human services is intended to become a model for embedding the construct in other sectors, a common framework for a phased approach upon which sector-specific activities can be built will be an important initial product. For example, a common framework could include components of:

    Obviously, a number of activities and tasks would be involved for each of the framework components above and further development of the strategy is needed.

    If this strategy is successful, we would see:

    The Market Solutions strategy would provide an opportunity to bring private sector actors and solutions to bear on issues of importance to low-income families and communities. Groups of private sector leaders would be convened on a regular basis to consider the question of how they can profitably invest in and provide solutions to improving the lives of low-income families and children. Building on an initial convening of a group of private sector leaders who discussed how they could invest in ways to support asset accumulation—an important market issue for low-income families and communities—this strategy would continue with similar convenings.

    The Market Solutions strategy embodies the principle that our approaches to addressing poverty be consistent with America’s tenet of market solutions—that the infrastructures and mechanisms to assist those in need should be developed by tapping into private resources and market solutions. Doing so would geometrically expand the resources and possibilities for maximizing personal and societal capacity.

Strategy Rationale

    There is a significant segment of our society that is not participating in our mainstream banking and financial management systems. Conservative estimates indicate 13 million Americans do not have bank accounts. It is important to address this issue because:

Opportunity Statement

    There is a tremendous opportunity in addressing this issue. Millions of hard working Americans are trying to improve their economic viability and quality of life for their families. A private sector market has emerged to serve these people, but unfortunately, services are costly. This market has often been centered in cash-checking operations, pay day lending services, and other often predatory lending organizations. Commercial banking institutions have the opportunity to gain access to this previously untapped market to create and sustain an enlarged customer base. If the commercial banking industry can develop programs and products to successfully meet the unique needs of this population, they can establish new customer relationships that will grow in profitability as personal wealth and assets accumulate.

Strategy Implementation

    The first steps for implementing this strategy include:

This strategy will be successful if:

    There are a host of federal agencies that have a mandate to serve those in poverty in some way. They range from addressing housing needs, developing basic skills, providing for health and nutritional needs, childcare, transportation support, support for occupational training, and job placement assistance. As evidenced by the Matrix of Programs serving those in poverty, many federal agencies have some role to play in addressing the needs of the poverty and near poverty population. In each case, these are separately funded programs that, for the most part, are not connected to one another other at the federal level.

    Beyond the massive welfare reform legislation, there is one example of a federal initiative to integrate programs that has been ongoing for about eight years. The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 required agencies providing workforce services to delivery core services (those services open to all) through One-Stop Career Centers. 

    This initiative has shown some promise in bringing services together under one roof but has had limited success in truly integrating services consistent with the principle of shifting to a person centered approach as opposed to a program-centric model.

    Essentially, WIA kept the programs in tact but required collaboration through interagency agreements and formal cost sharing models. Locally multiple partners are expected to work together to achieve commonly defined outcomes but they are still primarily driven by the outcomes expected of their own program funding streams and the only real sanctions come from those program specific expectations. Greater program flexibility was not built in to the operating model and therefore the key program limitations remain in effect.

    This is a microcosm for what is lacking in the federal sector to achieve the goal of a person-centered model, a cornerstone of the construct presented in this document. In order to begin to address this service delivery disconnect, there is merit in federal agencies to begin discussions about the person-centered concept and how their funding streams can be modified to realize better outcomes for individuals based on individual needs.

    There should be a place for discussions to take place on essentially block granting more funds with looser restrictions but tighter outcome expectations. This may come from action pushed by the Office of Management and Budget with support from stakeholders who see the value in the process. The welfare legislation can certainly be cited as a positive example of how such an approach can be effective. An issue for examination within that context is how much control States exerted to simply push new programs to the local level without regard for the person-centered approach.

    Defining the common outcomes and leaving the structure to state and local implementers appears to be the key. This is a critical step that could be advocated at the federal level. However, there is little impetus for change from individual agencies.

    Therefore, the push for change needs to be generated from the outside using key stakeholders who believe there is merit in aggregating program resources and further devolving responsibility to the state and local level.

    Therefore to move this issue, it should be tested with key member organizations representing the human services field. There have been many initiatives on program integration that have been limited by federal restrictions. The typical drawback to supporting further integration in the form of block granting is the fear that the effort will result in overall funding reductions. This must be addressed directly as part of any person-centered initiative. This overall strategy needs a home outside of the federal structure and could be well connected to foundation efforts that have tried to do the same thing with their dollars.

    The Social Change Benchmarking Strategy is envisioned as a study into past successful and unsuccessful social change movements to identify conditions for success, things to avoid, and key milestones to anticipate as the larger initiative moves forward. Results of this study would be incorporated into the planning and development of future strategies to sustain momentum toward the long-term vision. Potential project components include:

    If this strategy is successful, we will: