What We Are Doing and What We Are Learning?

Talking about Return on Our Investments

2011-09-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

The common ground for my work this week was

How do we talk about return on our investments in addressing the needs of low income Americans?

This week I worked with Community Action Agencies, the Council of Foundation, a national funder, and the Senate Finance Budget Committee. They all asked

How do we know we are spending our money well?

How do we tell the story well about what we are accomplishing?

Community Action Agencies are using Results Oriented Measurement and Accountability (ROMA) to show what they have accomplished and to adapt their programs to be more effective. It is a start to answering what impact the money has had at an agency level, at a state level and at a national level. It isn’t yet an effective approach to telling the story and engaging people in the work that Community Action does. And there are still many issues to address if one wants to compare results in a small rural community, with a metropolitan area with little growth, or with a thriving city with some neighborhoods still struggling with access to opportunity. To learn more about ROMA, go to http://www.nascsp.com/CSBG/594/ROMA.aspx?iHt=11. And tell me about national indicators that you are developing or using.

Measuring Progress

2011-08-12T06:32:00.000-07:00

This week I worked with several different clients - social service nonprofits, community based groups, arts and cultures institutes, scientific research centers, and foundations. The questions that kept bubbling to the surface when I spoke with each of the clients were:

· How do you show progress?

· What are your indicators?

· What is the impact?

Sometimes the answers to those questions are quantitative and can be rather easily measured, but sometimes we are looking for a feeling, an experience, or even an expectation of how a life was changed going forward. How do we measure those? Organizations need the information as they plan for the future and funders want to see how you are going to measure your program impact.

A useful resource is “A Guide to Actionable Measurement” found on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website. Other tools and resources for assessing social impact can be found on the TRASI part of the Foundation Center’s website.

I also find appreciative inquiry a valuable methodology. This is described in an Annie E. Casey Foundation document listed on the TRASI site. This is a method I’ve used to explore an organization’s successes, so strategic planning builds on what’s working and focuses on changing what isn’t.

- Mary

2010-07-14T06:08:00.001-07:00

Carol Coren, Cornerstone Consultants Principal, helped E-Homemakers highlight how women can earn money through telecommuting at our E-Homemakers Conference. Her observations pointed out how double and triple bottom lines are being met in the USA by employers, employees, and entrepreneurs with small office/home office operations. She participated at our 2010 E-Homemakers Conference in Kuala Lampur via the Internet and offered our audience of business leaders, government agency directors, and service contractors insights into how low income women in our country can carry out full time jobs and operate businesses at home.

The Pit of Poverty is Getting Deeper

2010-02-18T14:32:00.000-08:00

A February 2010 report from Boston's Northeastern University highlights a new and growing divide between poor and rich US households. The Center for Labor Market Studies tracks ten household income categories on an ongoing basis. It has identified an alarming reality that is pulling poor families into deeper distress than has been the case in recent years. The lowest tenth, with annual household income of $12,499 or less for annual income, had a fourth quarter 2009 unemployment rate of 30.8%. The next lowest income group had an unemployment rate of 19.1%. Higher income households are not experiencing the predicaments of unemployment at similar levels. The top two groups, with annual incomes in excess of $100,000 had an average unemployment rate of 3.6%.

Observations such as those being advanced by the Northeastern University Center are driving the nation in a frenzied effort to create jobs, jobs and more jobs. It is going to be critical that attention be given to subsidizing jobs likely to provide opportunities for residents of low income households and that new types of industries begin to be seen as being as critical as costly technology development drives. The US must begin to focus on High Tech job and business innovation if it is to provide work for populations seeking it in our cities and rural communities.

Succession Planning (comments by Ruth)

2010-02-02T07:49:00.000-08:00

It can be difficult for founder Executives to objectively face the reality that they need to be thinking about the next generation of leadership for their organization. The agency is in many ways, like a child, much longed for and once ‘arrived’ carefully and lovingly nurtured into ‘adulthood’. It is understandable then to find it hard to think about a time when one must stand aside and let the adult agency move forward under someone else’s care and leadership. However, not to do so is similar to the negative effect of a parent being enmeshed in the life of an adult child. The agency can begin to struggle as it tries to sort out how best to move forward.

Just as the bricks and mortar of the agency’s physical structures must be cared for as to renovations, relocation when the physical space is outgrown or new opportunities are pursued, etc., so too must the leadership succession be anticipated and planned for if all of the hard work and success of the founders are to be maintained and maximized into the future.

Succession planning best begins with the core mission and strategy of the agency. It is good to have a look at what leadership characteristics and capabilities were brought to the founding and growing of the agency that helped to make it the success that it has become. Articulating the key leadership competencies form the basis of identifying what is needed in the new generation of leadership if the current culture of the agency is to be maintained. A second step is to evaluate existing staff within the agency to identify those who may be viable candidates for future leadership development. These individuals can be assessed against the desired leadership capabilities and development plans created for growth into new leadership levels.

With the proper planning, objective evaluation and development of existing staff, new leaders can be grown, thereby allowing the agency to continue to enjoy the benefit of the wisdom and expertise of existing leadership while at the same time enabling a smooth transition into the next generation of leaders.

Welcome to Ruth Roemer

2010-01-29T02:12:00.000-08:00

Over the past nineteen years Cornerstone Consultants has helped many with strategic planning, program development, meeting facilitation and evaluation. We are now pleased to introduce Ruth Roemer and welcome her to our team. Ruth comes to Cornerstone Consultants with over 25 years of succession planning and organizational development experience to help round out our service offerings.

Ruth works with senior executives and boards to improve the effectiveness of their organizational structures and assists them with planning for leadership succession. She also has an impressive track record of building and implementing change strategies required to ensure successful achievement of organizational mission.

Ruth has leveraged her organizational development and planning expertise across a variety of for-profit and nonprofit organizations. As examples, she improved the retention and reduced staff turnover for a large international organization by creating a series of career paths, she facilitated the succession planning process with a metropolitan social service agency, and she has worked with a number of organizations in the development of their future leaders.

Carol Coren Co-Authored "The L3C: The For-Profit with the Nonprofit Soul

2010-01-25T01:34:00.000-08:00

You can read it at http://stlouisfed.org/publications/br/articles/?id=1848.

A Fresh Look at the Organizations that Deliver Human Services

2010-01-22T04:30:00.000-08:00

The nonprofit sector will feel the impact of the Great Recession for years to come, but as our colleague, Nancy Moses, said in www.philasocialinnovations.org “change long overdue and once thought too risky becomes surprisingly possible when there’s nothing left to lose.”

Many nonprofits have been acting like deer in the headlights, knowing their leadership will be retiring but not knowing how to attract the next generation of leadership. Now the Great Recession has forced many organizations to take a sharp look at how they do business. The most successful nonprofits in this time of transition are asking how they can most effectively meet their mission, judge and communicate their successes, and fund their operations. They are looking carefully at collaborations, elimination of programs, and new management approaches. For some, there new organization will include social enterprises. When these organizations seek new leaders, they will find that their revitalization has made them far more appealing to creative, young leaders who want to lead an organization that isn’t afraid to try new tools and ask the hard questions about what it takes to fulfill their mission in the current climate. Over the next few weeks, the team at Cornerstone will be discussing some specific approaches that we have found helpful as we work with our clients.

Check Out Our Racial Equity and Economic Security Website

2009-12-29T12:20:00.000-08:00

We will be launching this website in March 2010. Please check out the work Mary Virtue has been doing as Project Director of Racial Equity and Economic Security. http://sites.google.com/site/racialequitycommunityaction/

Arts, Culture and Community Development Initiative

2009-12-29T12:19:00.000-08:00

Mary Virtue is gathering Lessons from "Shifting Sands - an Arts, Culture and Community Development Initiative." This five year initiative, managed by Partners for Livable Communities, supported projects conducted by locally grounded institutions. These projects actively engaged community members to define and shape their communities, addressing the challenges they were facing as neighborhoods in transition. This paper will be completed in Spring 2010 and will be available on this website and at www.livable.com.

Microfinance in Southern Sudan

2009-10-24T06:46:00.000-07:00

August 26, 2009 Mary Virtue and Carol Coren were in Southern Sudan helping to build capacity for a national association of microfinance organizations working to help refugees returning to their former homes and villages. A note from Mary: I am sitting in Juba in Southern Sudan. I have a contract to help with capacity building for a microfinance Forum that USAID is supporting here. And it is quite a place. It was a war zone a couple of years back and all the trees and most of the buildings were leveled. Now they have dirt roads with enormous gullies and huts everywhere, as well as some interesting hotels. We are staying in a very friendly place with great food, spotty power, off and on internet and my room is half a trailer. When the power goes off it gets hot very fast. Everything is imported from Kenya or Uganda. It is an extremely fertile area but people are not growing crops. Not a single food item is grown locally. So Juba is as expensive as Paris.

2009-06-07T03:27:00.000-07:00

Series of Articles submitted to Promise

2009-06-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

Building Partnerships for Racial Equity

The eight sites in the Racial Equity and Economic Security (REES) Project know that structural racism is bigger than community action, so partners with power and influence are crucially important. Teams in each site have worked hard to develop the tools that explain the impact of structural racism and show the benefits for all community members if racial inequities are eliminated. As team members at each site have found their voice, they have been able to engage the partners they need and together discuss ideas and strategies that address how race and ethnicity operate in their communities. These partnerships are critical for gathering information as well as implementing solutions.

The Community Action Partnership of Riverside County Team has a two-fold strategy. On the macro level, they are holding “Big View” meetings hosted by the Human Resource Councils in four communities. These meetings will educate the public about Crushing the Barrier of Structural Racism in the 21st Century. On the micro level, they are working to eliminate racial disparity in family day care licensing and in the provision and access to affordable and quality day care.

A Policy Advisory Committee, including a diverse group of influential people from government, business, education, health and the Riverside Community Foundation, oversees the macro level project. This Committee has designed the agenda and the Code of Conduct for the “Big View” Meetings. After the four community meetings, they will take the message on to college campuses, churches, and other venues.

The Technical Advisory Committee, composed of experts in the child care industry, is conducting a geographic mapping project to align need with services and bus routes and stops. Beyond that, it will attempt to determine the level of racial equity in the access to and provision of quality child care. County Transportation and Land Management are conducting the mapping at the request of the County Executive Office.

The tools that the sites have developed will be on the Community Action Partnership website. In Riverside, Lois Carson has condensed material from the Aspen Institute Seminar on Racial Equity and focused it on the key messages she wishes to convey. In Lexington, Ty Sturdivant has built on the same original material from Aspen and added illustrations that have helped him convey the impact of structural racism. In Atlanta, Dr. Joyce Dorsey is using radio and YouTube to talk about structural racism. (Follow links on their website www.facaa.org)

For more information, check out the Racial Equity and Economic Security (REES) project at www.communityactionpartnership.com.

Training Programs that Address Racism

Seven community action sites are part of Community Action Partnership’s Racial Equity and Economic Security (REES) Project. This two-year project, funded by the Ford Foundation, explores whether place-based strategies to reduce poverty and enhance economic security are more effective when they take the racial inequalities that are a result of structural racism into account in their program design.

Teams from each of these sites have had the opportunity to attend a four day Seminar on Racial Equity and Society presented by the Aspen Institute. When they returned home, they began to build partnerships and educate people in their community. The REES page on the Community Action Partnership’s website has two PowerPoint presentations that team members are using. These both provide a very good 45 minute introduction to Structural Racism and are extremely valuable tools for the community action network.

In addition to these introductory presentations, some communities are looking for deeper training opportunities. The Aspen Institute has prepared Training for Racial Equity and Inclusion: A Guide to Selected Programs to allow community leaders to compare a variety of available programs. This guide describes ten programs in terms of whether the focus is on individual, intergroup or structural racism; their approach to training; and, their intended outcomes. You can download this guide from http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/ content/docsroundtable%20on%20community%20change/training.pdf.

Most of the programs in the guide require trained facilitators, but one is designed to encourage communities to move forward on their own. The Study Circles methodology fosters dialogues that explore public issues and challenge current practices through a process that emphasizes democratic discourse and action. This model offers clear materials on its website to support peer facilitators. Go to http://www.everyday-democracy.org/en/Issue.1.aspx.

The Guide also raised a few overall concerns about the training programs they assessed. One is that too few programs are “grounded in sociological, political and economic theories that directly address the structural dimensions of racism – and too few programs transcend the individual and intergroup relations to address systemic racism.” Another challenge is to translate awareness into action. These are exactly the points that our Racial Equity and Economic Security (REES) teams are working to address as they engage partners in their work to eliminate racial disparities in education, employment, asset development or child care.

2009-03-26T13:49:00.001-07:00