a) Review feedback
The purpose of the work plans is to inform the AECF and site team about which investment strategies to highlight for the upcoming year during the next few months.
The task at hand is to do a better job of aligning all of the activities with the results and strategies. Junious stated that about 1.5 years ago the FES work group was just getting off the ground and the members of the work group weren’t totally clear about what the scope of work was going to be. Strategy 1 was more of a place holder than anything else and now specific strategies have emerged and more definition and concrete language can be added.
For example, increasing home ownership sounds like a good idea, but is it really sufficient enough to “move the needle” on the desired outcomes? Probably not. Homeownership as a means of increasing assets and income is probably not as effective as we would hope. As a single strategy it is not going to be sufficient to leverage real and lasting change, especially when we consider bringing the work to scale.
Carl added that under Strategies 1A through 1D that there are some activities that can actually be turned into strategies.
There are several strategies for asset building that could emerge around creating language specific training programs, and the homeownership work could fit under asset building strategies as well.
Strategies F, G, and H are all related in terms of income supports.
Organizing efforts are also emerging as efforts to secure community benefits, but they also speak to resident leadership and direct involvement in the work. The need for establishing cohorts of residents is something that keeps coming up as a way to help residents secure housing and jobs.
Carl will integrate all of these changes and ideas into the revisions to the work plans which are due next Friday, January 21 st.
**Baseline Targets: The goal is for the five-year targets to represent movement along the baseline data. The performance measures are the incremental movements toward the five-year targets.
**The work plan also needs to reflect strategies that are much more in-depth and also leverage resources other than just AECF funding. Junious suggested creating a Resource Development subcommittee to the Joint Committee so we can better align funding targets as a whole so we don’t have five different CBOs in the LSAC going after the same pot of money.
Carl requested a more detailed budget for each of the activities by Friday, or within the next week. This will include both the total amount needed as well as the specific requested amount from AECF. In other words, detail the full-costs and then a potential request for funding, highlighting any gaps as well so that maybe we can help identify funding from other resources.
Hedy suggested convening with other funders and maybe meeting at Haas together and package it in such a way to avoid double dipping and competition.
Brendan suggested coming up with some “original thinking” about a uniform intake system and a data tracking component that is easily accessible for both LCAC members as well as the AECF so that we have a data base with specific information about the families we are serving. He suggested doing some follow-up regarding an intake tool that the Unity Council has by way of AECF funding, and that we should compare this and integrate it into the other CBO intake forms being used by partner organizations.
We will need to consider regrouping the impacts separately into clusters, e.g., ownership, trainings, etc. Some things will take five years, but with the EITC and IDA’s you can get outcome figures more easily and quickly.
Junious said that some of our indicators might be off-base because we sometimes need to rely on “official” resources, such as the census data. We may need to change some of our baseline indicators.
Suzy inquired about whether or not we plan on doing another follow-up to the Cross Site Survey to see if there have been any significant changes or outcomes. Junious said that the AECF intends to re-administer the survey in 2006 (2 years after the original). With regard to the FES Survey that EBAYC did, the results were not necessarily scientifically significant so to re-administer that survey may be problematic.
Hedy suggested finding a way of tracking data to ensure that we are on the right track. Some of the outcomes might not mean that you’re on target. There needs to be a “space” for folks to reflect on to see if the resources are being used correctly.
There was a general consensus among all members present that we will need to have actual baseline numbers by the next meting so we can gauge whether or not what we’re setting out to accomplish is realistic.
Fred pointed out that these kinds of questions are directly linked to self-evaluation. There is a bias towards actions and we will need to adjust targets, strategies, and baselines through the implementation of the work.
In terms of self-evaluation, we might consider moving away from the “best-practices” mind-set toward seeking out the actual impact of the work. We will need to revisit all of our evaluation questions with Ben Bowser. He will actually be hiring some resident evaluators to do some of the front-line evaluations in the community. Residents will be trained to conduct research and will be coming to some of our workgroup meetings to ask specific questions and help inform the research process.
Suzy suggested that we also distinguish between depth and breadth. For example, the EITC work affects large numbers of people, but the impacts are not so deep. Regarding home ownership and business, the work affects fewer people but the impacts are deep.
Hedy talked about scale issues. The strategies we employ need to be tested out to reach those scale issues. We need to be able to tease out the assumptions that we believe can get us to these targets. For example, the construction project sounds good and looks good on paper, but it might not be the thing that gets us there.
Suzy brought up resident engagement and said that we should consider using stipends to help residents become more involved in the work and in the decision making aspects of the collaborative. The FII creates fellowships and stipends for residents and we should consider working with them on some strategies.
Brendan suggested defining what we mean by resident engagement and whether or not the goal is meeting the need. We may need to develop an overall resident engagement strategy and develop strategies to engage residents on a variety of levels.
David gave some feedback from his parent leaders about how we structure our meetings and involve residents in the work. They feel strongly that in rushing back and forth to meetings that there is not enough quality time to develop as leaders. They often feel intimidated, unprepared, and angry that there is no safe and supportive environment to lean on each other. He also said that many of the Parent Action Committees are not fundamentally led by parents, but rather by staff.
**It was suggested that we attempt to do an inventory of resident leadership development programs being used by LSAC groups as well as other organizing entities. David suggested creating a separate strategy out of the activities around our goals for resident leadership training and engagement.
Work Group Composition: Are the various activities distinct enough to meet in subgroups: e.g. training, asset development, resident leadership, etc.
Suzie suggested that it makes sense to have a separate meeting among implementers of the work plan strategies and that we should consider having two meetings a month.
Jennifer said that both job creation and work force development fit together and should remain linked.
Hedy suggested that there are multiple overlaps and that there needs to be some kind of common vision for the FES work. This might entail decreased meetings as an FES entity, and then subgroup meetings monthly and possibly even weekly to get some of the work off the ground. It is important though to keep meeting as a group so that everyone has a place to get connected to the larger FES work.
David suggested that the Joint Committee would be the place to have this conversation and the JC should probably brainstorm this idea and help to make some break-through on these issues. Some of the work currently under the FES umbrella may need to be moved elsewhere.
Carl stressed that the productivity and level of detail to accomplish some of these strategies is very important. He wants to make sure the right groups of people are getting together to move the work forward and that subgroup meetings will be crucial if we want to work to go deeper. We may even just “try on” the subgroup meetings for a few months and see how that feels. It is necessary to keep the FES Work Group though so people have a place to plug into the larger body of work.
Each of the subgroups will need to develop a set of monthly deliverables and to allow for more transparency in creating an action plan. Our monthly agendas also need to be driven by accomplishing these monthly deliverables. Over the next 30 days Carl will be meeting one-on-one to develop the monthly action plan, as well as a quarterly implementation plan.
The purpose would be to keep each other accountable to get the work accomplished and to develop a 12 month action plan, with clarity about pivotal moments, for each of the strategies and allow for monthly check-ins to gauge how the work is progressing and make adjustments, if necessary.
Carl and Sandra will schedule some subgroup meetings around the following strategies during the next 30 days:
- Employment, Job Training and Business Ownership
- Income Supports
- Resident Leadership
