Award for Excellence in Community Action Pathways to Excellence Initiative An Overview Building High Performance Community Action Agencies through Excellence and Continuous Improvement

Award/Pathways to Excellence Goals Award/Pathways to Excellence Goals 1. Visibility: Showcase excellence in our CAA system 2. Recognition: Identify and promote our best organizations 3. Reward: Achieving excellence is worth it 4. Sharing: Proliferate best practices -- nationwide 5. Learning: Make it easy for every CAA to improve

The Award/Pathways to Excellence in Community Action uses the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence tailored to the language and operations of the CAA system.

Defining an Excellent Organization Eleven Core Values Visionary leadership Focus on the future Customer-driven excellence Organizational and personal learning Valuing employees and partners Agility/flexibility/innovation Management by fact (not intuition) Public responsibility and citizenship Focus on results and creating value Systems perspective

Old System Awareness Alignment Refinement & Improvement New System Organizational Transformation Unconscious Incompetence Conscious Incompetence Conscious Competence Unconscious Competence

“ Organizational Transformation ” How committed are we to improving our agency? Are we ready to move from a “compliance focus” to an “excellence focus”?

CONCEPTS  Excellence vs. Compliance  Continuum of Excellence  Culture of Excellence

Concepts to Remember Compliance Excellence versus Minimum Level of Performance Maximum Level of Performance Key Concept - Excellence vs. Compliance

Concepts to Remember 0% 100% Concept #2 - Continuum of Excellence Not Addressed 25% Early Stages Many Gaps 50% Basics Met Some Gaps Fully Responsive No Gaps World Class Well Developed Few Gaps 75% No ResultsSome Good Good Results Trends Exemplary Results Good To Excellence Results Approach/Deployment

Concept #3 – Culture of Excellence Every Organization Can Improve You Can’t Improve What You Don’t Measure Continuous Improvement is a Commitment and a Process for Achieving Excellence The Focus is always on the Customer Concepts to Remember

Linking the: Standards of Excellence (for Agencies) and the CCAP Body of Knowledge (for Individuals) To Build CAA Capacity for Achieving Excellence Award/Pathways Excellence in Community Action

Pathways to Excellence Initiative Building Capacity for Excellence: - Getting Started - Focus is on the Self-Study - Diagnostic process -- Using 34 National CAA Standards - Identifying Strengths/Areas of Improvement

Organizational Self-Study

You cant achieve Excellence if you don’t first determine where you need to begin! The comprehensive self-study, peer review, and feedback report accomplishes this.

How Are You Doing as an Agency? Compared to What……….? The Self-Study Answers the Key Question (Answer: Compared to each of the 34 CAA Standards which represent best-in-class CAA practices!)

7 Categories 34 Standards/ Requirements 99 Self-Study Questions Award /Pathways Self-Study

Self-Study Process Nine Months to conduct the agency-wide self-study. The organization responds to 99 questions organized within the 7 categories and 34 Standards of Excellence. The agency describes what it does and documents how well it currently meets each of the 34 Standards. This “Self-Study” is submitted for review by CAA peer- experts. The peer-review team evaluates the Self-Study and develops comments on each of the 34 Standards of Excellence. A detailed Feedback Report is provided within 3 months of submission.

An agency must honestly answer the following questions: (1)Is our agency achieving excellence on a day-to-day basis throughout the organization? Can we prove it? (2) Are we willing to rigorously examine what we do and how well we do it? (3) Are we committed to improvement?

Self-Study Framework Seven Categories of Excellence 1. Organizational Leadership 2. Strategic Planning and Direction 3. Customer, Constituent, and Partner Focus 4. Measurement, Analysis, and Performance Management 5. Human Resource Focus 6. Organizational Process Management 7. Organizational Results

Excellence Framework 4 Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge Management Human Resource Focus 6 Process Management 7 Business Results 1 Leadership 2 Strategic Planning 3 Customer Focus 5 Organizational Profile: Environment, Relationships, and Challenges

2009 Standards of Excellence What does an excellent CAA look like – what does it actually do day in and day out to be excellent? Reference: 2009 Standards of Excellence Handout

What are the Standards of Excellence? The CAA Standards of Excellence describe 34 of the very best practices of the very best Community Action Agencies. These Standards help answer the question: What does an Excellent Community Action Agency look like? The bar is set exceedingly high, as excellence represents the very highest operational benchmarks for Community Action agencies to strive for, seeking to stretch the limits of performance. Do not confuse these Standards with traditional compliance requirements, which generally represent operational minimums. The Standards are distributed across seven categories, and represent attributes that distinguish all high-performance organizations, and set Community Action Agencies apart when it comes to performance, community service, and overall excellence.

1.0 Organizational Leadership Examines how senior leaders address mission, values, direction, and performance and if they empower staff, and promote innovation and learning within the organization. Also examines how your organization is governed, and addresses the CAA Board, the Code of Ethics and the Promise, community advocacy, and low-income constituency involvement.

1.1 Leadership Focus 1.2 Mission Statement, Code of Ethics, Community Action Promise 1.3 Board Structure/Function 1.4 Advisory Group Roles/Actions 1.5 Community Advocacy 1.6 Low-Income Involvement 1.0 Leadership - Standards

2.0 Strategic Planning and Direction Examines how you assess needs, set longer term/strategic direction and develop and update operational plans. Examines the strategic plan and whether it serves as a living document that guides your agency’s near- and longer-term performance.

2.0 Strategic Planning Standards 2.1 Strategic Plan and Deployment 2.2 Plan Development/Updates 2.3 Mobilizing New Resources/New Programs/New Partnerships 2.4 Strategic Measures of Success

3.0 Customer Focus Examines how your agency identifies, listens to, and respond to the voices of customers, partners, and stakeholders of the organization. Examines how your organization builds relationships with internal and external customers and how feedback and measured data (level of satisfaction) is used by the organization for improvement.

Customer Focus Standards 3.1 Customer/Constituent/Community Knowledge 3.2 Customer/Constituent Feedback System 3.3 Internal Improvement 3.4 Partnership System

4.0 Measurement, Analysis, and Performance Management Examines your agency’s information technology and how it is used to deploy a performance management system; and How you analyze and use performance data and information for short- and long- term improvements.

4.0 Measurement, Analysis, and Performance Management Standards 4.1 Information System Technology 4.2 Information and Knowledge Management 4.3 Performance Management and Improvement System

Examines your staff learning and work system’s success in enabling all employees to develop their full potential. Also examines how you build a healthy and safe work environment that is supportive of performance and organizational growth. 5.0 Human Resource Focus

5.0 Human Resource Standards 5.1 Policies, Procedures, and Personnel Systems 5.2 Employee Performance Management 5.3 Employee Engagement/Participation/Well-Being 5.4 Staff Development and Learning System 5.5 Low-Income on Staff

Examines your key administrative support and program/service delivery systems and processes and how you manage them to achieve overall agency growth and success. 6.0 Organizational Process Management

6.0 Process Mgmt Standards Administrative Support Processes 6.1 Financial Systems 6.2 Infrastructure Support 6.3 Purchasing/Procurement 6.4 Communications/Public Relations Program/Service Delivery Process 6.5 Intake, Eligibility, Assessment, Case Management and Follow-up 6.6 Project Management

Examines your agency’s performance and improvements in six areas 7.0 Organizational Results

Results Standards 7.1 Agency Outcomes - Program/Service Delivery Results 7.2 Customer Focused Results 7.3 Human Resource Results 7.4 Partner/Stakeholder/Advocacy Results 7.5 Financial Accountability and Health 7.6 Community Recognition/Innovation Focus is also on integration and use of ROMA Results

Contacts Community Action Partnership National Office – Lawrence E. Koziarz, Director of Training Visit web site: Click on Excellence – download the Application Form