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from issues to transformations:

Harnessing strategy to

transform the effectiveness

of social service

organizations By Elihu Eli El October 2013

Copyright © 2013 Eli El Page 2

About myself I have endured many unfavorable circumstances including employment layoff, homelessness, false allegations, judicial injustice within family courts, and character defamation over the Internet and the list goes on and on. Nevertheless, I rose beyond my circumstances with bravery and courage. Within the same court jurisdiction that I endured horrible injustices, I ran for public office. In 2010, I ran for State Delegate representing the 20th Legislative District of Maryland. During my time as candidate, I walked door-to-door attempting to convince local voters to place my candidacy yard signs within their yards. I placed approximately 150 yards signs throughout the voting district. However, as the election approached, most of the signs were stolen and only approximately 20 signs remained. Others were run over if placed along the side of streets. Others were burned or even spit upon. I was even charged by a dog that exited the garage door of a residence as I rang the doorbell. Although read by 10s of thousands of people within the World Wide Web, the most gut-wrenching part of running for public office was explaining the horrid defamation and unwarranted character assassination to my 13 year-old daughter. My memberships include:

Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. Free and Accepted Masons of Maryland, Prince Hall Affiliated The National Council of Negro Women, Inc. Fathers and Families Coalition of America, Washington, DC Affiliation Alum of the Little Rock Racial and Cultural Diversity institute of Little Rock, Ark. Former Teamster Former member of the Police Benevolent Association

Some folks often wonder – “Why a man would ran for office in the same area that he endured so many institutional injustices and appalling cruelties? That is a rhetorical question. Once those same people, read the Freakonomics book series by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, study the movie “The Butler” (2013) directed by Lee Daniels and written by Danny Strong, and read “This Town” by Mark Leibovich; he or she would understand why I ran for office during at that particular time and place. Elihu Eli El

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Contents front 1

about myself 2

executive summary 4

introduction 6

define a clear vision 10

create a strategy to achieve the vision 13

build foundations for implementation 17

dynamic implementation 20

step back and reflect 25

conclusion 29

how 30

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Executive summary

"ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM" is an English metaphorical idiom for an obvious truth either ignored or going unaddressed. The idiomatic expression also applies to an obvious problem or risk no one wants to discuss. It is based on the idea that an elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook; thus, people in the room who pretend the elephant is not there have chosen to avoid dealing with the looming big issue. The term “elephant in the room” refers to a question, problem, solution, or controversial issue that is obvious to everyone who knows about the situation and is deliberately ignored, because to do otherwise would offend the dominate culture, cause huge embarrassment, or trigger arguments, or is simply taboo. In the very first scene of Netflix’s new political thriller “House of Cards,” Kevin Spacey kills a dog. It has been hit by a car and lies whimpering; Spacey kneels at its side. “There are two kinds of pain,” He talks out loud saying, “The sort of pain that makes you strong—or useless pain. The sort of pain that is only suffering. I have no patience for useless things.” As he strangles the animal, the camera lingers on his placid face, the blank eyes fixed in their sockets, the corner of his mouth upturned in amusement. One bid dilemma that many of our social service organizations are facing is that many of their elected leaders are doing the same. Some of them are silencing the voices of those who express pain that conflicts with the leader's agenda, challenges conventional wisdom, or conflicts with the status quo. In these cases, there are even solutions from that marginalized being silenced. Many of the leaders of social service organizations rely on uninformed conventional wisdom of its membership, and social issues to persist to remain in power or increase influence. In this respect, our social service organizations are producing more opportunists than leaders. As social service organizations grow throughout America, the natural assumption is to either follow the direction of a leader or structure activities consistent with the status quo of political correctness. The approach described in this paper sets forth a framework

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that empowers social service organizations effectively to help the greater good in society. Over 68% of all Americans are members of at least one social service organization. The Civil Rights Era paved the way and provided the means for them to bring about change in our country. That is why the framework outlined in this paper is so important. Social service organizations are organizations such as Masonic organizations, National Council of Negro Women, many religious institutions, Center For Clean Air Policy, fraternal organizations including collegiate fraternities and sororities, political action committees (PACs), AEI, associations, APAICS, unions, Sasha, etc. The social service organizational framework sets out five steps:

of

what the organization is going to achieve and set clear objectives focused on measureable outcomes with non-ambiguity.

that

includes approaches that will work on the basis of the best evidence.

Institute task forces and commissions to

with good

data collection processes and accountability that will maximize the impact of activities.

Adopt a approach that facilitates constant improvements while

analyzing and copying what works and where improvements are needed.

Continually, on how to improve for the “next” phase.

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Introduction

“It ought to obsess us. It ought to lead to some

sort of transformation.” — President Barack Obama, September 20131

During the Navy Yard memorial of the 2013 tragedy, President Barack Obama said Sunday that the United States “can’t accept” the September killing of 12 people at Washington’s Navy Yard as “inevitable”, but the shooting should instead “It ought to obsess us. It ought to lead to some sort of transformation” on gun violence in the United States. Transformation does not start with Politicians. Social transformation originates from the advocacy of our social service organizations. Expecting a politician to foster social transformation is like demanding a police officer to put out a house fire. They are excellent at what they do, but advocacy is not the job of a politician. Our politics are intensely divided on social issues by party lines. However, for millennial, those born..., both social, and economic issues are conjoined. The student loan issues that plague our country is economic as well as a social issue. In this statement by Sen. Tom Coburn(R-Oklahoma) compares Washington to "parasitism." "It is one parasite feeding off another parasite feeding off another parasite," He says, "The reason you attach yourself to someone else is so you can gain something yourself. Parasites don't attack our intestines because they like the environment. That is just the method in which they advance their livelihood.

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That might sound a little harsh. However, in Washington if can't be connected, you can’t gain anything." Unfortunately, many of our social service organizations have adopted and practice this same "parasitism" mindset. Many of the leaders are elected based on popularity or backroom dealings.

Define a clear vision A clear unambiguous strategic vision is a vital first step when a social service organization or group wants to make an impact. The vision should state what it is trying to achieve, and establish clarity around key priorities. The vision should be -

pecific easurable ttainable elevant imely

When social service organizations organize their work around goals rather than activities, they are incentivized to think hard about how best to accomplish these goals as well as continually review progress toward them.

Organizations should set clear goals focused on real-world outcomes that can be measured by real-world results.

Goals should be an appropriate stretch for the organization — they should incentivize better performance for organizational staff, council members, or programs but should not be unrealistic.

Goals should be NOT be ambiguous. Ambiguous - Able to be understood in more than one way: having more than one possible meaning. Here is an example of an ambiguous goal – We are going to fight to ensure that every child in the community has a proper education. In contrast, here is an example of a clearly defined goal – No later than quarter two of the next fiscal year, each high school within our district will offer a free eight-week after-school ACT prep class. The stated goal is

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very high level, would involve many components, possibly would face with many cultural and financial challenges and may require tons of coordination; however, the goal is clear.

Create a strategy to achieve the vision Once social service organizations have defined clear goals, they should create a strategy to focus on achieving them. In an environment of limited resources and limited time, creating a strategy will involve difficult choices. Organizations should adopt a set of actions they think are likely to have the greatest impact with long-term sustainability.

Strategies should focus on achieving the clearly defined and unambiguous goals.

Organizations should use the best available evidence base of what does and what does not work to facilitate strategy development.

When a social service organization is developing a strategy, they should consider how the proposed strategy will lead to change and be aware of underlying assumptions, and seek to validate these assumptions.

Assess the impact of different strategies over the timeframe. Build foundations for implementation With a set of clearly defined goals and a strategy in-place to achieve those goals, organizations are ready to build the foundations for dynamic implementation.

Accountability framework: Social service organizations should build a strong accountability framework to implement strategy, accomplish goals, and promote accountability. The general body should know who will be responsible for reviewing progress toward goals and how often the reviews will be held.

Data collection and analysis: Organizations should consider how data will be collected, tracked, and analyzed. This will require pre-defined standards to track and measure data. Organizations should ensure they are collecting the right data. They should ensure data is timely and legitimately useful to decision-makers. Dynamically implementation Dynamic implementation is a repeated cycle of implementing interventions, analyzing the effectiveness of activity and processes to better understand what works and why it works, reviewing performance, and refining strategy. Organizations should develop a sophisticated understanding of what is driving success and what needs to be done to increase impact.

Implement: Organizations should implement planned activities based on their strategy.

Analyze activity: Activity should be analyzed to understand what aspects of an effort work, which do not and the reasons behind these differences.

Review performance: Progress should be reviewed often through a meeting of key decision-makers to understand the drivers of performance and consistently refine the strategy.

Refine strategy: Over time organizations inevitably will need to make significant changes to their strategies as they better understand the drivers of success. There can be a range of barriers to dynamic implementation. Organizations can be constrained by conventional wisdom of the majority, political, law, and their lack of ability to refine their strategy as they go. Conventional wisdom is often wrong. Christopher Columbus disproved a common belief that the Earth was flat. In present day, we know that they were wrong - political leaders and members of the upper-class of his day would often shame, blackball, snub, brush-off, and even humiliate those who voiced against conventional wisdom. Most of our

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social service organizations are led by conventional wisdom. Even within our modern-day educated society, folks continue to be shamed, blackballed, snubbed, brushed-off, and humiliated when they voice against conventional wisdom. They can also face cultural barriers to dynamic implementation. Often these barriers can be overcome by empathetic and compassionate leaders who help staff and others understand that dynamic implementation can be a particularly effective way to maximize the organization’s impact. Step back and reflect At regular intervals, organizations should step back and determine if the original goals were the right ones and reflect on performance to date. By doing so, organizations can decide if they need to modify their overall goals, strategy, and the foundations that form the basis of the implementation phase. The challenges to stepping back and reflecting are mainly the following:

Greed

Ignorance

Narcissistic egos

Pride

Self-serving behavior

Organizations should conduct comparative analysis across activities and patterns of behavior to determine relative effectiveness of its leadership, by-laws, organization constitution, and regulations.

Organizations may wish to find ways to reduce overlap, fragmentation, and duplication of existing programs.

They may wish to revisit the needs of the membership and assess if the organization in advocating for members in a timely, relevant, and reliable manner - Advocating is NOT the job of a politician. After organizations have worked their way through this cycle, the process starts again — with a revised set of goals and a strategy that reflects stewardship, advocacy of its members, and new choices about the best way to accomplish them based on the evidence. Often, social service organizations will find they do not need a new vision of what they are trying to achieve, but they are likely to need to polish their strategy and goals based on what they have lessons learned and proven processes. Often times, when bureaucrats encounter discussions with individuals on a one-on-one basis, they may be forced to admit that “The System” is broken or unfair and simply dismisses the person with the question, “What do you want me to do about it.” When organizations approach those same bureaucrats with viable solutions, the change process begins - This is called advocacy. Although the approach described in this paper appears simple that does not mean that it is easy to implement. Implementation requires considerable focus, accessibility, timely responses, and a commitment to constant learning that is hard in most organizations. For social service organizations, which often operate in the socio-political spotlight or are adopted as a chosen way-of-life, it can be even harder to implement these ideas. Nevertheless, the gifts of applying them are potentially enormous. If social service organizations can genuinely manage their programs in an efficient and effective way, they can have a positive impact on the lives of all Americans.

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Define a clear vision A 2010 survey found that 83% of Americans want social service organizations to set clear goals measured by real-world results. When asked to choose between different ways to help improve organization impact, asking social service organizations to set clear goals was the highest ranked idea among respondents. Advocating our politicians works Many states are beginning to set goals focused on real-world outcomes. Maryland, for example, has created goals across six different focus areas. The state publishes reports on its performance against these goals on its website. Citizens can easily track the state’s impact on key measures, such as the 11% and 12% increases in the percentage of eighth grade students scoring “proficient” or better in Math and Reading, respectively that the state achieved from 2009 to 2013.

Virginia has also implemented goals and publishes a regular scorecard available on the Virginia Performs website. In Virginia, the goals are set by a bipartisan group drawn from the legislative and executive branches with support from social service organizations, citizens, and business leaders. These goals are long-term goals that address topics ranging from Education and the Economy to Transportation and Health Care. The consensus-driven nature of Virginia’s goal-setting process is a particular strength of the program, helping it to endure across changes in executive leadership. Here are standards that should be pre-defined and published as a first step to defining the vision:

: Satisfaction (or dissatisfaction)

with the cultural or intellectual conditions under which individuals and societies live - including educations, Health Care, economics, safety, etc.

: Principles concerning the distinction

between right and wrong or good and bad behavior. The organization should articulate what an individual would have a RIGHT to do versus what is the RIGHT thing to do. The Six Pillars of : Trustworthiness,

Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship. These are the most important traits that

leaders of social-service organizations should be graded upon. These traits cannot be fully exhibited unless the person's character is challenged...until then, you really don't get to know them well.

83% of Americans surveyed want social service organizations to set clear goals measured by real-world results.

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is good business: How an organization ensures that all its decisions, actions

and stakeholder interactions conform to the organization’s moral and professional principles.

- These standards for the basis of the organization’s needs assessment. The needs assessment plays a vital role in creating the vision. Needs assessments contribute to goal setting, establishing strategy, planning, and delivering the most effective solutions. The needs assessment is the most important procedure within the goal-setting process. Adopting a goal-driven culture in social service organizations is not easy. Leaders often hesitate to set goals based on real-world results because they are reluctant to be held accountable for an outcome they cannot directly control. As a result, leaders tend to be much more comfortable setting goals related to “good cause” activities, rather than outcomes they cannot control. "Politically correct" causes that have good intentions, but avoids any conflict with the prevailing school-of-thought. In some cases, leaders with hidden agendas would inundate the organization with so many “good causes,” the mission of the organization is blurred and goals become unclear. At the end of the day, members are so busy focused on activities without SMART goals, is likely to ignore or become too busy to address "politically incorrect" issues such as:

Family law and the civil criminalization process Health Care and economic disparities High education costs Judicial injustice and the over-criminalization of America Moral degradation, conspicuous consumption, and hyper-sexualization targeting marginalized

groups Wasteful spending of taxpayer money

It can be hard to know how stretching goals should be — goals that would be achieved anyway are tempting for those worried about being held accountable, but do little to incentivize better performance for good organizational practices. If a goal is too stretching, the members and other stakeholders may not take it seriously. Sometimes, members or organizational leaders affected by a goal can try to game the system appear to perform better, for example, by school principals inflating school children’s test scores. Another risk can result when the easiest way to achieve a goal might be to focus on some of those in need at the expense or well-being of others (sometimes called “cream-skimming”). For example, if the objective is to help people enter work, it can often be easiest to focus on those who have the greatest chance of securing a job in the first place. There is also a risk that achieving a goal may help people to overcome a high-profiled media covered issue, but harm in another a more profound and lesser known unpopular way. So while reducing the cost of water for poor farmers in developing countries may seem to a laudable objective, there is growing evidence that it can lead to wasteful use of water by other water users. To manage these risks of disfranchising the marginalized, social service organizations should give considerable thought to goal design. When an organization could adopt a challenging goal and focus its energy toward achieving that goal, the impact can be enormous. Let us examine this cultural example - In early 2009, the Department of the Interior set a goal of reducing violent crime on four high-risk Indian reservations by a combined 5%. The Bureau of Indian Affairs developed a holistic, performance-driven strategy that engaged local tribe leaders and youth, improved organizational infrastructure, and strategically deployed trained law enforcement in a more proactive approach to crime prevention. Two years later, violent crime decreased by a combined 35% in the targeted reservations and the techniques used are being rolled out across the country.

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Create a strategy to achieve the vision

“For far too long...programs have been allowed to continue or to grow even when their objectives are no longer clear and they lack rigorous assessment of whether the programs are achieving the desired goals. The result has been the profusion of programs that are duplicative, ineffective, or outdated — at a significant cost to taxpayers”

— President Barack Obama, February 2012

Approximately $60 billion of social security funds {1} and tax dollars are given to in the

forms of grants and incentives each year. Most of these funds are handed organizations that very little performance goals or evidence that the programs meet those goals. Here is a simple example: Organization A –

Formed to promote early childhood education

Receives $1 million grant funds per year

The director pays him or herself $300,000 per year

Other administrators receive total annual salaries of $300,000 per year

Over $50,000 is spent on travel and lodging each year, including a $20,000 trip to Saint Thomas, Virgin Islands

Over $100,000 for office lease and supplies

Even $100,000 is paid to a consultant who in-turns donates $50,000 to the campaign of the local politician - Judge sentences Jesse Jackson Jr. to 30 months in prison for defrauding campaign of $750,000 in campaign funds.

::One yearly panel discussion and travel and lodging of 10 panelists – 50,000 ::Two childhood educators receive $50,000 each

1 - Section 666 of title 42 (the social security act) (42 usc section 666). Title IV of the Social Security Act is administered by the Department of Health and Human Services.

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$850,000::$150,000 ~ only 17.4% goes toward our children

∴ Out of , over of taxpayer money is legally , , or

each year.

Basically, we are wasting $49.4 billion per year:

could cover the costs of free online educations for every student and military war

fighter. could cover the costs of repairing our nation’s bridges and roadway infrastructure.

could cover the costs to provide every K-12 student’s breakfast and lunch.

could cover the costs to provide every senior citizen free Health Care, rehabilitation,

and lodging. could cover the costs to provide free Health Care to every household bringing in less

than $150,000 could cover the costs of eight rover trips to Mars and wells 10 round trips to the

International Space Station. could cover the pay of every law enforcement officer in our country.

could secure and protect American from all cyber-war threats. Taxpayers send

nearly $2 billion a year to cyber-schools that let K-12 students receive free public education online. saving per year would guarantee that our nation is resilient against any future

financial breakdowns, student loan meltdowns, or mortgage failures. would the need of the current and any possibility of a future

: No civilian federal employee would ever be furloughed.

…this is how we are wasting $49.4 billion per year in funds that should be allocated for our future social security. By time we run out of social security, those responsible would be long out-of-office and passed on. As long as “The System” remains vulnerable to “piggy-backing” “fat cat” stakeholders gaming “The System”, business will remain as usual. Some say that this is the “American Way”. The responsibility lies with our social service organizations to stand for integrity and sending a message that gaming the system is not the “American Way”. Again - Our future social security benefits are in jeopardy - and President Obama agrees. Once social service organizations have defined clear goals focused on real-world outcomes, they should create a strategy to focus on achieving them. Strategy involves difficult choices. Often, multiple different approaches may appear to help achieve the goal, but with limited resources and time it is impossible to try everything. Social service organizations should adopt a set of actions that will have the most impact in the necessary timeframe. In some cases, there will be considerable evidence about what works, and social service organizations should direct their energies to those approaches. In other instances, the evidence base will be somewhat limited, and social service organizations will have to develop a strategy based on the best information available. In such cases, they should focus on trying some approaches and improving the evidence base of what works. Developing a strategy, social service organizations should also consider how the proposed strategy will lead to real-world change that is measurable. Imagine an organization wants to reduce the risk of salmonella poisoning. If its conventional wisdom strategy is focused on working with restaurants, it is making an implicit assumption that the main cause of salmonella is poor food preparation in restaurants, rather than in homes. However, if the major cause of salmonella is that home cooked food is poorly prepared and stored, the strategy is likely to fail. Here is another example: consider an international organization that wants to reduce the rate of HIV in a developing country. If the

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organization invests in distributing condoms, it is assuming people who receive condoms are fairly likely to use them and that they know how to do so. But if the people already have access to condoms and are reluctant to use them, it will likely make more sense for the organization to focus on ways to overcome cultural resistance to condom use. Solid formative research, along with good intentions, can help social service organizations establish the applicable set of assumptions. However, in some cases social service organizations need to proceed on the basis of a set of correct assumptions which the evidence remains limited; for example, when the issue is not “politically correct”, the media may provide a disturbed or misinformed point-of-view of the issue. That is fine — so long as social service organizations remain aware of the correct assumptions and constantly check to see if they remain valid. Social service organizations should focus their energies on where action is most valuable — sometimes it will make sense to target resources within particular geographical locations, sometimes it will be best to focus on particular types of individuals as their needs will be greatest or their propensity to respond to social service organizations interventions will be highest. Making these good choices is part of strategy development, but can be difficult in self-serving and politically charged environments which there can be pressure from the dominate culture within the organization to avoid “politically incorrect” issues. Social service organizations should also use available evidence to try to predict the extent to which each component of their strategy will “move the needle” toward accomplishing specific goals. If there are a dozen different initiatives that form the strategy, they should seek to understand the likely impact of each of these initiatives as well as at pre-determined benchmarks. These estimations are not easy, and often social service organizations may only be able to make an educated guess based on the available evidence of where similar approaches have been tried before. For some more innovative approaches, social service organizations should adopt pilots to establish their impact before adopting at a large scale. In many instances, social service organizations will rely on the media, politicians, or the like to implement the approaches that form part of their strategy. As the social service organization devises strategy, they need to work closely with those responsible for implementation to check that the strategy takes full account of their views and any constraints that might get in the way of achievements. Social service organizations should not consult stakeholders within “dogs in the fight”, but work collaboratively with sincere folk to shape strategies. Perhaps one of the most important things to appreciate about a strategy is that it is likely to need constant adjustment. Some approaches inevitably will differ from original expectations. Often in social service organizations, social service organizations believe that once they have published an action plan, they need to stick to everything about it. Instead of monitoring if the plan is working, they check if everything in the plan is being implemented in the way that it was originally intended. Social service organizations can fear that if they fall behind on implementing their action plans, the dominate culture within the organization will hold them accountable. Some leaders “play is safe” to avoid accountability. Therefore, they avoid implementing to hardlined programs, asking the hardlined questions, and answering the hardlined questions. They worry that if they the “right” thing that they will encounter internal and external political resistance from those who stand to lose out. Mandated programs, once launched, never disappear. In this respect, a social service organization is the nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth. It is much more sensible for social service organizations to treat the initial version of the strategy as the best strategy they can devise given the amount of information available at that time. Over time, social service organizations should develop a better appreciation of which approaches are more effective at driving change and which ones face the greatest barriers to having a real-word impact.

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As they do so, social service organizations should adjust their strategies. This may seem somewhat countercultural, but the approach laid out in this paper requires social service organizations not only to set strategy but also to continuously review and adjust their performance plans. Here is one great example of find what works - “Finding What Works in Education”, Costa, Kristina, 9 February 2012 http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/open-social service organizations/news/2012/02/09/11053/finding-what-works-in-education/

Every year, academia produces scores of studies evaluated by social service organizations programs. Some of the best studies offer incredibly valuable insights into what works and where academia should direct scarce resources. However, how can an organization access this information quickly and efficiently? One helpful source is the Washington State Institute of Public Policy. Based in Olympia, WA, the Institute collates evidence of what works and produces accessible reports that help social service organizations provide recommendations in public policy and drive internal strategy. The institute has analyzed the effectiveness of approaches across policy areas, including reducing crime, improving educational outcomes, and Health Care outcomes, and increasing employment.

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Build foundations for implementation

– In this movie, there are two heroes with

conflicting convictions. One hero leverages intelligence, bravery, and tenacity to improve the quality-of-life for all Americans; the other, leads by example by pursuing excellence to improve the quality-of-life for his family. To effectively advocate, both schools-of-thought needed. In social service organizations, it is normal to move quickly from writing an action plan to implementing it. Progressive leaders want to see that an organization is not just engaged politically correct activities and good causes but also focus on practical action that result in real-word solutions. That urgency is laudable, but often social service organizations skip the crucial step of laying the foundations for success, resulting in sub-optimal outcomes further down the road. To improve outcomes social service organizations should build a strong accountability framework to implement their strategy and collect the right data to enable them to effectively monitor progress.

Social service organizations should build a strong accountability framework to implement strategy, accomplish goals, and promote accountability. Social service organizations should nominate and elect goal-focused leaders who will be accountable for accomplishing solutions-oriented goals. These goal leaders should build an accountability framework that increases the chances of accomplishing each goal. An important first step for social service organizations should be to an individual, task force, or committee that will be responsible for reviewing progress and how often will they conduct these reviews? Through the GPRA Modernization Act, President Obama, requires all government agencies to hold quarterly review meetings for every goal. Social service organizations should adopt this practice. Social service organizations should also make decisions on these issues right at the outset. Often times it make sense to have large meetings that involve decision makers, and everyone leading implementation, while other times a meeting format with fewer participants who act like a strategy board may be more effective. Social service organizations should also think about how members far from — and closer to the actual implementation — play a role. Second, social service organizations should think hard about how they present and review information in review meetings. Information should focus on the progress made toward achieving the goals and identifying where action is required to address issues or accelerate reasonable progress. That seems simple, but can be very challenging. There can be a tendency to have very little information available — data on overall performance toward accomplishing the goal without any sense of Key Performance Indicators (KPI). Conversely, detailed papers or reports that set out what each program has been doing may provide too much information and can often lead to a “show and tell” culture, rather than a culture of collective insight. Social service organizations should invest

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substantial energy thinking about how best to present information to facilitate real inquiry in review meetings. Third, social service organizations will want to define a set of metrics that allow them to measure progress toward goals and also hold to account those responsible for day-to-day implementation. These might define the expected level of performance at regular time intervals (for example, quarterly or yearly) across each, or they may be focused on more micro levels — such as intermediate indicators associated with each approach. Social service organizations should also increase transparency in order help to improve accountability.

For every goal, social service organizations should think hard about how they will collect data that allows them to monitor progress as well as gauge which approaches are most effective and where there is the greatest need for intervention to increase impact. There is enormous potential for better data collection, assessments, and analysis to drive significant improvements in performance. With better data, social service organizations can track progress against their goals in a much more timely way. However, even more important, they can better understand differences in performance and can use these insights to drive improvements. The first step will be deciding what data to collect — social service organizations need to establish what information they need and at what frequency. Often they will need to ask other organizations, consultants, and internal experts to provide data. They should look for data that is useful to inform decision-making, such as information that tests the assumptions that underpin the organization’s strategy or data that allows analysis of the effectiveness of different approaches. They should ensure that data is available timely enough to inform decision-making and that the lag between data collection and availability is not too long. Data does not need to be of perfect quality, but it does need to be reliable enough so that decision-makers can use it as the basis of decisions on how to increase the chances of accomplishing goals. Social service organizations need to take account of the level of effort and feasibility of data collection, especially the burden that it can place on subordinate bodies and individual members. A second step is ensuring that the data is legitimately usable. While social service organizations historically have collected large amounts of data, using this information can pose challenges. Decision makers collect significant data from subordinate bodies and individuals, but, data are gathered often in forms that make aggregation or comparison too difficult. Those collecting data may ask the same question in different ways or collect information in hard-copy form, making it difficult to analyze. Additionally, data can sometimes be overly focused on inputs rather than impacts, processes, or outcomes. For example, a local chapter or branch is more likely to be required to record the number of mentored participants or hours they spent on mentoring activities than to demonstrate the short and long-term impact resulting from the mentoring program. To support good data collection and analysis, social service organizations may need common IT systems and data standards. Good systems and standards can build confidence that each data item is consistently defined, and that those responsible for implementing social service organizations activities are providing the right data in the most efficient manner. There is enormous potential for better data collection and analysis to drive significant improvements in performance within organizations. With better data, social service organizations can track progress against their goals in a much timelier manner.

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Design a strong accountability framework to implement strategy, accomplish goals, and endorse accountability.

Decide “who” will be responsible for reviewing progress and how often they will conduct review meetings.

Define data needs and initiate collection and storage of sound quality, usable data so that progress toward goals can be meaningfully analyzed.

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Dynamic implementation

Once social service organizations have built the foundations, they are ready for dynamic implementation. In many instances, social service organizations think their role is merely to implement their strategy effectively and efficiently. As long as they get grant dollars, dues, or assessments on time, or define and enforce regulations, they are doing well. That is not enough — social service organizations should be constantly examining how they are doing against their goal by examining each strategy, developing a sophisticated understanding of what is driving success and what needs to be done to increase impact. In short, they should be using data to continually refresh their strategies in real time. Dynamic implementation is not a linear process, but a constantly repeated cycle of implementing interventions, analyzing undertakings on their effectiveness, reviewing performance, and refining strategy. In some instances, it will make sense to repeat this cycle very frequently — for example, in emergency situations such as flood relief, it might make sense to do so every few hours — but in most cases, the right frequency is likely

to be between one and six months. Because data on the performance of each different approach will not regularly be available at every review meeting, it will often make sense to focus on a subset of approaches at each meeting.

The first stage in dynamic implementation is setting the strategy in motion. Social service organizations should implement planned activities based on the strategy and collect the quantitative and qualitative data required to evaluate performance. Some aspects of the strategy can be easier to implement than others — for example, when an organization can implement the changes itself, they should happen relatively fast. When an organization relies on others to implement, those approaches inevitably will take longer. Keep in mind that while implementation traditionally feels like the endgame, launching a program is only the first stage — it will likely be necessary to adjust the program during the dynamic implementation process.

Analyzing data is essential to understanding what Aspects of a program work and which do not, and more important, the reasons behind these differences.

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Social service organizations should deploy a range of techniques to really understand performance. At the most basic level, they could compare aggregate actual performance with expected performance. A more sophisticated analysis could also look at performance broken down by distinct interventions — allowing social service organizations, for example, to establish the relative impact of different programs or grant streams. Social service organizations should also look at the relative performance of programs in geographically and demographically discrete locations. A key priority is to build a detailed understanding of what makes some approaches successful and others less so. Many social service organizations programs inevitably carry high levels of deadweight — they pay for things that could have happened anyway without the social service organizations program. By better utilizing data, it is possible to reduce such waste. For example, a job training program can direct its dollars to those people least likely to find work without support. A program to reduce homelessness can screen potential clients for risk factors and provide the specific support that individuals need most. Analyzing data can help organizations understand and reduce this deadweight loss.

Thinking of grantees as a “learning community” Our government administers a large number of grant programs. Often the first priority for grant officers is getting the money out of the door in a way compliant with (Office of Management and Budget) OMB guidance on disbursing grant dollars. However, there is potential to think about grantees in a different way. If the government agencies have good quality data on the impact that different grantees are having, they would be able to identify the techniques that the best performers are deploying and distribute that knowledge across the grantee community. In addition, they would be able to modify the criteria for the release of future rounds of grants so they are based on evidence of the most effective practices. Through the GPRA Modernization Act, Congress, and President Obama requires government agencies to undertake quarterly in-person data-driven review meetings.{2} These review meetings are based on the very realistic “stat” model applied in New York City and since emulated in a number of other U.S. cities.{3} The “stat” model is a type of meeting that brings together goal leaders with others in the organization to analyze to determine if the goals are on track. A number of other countries have adopted review meetings as the means to increase the likelihoods of achieving goals. Unfortunately, more historically brave social service organizations are choosing avoid all effort that conflict with the status quo. Incentives are part of human nature. Social services organizations have to effectively relay the incentives of doing “good” – doing what is “right” – standing-up for moral principles - Not only should these traits be incentivized but also properly articulated to be applied in our daily lives through practical application.

2 Office of Management and Budget, OMB Circular No. A-11, Part 6, August 2012, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/a11_current_year/a_11_2012.pdf 3 Robert Behn, a Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard, says “a jurisdiction or agency is employing a PerformanceStat leadership strategy if, in an effort to achieve specific public purposes, it holds an ongoing series of regular, frequent, integrated meetings during which the chief executive or the principal members of the chief executive’s leadership team plus the director (and the top managers) of different subunits use current data to analyze specific, previously defined aspects of each unit’s past performance, to follow-up on previous decisions and commitments to produce results, to examine and learn from each unit’s efforts to improve performance, to solve performance-deficit problems, and to set and achieve the next performance targets.” See Performance Leadership Report, Vol. 8, No. 3, November 2009.

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If you have closely studied this paper so far, you could respond to these questions? This is why is to very important to select leaders whose interests are aligned with – I n c e n t i v i z i n g ALTRUISM I n c e n t i v i z i n g BRAVERY I n c e n t i v i z i n g COMPASSION I n c e n t i v i z i n g CRITICAL THINKING I n c e n t i v i z i n g EMPATHY I n c e n t i v i z i n g EXCELLENCE I n c e n t i v i z i n g GOOD CHARACTER I n c e n t i v i z i n g GOOD COMMUNICATION I n c e n t i v i z i n g GOOD HUMANITY I n c e n t i v i z i n g SELF-SACRIFICE I n c e n t i v i z i n g SINCERITY I n c e n t i v i z i n g TRUTH Systems are broken because incentives exist for stakeholders to allow them to remain broken. Our education systems remain broken to disenfranchise marginalized groups so that the dominate class maintains a competitive edge. Our Health Care system remains broken; millionaires strive to continue making out like fatcats - and so on. Today’s society, there is a trend of piggy-backing “bad causes” with “good cause” efforts. For instance, it has been proven that greater legalized abortions have decreased crime. Because sharing that message is clearly not readily acceptable or agreeable to the minds and sensibilities of most Americans. Therefore, it is piggy-backed and overshadowed with “good causes” such as free Health Care education, scholarship resources, etc. On a lighter note - we can learn from history: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF8p22sB3FM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXGRBJgWSQA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jjMwhZOg_4 What if Harriet Tubman did not act as "Conductor" of escaped slaves at the Underground Rail Road and simply decided to become “politically correct” by logistically placing shoes on every slave? What

if Martin Luther King, Jr. had not lead our Civil Rights Movement and only remained content with being a Preacher saving souls from the pulpit? What if the Little Rock Nine had not enrolled in Little Rock Central High School, but choose to “play it safe” by attended an all-black high school? Location, Location, Location - ”Political Correctness”, “Political Correctness”, “Political Correctness” - Politicians, politicians, politicians - we live in a world that incentivizes “political correctness”, corruption, cheating, manipulation, power, and the “what is in it for me” mindset. Our modern-day social services organizations can change that. Social service organizations have to

elect leaders who represent not only the best interest of the organization but also the best interest of society. Here is an example of what one social service is doing to elect the right leader: Click here to download

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Successful review meetings should bring together key decision-makers and present them with useful information than helps them to understand the drivers of organizational and social performance. Participants should be empowered to ask probing questions that allow them to form a view on the best way to improve the chances of the goals being achieved. This discussion should be more detailed than simply discussing if performance toward the goal is on track or not. For example, many social service organizations deliver programs in numerous locations and with various communities, cultures, and groups. Each location will achieve a different level of performance. Some locations will find ways to use modest national investments to achieve truly greater results, and others will be much less impactful. Another thing to consider is that different approaches rely on different assumptions — social service organizations should use the review process to test if the assumptions appear to hold true in practice and application. So if there is considerable evidence that people are preparing food better in their homes than they were before, but the rate of salmonella is not coming down that might imply that food prepared in restaurants are a much bigger cause for concern. It is important to build a detailed understanding of the factors that make some approaches effective and others less so. A grant program might be able to adjust the criteria for releasing funding by learning from experience. Similarly, an administrative organization, such as one that issues passports or cuts social security checks, might be able to use the practices deployed at its most efficient location to help increase the performance of other locations. Positive deviance is an approach that improves performance by identifying successful outliers within social service organizations and applying their practices at scale

Review meetings should deliver a clear set of conclusions on ways that social service organizations should refine their strategies. Over time, social service organizations inevitably will need to make significant changes to their strategies as they better understand what works and where implementers encounter barriers to achieving effectiveness. Some approaches that appeared to be promising early will probably need to be abandoned, scaled back, or significantly reformed to be effective. This is why the needs should be assessed continually. Other programs are likely to prove so effective that it will make sense to grow them substantially. Consider a social service organization’s program aimed at improving the academic attainment of Hispanic children. The program, administered through grant dollars, will likely work with children who have very different levels of English literacy and in places with very different contexts. Some school districts will have a high proportion of Hispanic children and others will not, and some districts will spend much more per child than others. Once the organization understands what impact the program has and why, based on these and other factors, it can refine the program to scale up the most effective practices and address barriers to the effectiveness. Additionally, it is likely that some school districts will perform significantly better than expected. With few local resources and a large number of children in need of guidance, they deliver good results — if the organization could help other organizations with similar characteristics emulate these leading practices, could improve performance across the board.

Dynamic implementation for complacent or content organizations is not easy. Many social service organizations are constrained politically, legally, and practically in their ability to refine their strategy as they go. Absurdly, those constrained social service organizations that do not establish the relative effectiveness of their different approaches can often face less political heat than those not constrained. Change is often a battle for organizations separated by class or ideology - those who

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stand to lose out complain bitterly and political resistance to change intensifies. In many cases, the “Feel Good Factor” of some members is a great barrier to change within the social service organization. The Feel Good Factor is a condition that exists when an external entity or activity validates a person’s beliefs that personifies a positive emotional high and an overwhelming sense of joy, self-satisfaction, and significance when the person receives validation from others. Society’s problems and remedies constantly change; however, because of the Feel Good Factor, conventional wisdoms and beliefs about society’s problems and remedies often slow to change. Some individuals and leaders of organizations have deliberately ignored solutions, suspended, expelled, removed, discredited, devalued, humiliated, or maliciously harmed the well-being of others to continue what sustains his or her Feel Good Factor. The “Feel Gooders” are willing to ignore reasoning or evidence that supports critical thinking or progressive insight. As a result, some social service organizations are less apropos and impactful. In addition, social service organizations face legal, internal, and cultural barriers to refining their strategy as they go along — sometimes, funds will be misappropriated, and they will not have the flexibility to make changes. There are also practical barriers — for example, altering the criteria for covering expenses of leaders or releasing funds under a grant program will inevitably take time. Cultural issues within social service organizations can also prevent them from adopting a dynamic approach to implementation. Often, leaders want to defend their beliefs or power over others, rather than analyze what is most effective and refine their approaches. This is a common issue in social service organizations — some leaders are often fearful that they will lose influence or face criticism internally or externally if they admit their approaches are not as effective as they might be. These cultural barriers can be overcome by competence and compassionate leaders who help members understand that dynamic implementation is the better way to maximize the organization’s impact. For many social service organizations, the norm has been to start by developing a plan that includes a large number of “politically correct” initiatives containing diffuse actions, and then to implement the plan without any real reference to what is working and what is not. Usually these plans have few SMART goals. Some of the actions might be the subject of evaluation at a later date, but these evaluations can be disconnected from the decision-making process. Dynamic implementation is different — it is about social service organizations constantly keeping their “eyes on the prize” or goals they aim to achieve and constantly assessing performance and refreshing strategies to maximize the chances of success. Despite the challenges to executing dynamic implementation, the benefits can be great. Social service organizations that understand the drivers of performance in real time and use that information to refine their strategies as they go along could create significantly more impact for the American people.

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Step back and reflect

During our nation’s Civil Rights Movement, Freedom Fighters fought or made the ultimate sacrifice to for future generations to simply have a right to vote. Modern-day political opportunity greatly differs from what those ever Freedom Fighters had dreamed: Since 2012, three D.C. Council members have pleaded guilty to national corruption charges. Ex-Detroit mayor and his co-defendants were found guilty of a range of charges, including racketeering, fraud, and extortion. This year, President Obama delivered the closing remarks at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Many folks were surprised by the speech. Most folks had expected for our President Obama to discourage African American politicians from continuing to shame the legacies of Martin Luther King, Jr., Frederick Douglass, Thurgood Marshall, and many other African Americans who had marched, fought, bled, and died for our to become a better place for all Americans. The “what is in it for me” attitude is not the “American Way”. As it pertains to character, morality, and how we genuinely treat each other, modern-day society need to a point-of-reference. It is the responsibility of our social service organizations to re-establish the moral standard as a clear and unambiguous point-of-reference. Social service organizations have to make decisions every year about where their priorities lie. Every two to three years, social service organizations will need to revise their priority goals in line with the needs of its member and quality-of-life of all Americans. They should use those occasions to carry out more reflective evaluations. Sometimes, it will be appropriate to commission longer, scientifically rigorous evaluations at the same time that programs commence. Using evaluative and analysis techniques — such as Five Why’s, randomized control trials, SWOT, quasi-experiments, PESTLE, observational studies, CATWOE, or propensity score matching — can provide powerful insights for social service organizations to establish what works. Social service organizations should time these evaluations carefully so that results are available to prepare future priorities, and the information needs to be presented such that policy makers can use it to make decisions. Often, social service organizations will find that they need answers to a wider set of questions. A key dilemma facing social service organizations is the relative effectiveness of the same approach to tackle the different issues. This will call for comparative analysis across programs to establish what approaches are most effective, and the circumstances in which they work well. Sometimes, it may make sense to narrow the scope of certain programs so they serve communities or situations in which they are most effective. In certain cases, it will make sense to terminate programs or approaches that appear less effective or duplicative. Answering questions about relative effectiveness is not easy. Even when rigorous scientific techniques are not needed, in-depth analysis of historical performance is essential to understanding the drivers of success for programs. That may mean looking across the different places that the organization tried the approach, across the different types of organizations that sought to implement

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it, or at the different populations served. This form of reflective analysis will help social service organizations to make future directions.

A task force is a temporary organization created to solve a particular problem. It is considered to be a more formal ad-hoc committee. A taskforce, or more-commonly task force, is a special committee, usually of experts, formed expressly for the purpose of studying a particular problem. The task force usually performs some sort of an audit to assess the current situation, draws up a list of all the current problems present, and evaluates which ones merit fixing and which ones are actually fixable. Next, the task force would formulate a set of solutions to the problems and pick the "best" solution to each problem, as determined by some set of standards. For example, a task force set up to eliminate excessive government spending might consider a "best" solution to be one that saves the most money. Normally, the task force presents its findings and proposed solutions to the organization that called for its formation; it is the responsibility of the organization itself to act upon the task force's recommendations. Each Social service organizations should establish a way of instituting Task Forces within the organization to effectively address issues branding & public image, advocacy, public policy recommendations, waste, standards, etc. Here is the recommended that framework:

Application to Create a Task Force Creation of the Task Force Decommission of Task Force Volunteer Application Individual Appointment to Task Force Individual Withdrawal from Task Force Involuntary Removal from Task Force Recommendation Submission or Written Testimony to a Specific Task Force Request for Oral Testimony Before a Specific Task Force Approve Task Force Report or Recommendation Initiate Task Force Investigation

At this point, social service organizations should consider if the goals they set for themselves were the right ones. A good set of goals will have very few perverse or unintended consequences and will have addressed the key priorities of the organization and social service organizations. Social service organizations will also want to consider if their information is timely enough to inform stakeholders and accurate enough to allow decision-makers to draw sensible conclusions. By stepping back and reflecting, social service organizations could decide if they need to make changes to their goals, strategy, and the foundations that form the basis of the implementation phase. After this, in effect the process starts again — with a revised set of goals and a strategy that reflects choices about the best way to accomplish. Often, social service organizations will find they do not need a new vision of what they are trying to achieve, but they may still need to hone their strategy and goals based on what continual learning. Note: Effective and quick responses to telephone calls is an indication that the social service organization may be good. All telephones should be returned within 48 hours. If an expert cannot call to resolve the matter within 48 hours, a short call should be made to alert the caller that the correspondence(s) has been properly received, and the matter will be addressed within a specific time period.

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Conduct comparative analysis across programs to determine relative effectiveness. Find ways to reduce overlap, fragmentation and duplication of programs. Assess if the data collected was timely, relevant and reliable. Revisit goals to assess if they are still relevant and appropriate.

This was a very unfortunate, but avoidable event. The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman took place on the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida. Martin was a 17-year-old African American high school student. George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old mixed-race Hispanic, was the neighborhood watch coordinator for the gated community where Martin was temporarily staying and where the shooting took place. Following an earlier call from Zimmerman, police arrived within two minutes of a gunshot during an altercation in which Zimmerman fatally shot Martin, who did not have any weapons. Zimmerman was taken into custody, treated for head injuries, and questioned for five hours. The police chief said that Zimmerman was released because there was no evidence to refute Zimmerman's claim of having acted in self-defense, and that under Florida's Stand Your Ground statute, the police were prohibited by law from making an arrest. The police chief also said that Zimmerman had a right to defend himself with lethal force. As news of the case spread, thousands of protestors across the country called for Zimmerman's arrest and a full investigation. Six weeks after the shooting, amid widespread, intense, and in some cases misleading media coverage, Zimmerman was charged with murder by a special prosecutor appointed by Governor Rick Scott. Zimmerman's trial began on June 10, 2013, in Sanford. On July 13, 2013, a jury acquitted him of second-degree murder and of manslaughter charges. With adequate need assessments and goal-focused leaders within our social service organizations, the whole tragedy could have been proactively mitigated and avoided. The National Rifle Association (NRA) and American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) convinced primary Red state legislatures

to adopt "stand‑your‑ground" laws. If social services had goal-focused compassionate leaders, task

force structures, and robust advocacy programs in place prior to the adoption of "stand‑your‑ground"

laws, many unwarranted murders would be avoid. In our divisive society, it is almost impossible to

convince legislators to enact further laws to repeal "stand‑your‑ground". This is primary because

Americans want to protect Rights at all costs and the NRA says that “Stand-Your-Ground” is a “fundamental human right”. Whether the leaders are downright incompetent or simply do not give a damn, the practices of electing leaders of social service organizations based on popularity, intimidation, charisma, impressive degrees, attrition, political posturing, power struggles, or celebrity status . The members of social service organizations need to get serious about

promoting, articulating, and exhibiting the tenets of their organizations. “…is not to be treated like a country club. For many Americans, stuff {$#!+} is getting real out here!”.

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Conclusion The approach described in this paper sets forth a series of simple steps which can help social service organizations improve their moral insight, performance, and leadership. Social service organizations need to strive to elect leaders who will plan what the organization will achieve; develop a strategy that includes approaches that they think are most likely to work; build the foundations for implementation; implement with an eye to constant improvement; and reflect before starting the cycle again. Unfortunately, just because the approach is simple does not mean that it is easy to implement. Implementation requires considerable focus and a commitment to constant learning that may be hard for some leaders of social service organizations. For social service organizations, which often operate in the political spotlight, it can be even harder to implement these ideas. Nevertheless, the rewards of applying them are enormous. If social service organizations are able to rightfully manage their activity in a resourceful, they can have a positive impact on the lives of all Americans.

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HOW?

If “how” remains a question, please feel free to contact the author at 301-906-1292.