Award for Excellence in Community Action

Pathways to Excellence InitiativeAn Overview

Building High Performance Community Action Agencies through Excellence and Continuous Improvement

Award/Pathways to Excellence Award/Pathways to Excellence GoalsGoals

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 Defining an Excellent Organization Eleven Core ValuesEleven 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 TransformationOrganizational TransformationUnconsciousIncompetence

ConsciousIncompetence

Conscious Competence

Unconscious Competence

““Organizational TransformationOrganizational Transformation””

How committed are we to improving our agency?How committed are we to improving our agency?

Are we ready to move from a Are we ready to move from a

““compliance focuscompliance focus” to an “” to an “excellence focusexcellence focus”?”?

CONCEPTSCONCEPTS

Excellence vs. Compliance

Continuum of ExcellenceContinuum of Excellence

Culture of Excellence

Concepts to RememberConcepts to Remember

Compliance

Excellence

versus

Minimum Level of Performance

Maximum Level of Performance

Key Concept - Excellence vs. Compliance

Concepts to RememberConcepts to Remember

0% 100%

Concept #2Concept #2 - - Continuum of ExcellenceContinuum of Excellence

Not Addressed

25%

Early StagesManyGaps

50%

Basics Met

Some Gaps

Fully ResponsiveNo GapsWorld Class

Well Developed

Few Gaps

75%

No Results Some Good Good Results Trends

Exemplary ResultsGood 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 RememberConcepts 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 InitiativePathways 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 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 FrameworkSelf-Study FrameworkSeven Categories of ExcellenceSeven 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 FrameworkExcellence Framework

4Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge Management

Human Resource

Focus

6Process

Management

7

Business Results

1

Leadership

2StrategicPlanning

3Customer

Focus

5

Organizational Profile:

Environment, Relationships, and Challenges

2009 Standards of Excellence2009 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 2.0 Strategic Planning StandardsStandards

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 StandardsCustomer 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, andPerformance 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 4.0 Measurement, Analysis, and Performance Management StandardsPerformance 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 5.0 Human Resource StandardsStandards

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 Standards6.0 Process Mgmt StandardsAdministrative 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 StandardsResults 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

ContactsContacts

Community Action Partnership National Office

202 -265-7546 – Lawrence E. Koziarz, Director of Training

Visit web site: www.communityactionpartnership.comClick on Excellence –

download the Application Form