A National Imperative: Joining Forces to Strengthen Human Services in America (Jan 2018)

The National Imperative survey was created in consultation with the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities and the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA). The survey was conducted and responses were recorded using the Qualtrics survey platform. The survey was distributed to all members of the Alliance. Additional distributions were sent to human services CBOmembers of the associations that make up the Leadership 18 CBO network. The survey was also distributed to state and local health and human services government agencies that are members of APHSA. The survey remained open for just over six weeks, from June 12 through July 26, 2017. CBO respondents were segmented by region based on the state they provided in the survey, and by size based on their stated revenue. Segmentation by solvency and cash reserves was performed based on CBO respondents’ most recent Form 990 returns. Segments were determined based on whether CBOs fell into the top, middle, or bottom third (tercile) of solvency metrics and reserves sizes among the full population of human services CBOs filing Form 990. Survey results have a ±7%margin of sampling error with a 95% confidence interval. These estimates do not account for coverage and non-response effects. Because the number and distribution of non-sampled and non- responding CBOs and government agencies are not completely random, we caution against drawing definitive conclusions about the broader CBO and government agency populations based solely on the survey results. However, survey results were cross-checked and found to be in agreement with additional research and analysis, including qualitative interviews, and the distributions of several CBO respondent characteristics were found to align with those of the full CBO population (e.g., assets, revenues, margin, etc.).

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