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

The report is divided into five main chapters. “Overview of the Human Services Ecosystem” provides a snapshot of the human services ecosystem today. “The Transformative Potential of Human Services” describes in more detail the sector’s future transformative economic and social potential of human services CBOs. “Roadblocks and CHallenges” outlines some of the key challenges and roadblocks that must be overcome to unlock this potential. “North Star Initiatives” outlines the five proposed “North Stars”: • • Commitment to measure long-term outcomes associated with human services interventions, and to skew funding to programs with demonstrable and highly promising impacts • • Investment in capacity for innovation , to ensure that newer and better approaches for human services and for managing human services CBOs are constantly being developed • • Development of new operating models (“Operating Model 2.0 – A Strategic Partnership Approach”) emphasizing development of collaborative partnerships among human services CBOs and between CBOs and government agencies, with joint approaches to population needs assessment, program design and implementation, and impact evaluation • • Development of new financial policies and practices , including actions by CBOs (such as more careful and selective vetting of contract terms) and by government agencies (such as use of more flexible contracts, with full cost reimbursements) to address financial stress in the human services CBO community • • Regulatory modernization , including rationalization of overlapping regulations and elimination/restructuring of regulations that create compliance burdens in excess of their value, to reduce expense levels for human services CBOs The final “Conclusion” chapter lays out the business case for investing in these initiatives, and the potential outcomes if our country chooses to do so. Interspersed with these chapters, we have included direct quotations from our interviews with executives and senior leaders from CBOs, public sector agencies, and philanthropic organizations, as well as case studies of initiatives and organizations that are taking particularly innovative and promising approaches to their work. Bluntly, we anticipate that many readers will react to our recommendations by saying “we have seen these before” and “this won’t be possible!” But the case studies demonstrate that while more work must be done, some organizations, including human services CBOs, government agencies, and for-profit companies, are already makingmeaningful strides to address these challenges. However, deeper policy, regulatory, financial, and systemic change will be required for their efforts to be successful, scalable, and sustainable. We have also included a story – the story of fictional Freedom County, located somewhere in the United States. The first story of Freedom County is a look at the county today – its strengths, its challenges, and, of course, its human services ecosystem and the CBOs that play a critical role within it. The second story of Freedom County is about the possible county of the future. If CBOs can succeed in unlocking their transformative value – what might Freedom County look like ten plus years into the future? The story of Freedom County is meant to be aspirational, but it is also a way of translating the facts, figures and arguments laid out in

8 |   A NATIONAL IMPERATIVE