TIME TO RENEW EZECCC COMMUNITY BOARD MINITRAINING SESSION

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TIME TO RENEW!EZ/EC/CC COMMUNITY BOARD
MINI-TRAINING SESSION

• Adapted from Advanced Systems Corp.
• Community Empowerment Board Training
• by Rural Developments Office of Community
  Development
• U.S. Department of Agriculture
• Washington, DC

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Welcome

• Introductions
• Theme
• Purpose and Agenda
• Logistics
• Norms

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History, Progress and Promise of the Empowerment
Program

• Vision
• The Four Key principles of the Empowerment
  Program (we never get tired of hearing these!)
• Each community is part of the larger whole
  (what's your communitys part?)
• Future considerations

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The Empowerment Staircase

• Empowerment is a process,
• like climbing stairs

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First Steps on the Empowerment Staircase
5. Converting vision into workplan
4. Creating sound strategies
3. Finding partners
2. Building broad participation
1. Building a solid foundation
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Next Steps in Building Empowerment
10. Achieving sustainable development
9. Adapting strategic plans
8. Building community capacity
7. Creating successes
6. Finding resources
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Where Should Your EZ/EC Put Its Energies?

• Activity Indicate which step(s) along the
  Empowerment Staircase the Board should focus its
  energies in the next year or two?

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EZ Responsibilities Social Contract

• Legal stuff -- MOA, grant agreement, forms
• Be true to the plan and vision
• Celebrating, amending, and revising your plan
• Benchmarks are a board's best friend

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EZ/EC Regs Boards Post March 25th

• 7 CFR Part 25 25.404 Validation of designation.
• (a) Maintaining the principles of the program
• Ongoing broad-based participation
• (1) Continuous improvement
• Learn from the past and continuously enhance
  performance
• (2) Participation
• Continuous broad-based community participation
  in the implementation of the strategic plan,,
  including board membership in the lead entity
  and other key partnership entities.

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EZ/EC Regs and Boards (continued)

• 7 CFR Part 25 25.404 Validation of designation.
• (b) Administration of the strategic plan
• (3) Board Membership
• Must be representative of the entire community
• Either broad-based election or appointment
• 55 must be elected locally
• At least 1 locally elected board member from each
  census tract that is representative of low income
  residents in that tract
• For Tribal Government Organizations the Deputy
  Administrator can waive the 55 elected criteria
  if its determined, in writing, that an appointed
  board will be more representative of the community

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Guidelines on Board Representation

• Broad Based Election
• Locally Acceptable
• Nominations
• Sufficient Notice
• Representative Board
• Conflict of Interest
• Low-Income
• Transparency

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Board Representation and Reconfiguration
Discussion

• Are we fully compliant? What steps need to be
  taken to meet the requirements?
• Beyond strict compliance, is it opportune to make
  other changes in Board selection, composition,
  and terms?
• When was the last time we made an assessment of
  our internal operations?
• How do we best increase effectiveness and
  maintain the spirit of the program?

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Empowerment CommunityBoard Type

• An Empowerment Community Board is a type of
  Executive Management Team providing
• Leadership
• Direction
• Oversight
• Advice
• Motivation

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COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT BOARD

• The Board members are to be the organizations
  leaders, providing it with oversight and advise
  concerning mission- related efforts. They are
  responsible for creating and updating the
  organizations Strategic Plan, giving all members
  of the organization a sense of direction. Also
  to keep the organization motivated.

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Empowerment CommunityBoard Type

• An Empowerment Community Board is like an
  Executive Management Team
• Purpose to provide coordinated leadership to the
  organization
• Contribution oversight and advice
• Dangers that it shirk its responsibilities or
  not be used
• Advantages builds common purpose and consensus
  within the organization

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EZ/EC Board As Hybrid

• Different from Corporate Board
• Different from common Volunteer Boards
• Key Role played by Committees
• Limited Staff size
• Board members One head -- Two hats

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Committees Vital to the Mission

• EZ/EC Community-Based Mission Philosophy
• Job too big for Board and Staff
• Committee Make-up
• Geography (sub-Zone) or Sector representative
• Ad-Hoc or Standing
• EZ/EC Created or Pre-existing partner
• Board-led, staff-led or citizen-led
• Empower Communicate - Monitor

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Ten Responsibilities of Non-Profit Boards

• 1. Determine the Organizations Mission and
  Purpose
• 2. Select the Chief Executive
• 3. Support the Chief Executive and Assess His/Her
  Performance
• 4. Ensure Effective Organizational Planning
• 5. Ensure Adequate Resources
• 6. Manage Resources Effectively
• 7. Determine, Monitor, and Strengthen the
  Organizations Programs and Services
• 8. Enhance the Organizations Public Standing
• 9. Ensure Legal and Ethical Integrity and
  Maintain Accountability
• 10.Recruit and Orient New Board Members and
  Assess Board Performance
• - Richard T. Ingram, Association of Governing
  Boards of Universities and Colleges

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Define Reasons for Being

• As your organizations Strategic Planners, you
  must spell out its purpose (why it was formed)
• You must also create a formal statement of the
  organizations Mission (what are its
  responsibilities)
• You should also organize these responsibilities
  in descending priority

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Select a Manager

• As Board Members, you are your organizations
  leaders
• One exercise of leadership is to define the
  characteristics you want in a manager of
  day-to-day operations
• Another leadership function is to select the
  candidate who is best qualified to carry out your
  agenda

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Support and Assess the Manager

• The Manager and his/her Staff are your
  organizations troops in the trenches
• As leaders, you must provide adequate support and
  guidance to these troops
• As mentors and coaches, you must evaluate the
  performance of the Manager and Staff and provide
  them with feedback

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Perform Planning

• To qualify for designation as an Empowerment
  Community, you had to create a Strategic Plan
• Your planning responsibility requires you now to
  develop a Tactical or Implementation Plan
• You need to revisit your Strategic and Tactical
  Plans periodically to update and revise them as
  needed

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Acquire Leverage Resources

• In addition to your Title XX grants, you need to
  acquire other, continuing resources
• You need to form alliances or partnerships with
  other organizations to leverage both your
  resources
• You need to guide your community in the necessary
  activity of fundraising

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Oversee Resource Utilization

• As leaders, you need to resist the temptation of
  micro-managing your organization
• You should review and make decisions on proposed
  resource allocations
• You should review and evaluate resource
  utilization

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Oversee Organizational Activities

• As leaders, you dont design and sponsor your
  organizations programs and services
• Instead, you assess, advise, and facilitate your
  organizations actions in support of its programs
  and services
• One of your important responsibilities as leaders
  is to grow people in your community

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Maintain Public Relations

• You can not assume that your organization will
  continue to have the respect of the community
• As leaders, you have a responsibility to inform
  them continually of your problems, your efforts
  to solve them, and your accomplishments
• As leaders, you have a responsibility to motivate
  your community to take responsibility for its own
  fate

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Govern Morally

• As leaders, you must ensure that your
  organization avoids any actions that are illegal
  or unethical
• As leaders, you must be concerned that your
  organization does not even give the appearance of
  illegal or unethical behavior
• As evaluators of proposals, you must be impartial
  and not give preferential treatment to any
  individual or organization

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Recruit Fresh Blood

• As leaders concerned with the continued
  well-being of your organization, you must be
  constantly looking for new candidates for the
  Board
• As new Board Members take their place, you must
  be sure that they are given formal orientation
  into the purpose and functioning of the Board
• As leaders, you must set the example of assessing
  and evaluating the performance of the Board

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Leadership
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Activities of a Leader

• Experiment and take risks
• Envision the future
• Enlist others to follow
• Search for opportunities for change and
  improvement
• Foster collaboration
• Empower followers
• Lead by doing
• Build commitment to action
• Recognize contributions
• Celebrate accomplishments
• Kouzes and Posner, The Leadership Challenge (1987)

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Activities of a Manager

• Structure the job
• Select staff
• Improve competencies
• Correct incorrect behavior
• Motivate staff
• Delegate responsibility and authority
• Support your staffs activities
• Clay Carr, The New Managers Survival Manual
  (1989)

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Board Executive Director Relationship

• No single relationship in the organization is as
  important as that between the board and its chief
  executive officer.
• John Carver, Boards that Make a Difference

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Activities of an Executive Director

• Execute policies of the Board
• Maintain fiscal accountability
• Foster environment for communication success
• Ensure compliance with Federal State laws
• Participate in fund-raising efforts
• Promote the corporation thru public relations,
  marketing and advocacy
• Work with others to improve programs
• Provide planning structure recommendations
• Provide leadership for policy development
• Supervise and evaluate day-to-day operations

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Leadership Questions

• Who do you think of as leaders?
• What was his/her chief leadership characteristic?
• Who do you think of as managers?
• What was his/her chief manager characteristic?
• What are the differences between a leader and a
  manager?
• Can the same person/group be a leader and a
  manager simultaneously?

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Leader/Manager in an Empowerment Community

• The role of leader is played by the Board
• The role of manager is played by the Executive
  Director
• If the Board must play both roles, it must be
  very aware at any moment which role it is playing

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Activity IHow Do You Rate as a Leader?

• 1. On your own, fill out the Leadership
  Questionnaire.
• 2. Identify areas where you need improvement.
• 3. Devise a plan for becoming a better leader.
• 4. Make a commitment to carry out your plan.

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Teaming Board and Staff
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Teaming Atmosphere

• What kind of atmosphere or environment is
  necessary for a group to act as a team?
• Individualistic?
• Competitive?
• Cooperative?

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Individualistic Atmosphere

• Encourages each person to go his/her own way
• No guarantee that all individuals will reliably
  march in the same direction
• Individuals usually invest personal feelings in
  their own thoughts, beliefs, and values

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Competitive Atmosphere

• Pits groups members against one another
• Competition is a game in which one side wins
  and the other loses
• Competitors find it difficult to admit that the
  ideas of others can be true, good, or valuable

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Cooperative Atmosphere

• Group members work for the good of the whole,
  rather than for their own good
• They are convinced that working together is
  better than working alone
• They are willing to do whatever needs to be done
  to get the job done

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Teaming Beliefs

• The best way to solve this problem is by all
  working together
• Each of us has his/her own set of talents to
  contribute
• Our success as a team depends on the quality of
  our communications with one another
• To meet our responsibilities and make good
  decisions, we all need to be well-informed and we
  need to hear from every member

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Team Decision-Making

• Team members will implement decisions made
  through consensus, which is reached by
• Discussing
• Bargaining
• Compromising or collaborating
• Voting

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Decision-Making Tools

• Problem Identification
• Brainstorming
• Multi-voting

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Who is Your Community?

• Results from Community Quiz

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Why Involve the Community?

• Community problems can be solved by the community
  or by outside experts
• Usually the community can not afford experts
• As often as a community allows someone else to
  solve its problems, it strengthens its doubt in
  its own ability to satisfy its own needs

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The Principle of Community-Based Partnerships

• One of the four principles of the Empowerment
  Community Program is that of Community-Based
  Partnerships
• Involving participation of all segments of the
  community
• Working together to build and implement a plan
  for bettering their community
• Developing problem-solving abilities to enable
  self-sufficiency

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Required Paradigm Shift

• To be successful, leaders must adopt a
  collaborative approach
• Representative participation (grassroots
  volunteers)
• Committee consciousness (a meaningful slot for
  all)
• Collaborative atmosphere (a solution best for
  all)
• Consensus building (a chance to be heard)

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Representative Participation

• Representatives of all civic groups
• Representatives of all concerned citizens
• All age groups (beyond children)
• Both genders
• All ethnic groups
• All income levels

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Collaborative Atmosphere

• Involvement must be early and broad
• Give adequate notice of public involvement
  project
• Ensure time for community to review and discuss
• Ensure that participants have a clear, realistic
  understanding of the goals of the project
• Give real (not make-work) tasks and show
  appreciation for efforts expended
• Provide public access to technical information
• Use collaborative decision-making process

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Implementing Decisions

• Present proposed plan to decision makers for
  ratification
• Have committee present plan to decision makers
• Obtain formal approval for any suggested changes
  agreed to
• Monitor implementation
• Evaluate project
• Produce Lessons Learned

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EC Status Report

• How is the EC community doing?
• How is the Board performing?
• Where are the challenges?

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Pre-Training Questionnaire

• 1. Our Board works as a team because all the
  members have shared goals, works together, and
  all derive some benefit from their membership on
  the Board
• 2. All of our Board members are committed to
• 3. During Board meetings, our members encourage
  each other to express his/her opinions on each
  topic under discussion.
• 4. Our Board is concerned about keeping all our
  stakeholders informed of Board activities and
  decisions.
• 5. Our Board members do whatever they can to
  contribute to our organizations success.
• 6. Every Board member is sensitive to actual or
  possible conflicts of interest.
• 7 Our Board tries to maintain appropriate lines
  of communication with our organizations support
  staff.

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Questionnaire Contd.

• 8. Members of our Board trust and respect one
  another.
• 9. Each Board member is committed to enhancing
  the public image of our organization in the
  community.
• 10. Every Board member is continually on the
  lookout for individuals who can be recruited to
  serve as future Board members.
• 11. Our Board always follows its policies on
  Board size, composition, nominations, and
  elections.
• 12. Our Board has published a policies and
  procedures manual.
• 13. Our Board has developed a formal orientation
  program that it gives to new members when they
  come on board.
• 14. Our Board has effective and open lines of
  communication among its members and with the
  Exec. Dir.
• 15. Our Board seeks to ensure diversity in its
  membership.
• 16. Our Board conducts periodic assessments of
  its operations.

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Questionnaire Contd.

• 16. Our Board conducts periodic assessments of
  its operations.
• 17. Our Board provides opportunities for informal
  interactions between Board members and the
  Executive Directors staff.
• 18. The roles and responsibilities of the
  Executive Director are clearly understood by all
  Board members.
• 19. What, in your opinion, are the most
  significant accomplishments of the Enterprise
  Community (EC)?
• 20. What, in your opinion, are the most
  significant challenges facing the EC?
• 21. What are the Boards main strengths?
• 22. What are the Boards main weaknesses?
• 23. What one result would you most want to
  achieve at the upcoming Training?
• 24. Any additional Comments

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The Communityat Work
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Communications Make the Board

• Internal
• External (Wheres your Communications Committee?)
• Intramural (micromanagement/policy direction)

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Strategic Planning
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Why Strategic Planning?

• Organizations engage in Strategic Planning to
• Assess the environment in which they must operate
• Recognize their strengths and weaknesses
• Sketch its long-term dream (vision)
• Define it reasons for existing (mission)
• Map a course for it to follow for the next 1-2
  years
• Identify landmarks to gauge attainment of its
  objectives

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The Components of Strategic Planning

• Audience
• External Factors
• Internal Factors
• Vision Statement
• Mission Statement
• Goals
• Objectives
• Performance Measures

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Performance Measures

• Criteria (benchmarks) your organization will use
  to determine whether it is successful in
  attaining its Objectives
• Outputs that your organization plans to produce
• Outcomes (changed situations) your organization
  plans to bring about
• Specific improvements in the quality of your
  organizations services

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Benchmark Management System

• A tool to monitor progress in implementing EZ/EC
  strategic plans

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What is BMS?

• Monitors strategic plan activities
• Measures outputs and outcomes against baselines
  and targets
• Tracks resource use
• Provides an on-line workplan management tool for
  communities
• Incorporates on-line review and approval of
  changes to goals and budgets

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What communities can do with it

• Manage strategic plan goals and actions
• Manage workplans, timetables, resources
• Print reports for community meetings
• Develop record of outputs and outcomes
• Make comparisons with other communities
• Establish basis for program evaluation
• Submit proposed changes for approval

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What National Office Can Do

• Monitor progress nationally
• Electronic notification of changes to system
• Identify communities with common goals and
  activities
• Get national totals on resource usage
• Obtain national data on outputs and outcomes

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How Does it Work in Communities?

• Requires only Internet access, Web browser,
  password for access
• Communities enter data
• Goals
• Activities
• Project descriptions and timetables
• Budgets and revenue sources
• Baselines, targets and performance indicators
• USDA State Offices notified of changes by e-mail

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Results!

• Easy-to-use local workplan management system
• Uniform national data collected
• Accountability enforcement system
• Basis for program evaluations
• Strategic plan investment opportunities can be
  identified
• Provides results data for GPRA

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EZ/EC Progress - An External Assessment

• The Positives
• The Negatives
• Need for more tangible results
• Common progress indicators
• Funds leveraged compared with other EZ/ECs
• Number, quality and range of projects implemented
• Visibility to the Public

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Specific Challenges -- As We See It

• Board Compliance
• Permanent Staff
• Board Participation on Benchmark Activities
• Outreach to under-represented sectors
• Board as a Team

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Its Your Community

• Do you agree these are serious or urgent
  challenges? If not these, what should the Board
  focus on?
• What will you do to tackle these challenges?
• What steps can be taken before your next Board
  Meeting?
• Who will do them?

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The EC/USDA Partnership

• You are not alone!
• RD State Office
• Office of Community Development
• Other EZ/ECs
• Web Resources
• Others?

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The Wrap-up

• Q and A
• Closing Comments
• Training Evaluation Form

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TIME TO RENEW TIME TO ACT!