Agenda

Professional Development Workshops

Symposium

Symposium Themes and Vignettes:

Themes for the symposium were identified by a national advisory committee of scholars and practitioners who are members of ASPA and ARNOVA and who are focused on these issues in their research and their organizations. Below the themes are listed with vignettes drawn from Cleveland nested under each theme.

1. Explorations of accountability frameworks from the perspective of nonprofits and their impact on cross sector networks. What is the impact of new accountability requirements on nonprofits and the traditional contributions of nonprofits to partnership with the administrative state? Given the limited discretionary funding available for administrative overhead, increased reporting requirements, and performance based contracts, how are nonprofits fulfilling their traditional role as social innovators of new services? Do new requirements have an impact on the heterogeneity of services? Do new accountability models have an impact on nonprofit accountability with established stakeholders?

Example: County Agency – Neighborhood Center Partnership: Local governments have become a focal point for inter-agency partnerships that drive policy formation and service delivery. A long standing public-nonprofit partnership between the county Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and fourteen community-based nonprofits demonstrates how nonprofits have provided the public sector with the opportunity to solve community problems in cooperation with citizens and develop services in accordance with the values and ideas of the community. How are new accountability frameworks being integrated into the partnership? What is their impact?

Example: Public Accountability for Arts and Cultural Organizations: In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, voters approved an increase in the cigarette tax that is expected to generate between $15 - $20 million per year for 10 years for arts and cultural organizations and individual artists. What models of accountability pertain to publicly funded arts and culture organizations, and how can accountability be assessed in a manner that functions effectively for both public sector purposes as well as a nonprofit arts council? How have similarly situated public-nonprofit arts directed organizations addressed the issue of accountability around public funding?

2. Efforts to link performance measures to the larger context of governance —including the legislative process, policy development, community indicators, and/or budgeting.

Example: Review how governments or umbrella organizations use community indicators and performance measures to target resources and create a “strategic results” based plan for human services (e.g., United Way, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill or a consortium of organizations engaged in public services such as housing management).

3. Explorations of how governments can strengthen the connections between mechanisms of accountability and performance measurement.

Example: New Contract Monitoring Requirements for County Government: Federal OMB circulars (A 133; A 95) are changing the requirements of county governments to monitor contracts and grants in accordance with federal rules and regulations. New federal regulations have changed the status of counties to sub-recipients and now pass on liabilities around 4E funding, foster care, food stamps and TANF dollars. As a result if audits indicate that sub-recipients are not in compliance (unable to verify eligibility of clients) the federal government can sanction states, which become subject to losing a percentage of total TANF allocations, a cost states would then pass on to the “causal” counties. What are the anticipated impacts of the new federal requirements on counties regarding contract monitoring? How can they comply with federal regulations without allowing them to become unduly onerous for county governments or provider agencies?

Example: Performance based payment for services: One of the challenges of health and human services contractors concerns the dilemma of choosing 100% pay for performance vs. 100% cost reimbursement contracts. At the inception of welfare reform several counties adopted a 100% pay for performance model in job services programs that significantly limited the number of organizations that were able to participate. A number of nonprofits incurred heavy financial losses. What are the best practices or preferred models of counties contracting in health and human services? What are promising innovations in practice that support strong partnership?

For More Information

For more information, contact Shane Connor, Program Coordinator, Center for Nonprofit Policy and Practice, Cleveland State University. Email s.c.connor@csuohio.edu or call (216) 687-5271.