Trends and Issues for CAA Board Members
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
A. THE ECONOMY ....................................................................................................................... 1
1. The economy does NOT work .................................................................................................... 1
A. Strategies to offset the amoral nature of capitalism. ................................................................. 1
B. Strategies to correct the dynamic of bi-modalization................................................................ 2
C. Strategies to raise the floor. ....................................................................................................... 2
2. Globalization in an industry fundamentally changes the way it operates ................................... 3
Strategies: ........................................................................................................................................ 3
3. Economic conditions for low-income Americans will get worse. .............................................. 5
4. Welfare reform will never succeed ............................................................................................ 6
Strategies: ........................................................................................................................................ 7
5. Expand our definition of work .................................................................................................. 8
6. The Federal Government is Evaporating Before Our Very Eyes. .............................................. 9
Strategies: ........................................................................................................................................ 9
7. As power drains from the federal level, the Federally mandated or program models are
crumbling, too. ................................................................................................................................ 9
8. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs has been misused ..................................................................... 10
9. Too many programs use rhetoric about self-sufficiency.......................................................... 13
Strategies: ...................................................................................................................................... 14
10. Sort programs according to their real results. ........................................................................ 14
11. Some people will always need services. ................................................................................ 17
Strategies: ...................................................................................................................................... 17
12 Program Strategy and Level of Intervention are Matters of Board and Staff Choices. .......... 18
STRATEGY OPTION QUESTIONS ........................................................................................... 19
13. The case management and family development programs in many CAA's are too generic. . 21
14. CAA's no longer have any systematic nationwide or even statewide program development
machinery...................................................................................................................................... 21
Strategies. ...................................................................................................................................... 21
Here are five ways to “Just do it.” ................................................................................................ 21
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15. Our community participation was real in the 1960's, but it is largely rhetoric now. .............. 23
16. America seems to be heading into a period of intense culture warfare. ................................. 24
17. Most CAA's are still command-and-control hierarchies ......................................................... 25
18. Why haven't CAA's done more in economic development?................................................... 25
19. There are several new and very compelling ideas out there. .................................................. 25
20. Work With All the Drivers of Public Policy.......................................................................... 26
21. Look at the Big Picture .......................................................................................................... 28
22. The ROMA effort in CSBG is very good .............................................................................. 28
23. The CAA is still real .............................................................................................................. 29
24. Boards spend too much time on busy work ............................................................................ 30
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A. THE ECONOMY
To:
CAA Board and Staff Members
May, 2000
From: Jim Masters
Subject: Trends for CAA’s To Track -- and to Fight or Support
There are several Megatrends for board members to track. There are new opportunities
to pursue, some disturbing discontinuities, some old stuff that still hangs around after it should
have been dropped. Here are a few from the environmental scan” -- and some “Strategies.”
Let’s be clear about one thing. As an economic system, capitalism is the greatest engine
for economic growth ever conceived. It has resulted in incredible economic expansion and has
brought unparalleled economic prosperity to huge numbers of people. But it needs some serious
fine tuning. One reason it needs improvement is because:
1. The economy does NOT work the way that conventional wisdom, most of the press and most
elected officials say it does. There are three big problems with capitalism that must be offset
through public policy.
A. The first is that it is single minded (or maybe mind-less) It just wants to grow. It has
no conscience -- it is amoral. This means it ignores racism and other negative aspects of the
social systems where it operates, and it ignores the damage it does to people and the
environment.
B. The second is that over time, it results is a very unequal distribution of the wealth that
is produced. It creates a bi-modal distribution of income that just gets worse and worse.
C. The third is that the Myth of the American Dream says that everybody can “make it.”
Social myths are good. They set direction and tell us what is important. But -- but historically
only about 2/3 of the people “make it” up to an adequate economic level, and about 1/3 do not.
This has been true for 130 years. If the person is “down” they take the blame, and if they make it
-- the system gets the credit.
A. Strategies to offset the amoral nature of capitalism.

Government must be used to protect the environment, consumers and workers. George
Will has a great quote that goes something like “Capitalism produces rough justice, and it
is up to government smooth the edges of the roughness.”

Encourage the engines of social value generation -- religious beliefs and social
1
movements.

Civil rights enforcement where it can be done. Affirmative action for Black Americans
B. Strategies to correct the dynamic of bi-modalization.

The women’s movement as it addresses glass ceiling issues and business ownership.

Educational attainment. A college degree raises family income.

Increase taxation on high incomes, capital gains. Redistribute income through the Tax
code and transfer payments.
C. Strategies to raise the floor.

Address the structural problems in the economy. There have been enough jobs that pay
living wages for only a few brief periods (mostly wartime). Almost everybody wants to
be productive. There are more people looking for jobs than there are jobs, even BEFORE
public assistance recipients hit the job market. (Story about the Sant Ynez band of
Chumash Indians.)

Increase the compensation for work. Raise the minimum wage; pass “living wage”
policies.

Increase the compensation and benefits for doing work by organizing labor unions.

Provide medical benefits and child care for low-income workers.

Realize that traditional approaches to “employment and training” will never enable more
than a small portion of the people who want work to find work.

Expand the variety and types of household income – earn in the neighborhood and local
economies.

Speak the truth about how the system really operates and about what is possible.

Provide leadership to correct deficiencies in the economic engine.
2
2. Globalization in an industry fundamentally changes the way it operates. Wages move
toward a new “world average” in an industry that globalizes -- which usually means lower wages
for Americans. This is why most wage earners in the U.S. have had flat or declining real
incomes since 1972.
GATT and NAFTA were necessary to keep the country as a whole from being left
behind, but they must be offset with public policies to assist those groups of people that NAFTA
and GATT are leaving behind -- i.e. the bottom third of America.
Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, Jesse Jackson and Ralph Nader have something in common.
They all projected the same problem with NAFTA – accelerating job loss for low-income
Americans -- and they were right.
Work opportunities for the less skilled and lower educated in the world are getting worse,
not better. There are 860,000,000 unemployed and underemployed people in the world -competing for “low-skill” jobs. To get really depressed about this trend, read: William Julius
Wilson, When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor; Richard Barnet, Global
Dreams; or Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work
We need to modify our language about economic opportunity because the old economy
no longer exists. Individuals, counties, cities, states, and now even nations have little or no
influence over the globalized sectors of the economy. As CBO's we are still pulling levers that
are no longer connected to much of anything that shapes economic opportunity, and we do not
have the capacity to pull the levers that are.
Strategies:

Public policy must be pursued in all countries to protect the environment, consumers,
workers.

Raise world standards in wages and working conditions. (25 years)

Specific policies and programs are needed to correct the problems of GATT and NAFTA.
Structural adjustment for the employees, not the owners. Retrain, retrain, retrain.

Connect anti-poverty approaches to the globalization “problem.” Use globalization as a
horse to carry some weight.

Public service employment. We have done this many times.

Earned income tax credit. Paying people for the social value of their work even when the
economic value of that work is low.

Do MORE in the neighborhood and local economy, not just the regional/global economy.
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
Entrepreneurship, microbusiness. The de-structuring of the economy in some sectors
provides multiple points of entry. 2/3 of business start-ups are now done by females.

The typical employee in the 300 or so microbusiness programs is a 28 year-old female.
The gender/age shift in this network has already taken place.

Sustainable agriculture. Will usually be small-scale, but it's real.

Locally based community development, economic development projects.

Personal services for higher-income people that are fulfill their family and household
needs, such as child care, senior care, lawn care, etc.

Environmental clean-up. We missed the asbestos removal boom. Lead?

Recycling, re-using, re-selling. All big and going to get bigger.

Workfare, or other ways to get money from society in return for some activity such as
going to school, job training or public service employment (but don't call it public
service employment.)
There is no generally accepted theory about why people are poor that guides us to link
and balance the different strategies that are now in use. We need a new “unified field theory”
about economic opportunity, social class, social mobility and political economy.
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3. Economic conditions for low-income Americans will get worse.
A. In 1960, about 65% of those working were needed to produce the food, clothing, cars and the
rest of the stuff of daily life. Now that number is under 25%. Productivity and automation have
reduced the number needed. Overall economic growth has slowed, except for the tech sector.
B. Let’s look at good jobs at UPS and elsewhere.
IBM
GE
1985
261,000
285,000
1995
150,000
150,000
C. The idea that THE way out of poverty is to work for somebody else at a high-paying job with
good benefits was the dominant assumption in the 1960's, and it was largely true then. Only a
few hundred thousand worked full time and were still in poverty.) Our anti-poverty strategies
matched the nature of the economy of the 1960's -- GED, anti-discrimination, unionization, get
dad a job on the line. If a person got a job, most got out of poverty.
The traditional model has always been to bring "good quality" jobs into a community. This
presumes that everybody is a "worker bee" - give them a job from 9 to 5 and they get paid, and
an employer does something about their benefits, etc. All the worker has to do is show up on
time. This strikes me as a relatively low level of individual responsibility. But, this has always
been the way state economic development people have looked at the world.
D. There are more “bad jobs” now than there was in the past. Now, we have 10 -- 13 million
Americans who work full time and are below the poverty line. It is estimated that more than
100,000 people who are homeless work full time.
E. The homeless who are unemployed and about ten million other American adults who are
unemployed or underemployed are irrelevant to the operation of today's economy. If they
weren’t, they would be working. An even larger number of people will be irrelevant to the
operation of tomorrow's economy. How long can we extend adolescence? 40? They are not
needed to produce the goods, services and information desired by America.
F. Our perception of the structure of work is still rooted in the historical ideas of farming and
manufacturing and are not clearly related to the new service and computer based economy. We
have several million people who can do work who have a good back or good hands, but who will
never make it a work environment that requires middle-class values and information processing
skills. (See “What Employers Want”)
Background.
During the farming era, production and consumption were joined within each farm
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household; the surplus was sold or bartered. Everybody in the family worked to survive.
The industrial revolution separated production from consumption. Dad worked one place
and received money to buy what the family needed in other places. The family depended on dad.
In the new economy, (1) production of goods and services and the (2) consumption of
goods and services and (3) the creation and dissemination of information about the items and
services have now been separated, and most job growth is in the arena of information about
goods and services, not the actual production of goods and services. Anybody can provide this
information from almost anywhere. (The historic economic basis of the family has evaporated.)
America has shifted in terms what is needed to work -- from a strong back (farming), to
good hands (industry) to good minds and socially acceptable personalities (information).
Strategies.

Increase minimum wage. Pass living wage ordinances.

The elements of a New Economic Order (NEO) are floating around:
o build assets & equity (IDA’s, EITC),
o increase access to education, home ownership, and business ownership (goal wealth accumulation).
o economic education, credit counseling (education is power),
o self-employment programs (TA and creation of "debt" maybe even "assets"),
o social enterprises that have a social and an economic bottom line
o local currency projects (store and transfer the value of work from one person to
another).

A new economic development model is needed – one that probably has a higher level of
individual responsibility, motivation, and initiative than assumed by traditional economic
development practitioners.

We need to re-think the nature of low-wage work in America and what public benefits
are available to people who work. My theory is that in 10 years the benefits of more
publicly funded programs will be focused on people who ‘work,” so we need to expand
our definitions of work.

Separate the social value of work from the economic value of work -- increase
compensation for the social value of work (EITC, subsidies to people who work for child
care, medical). Expand our understanding of what “work” is and compensate people for
these additional types.
4. Welfare reform will never succeed in making most recipients self-sufficient. It is based on
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incorrect assumptions about welfare recipients. Most people go onto welfare because of changes
in family composition, not because their personal income does down.. Most people go off of
welfare because of changes in family composition, not because their personal income goes up.
Welfare reform is based on the false assumption about the economy that there are enough
jobs -- if people would just take them. The idea that all welfare recipients can get jobs -- any kind
of jobs -- is ludicrous. Under the best case scenario of maximum growth, minimum inflation and
immigration, California in two years will be “short” about ½ million jobs needed for all who
want to work or must work.
With the social value that "everybody works" firmly in place and with no jobs out there,
something has to give. In the short run, grandparents take on the kids, people move back in with
abusive partners, and they just “disappear.” Remember that before 1966 there were 3 million
adults and children receiving welfare. After the CAA’s did outreach, by 1969 there were 10
million people receiving welfare. Did these people suddenly become eligible? No! They were
there all along, the invisible poor.
My theory is that eventually society will require people to do socially useful work if they
want to receive any kind of public benefits, i.e. a person will have to ‘earn” their benefits, but we
have no "Plan B" in place in terms of public service, community service, social enterprises
operated by the CAA's or other new types of institutions
Strategies:

Use the work of Mary Jo Bane, David Ellwood and Peter Edelman, to show how income
support really works. In fact, AFDC worked almost exactly as it was supposed to, as a
short-term income support for women in transition. Most AFDC recipients went onto
welfare once, stayed about 24 months, and went off -- never to return.

Redefine work to include a wider range of socially desirable activities.

Provide permanent places for large numbers of people to do socially useful work in
community service, social enterprises operated by the CAA's or other new types of
institutions.

Change social values so that more people are no longer expected to work (e.g., exempt
mothers, students, veterans, etc.) This is preferable to dramatically expanding our
definitions of disabled.

Redefine work to include the social value of work, and find more ways to compensate
people for the social value of having them working.
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5. Expand our definition of work
Traditionally, people work to do something they love, to promote their self interest, to
provide for and establish a social role (power/status/respect) in their family, to obtain status and
respect and to participate in the community, and as a stakeholder in society. Operationally,
people work:
A. to produce necessities of life
in our grandparent’s generation = 85%
now = 22%
B. has some other value in exchange economy
C. has social value
Global, regional, local economies
personal growth/development
continuous learning
Knowledge skills, attitudes
teamwork, social skills
problem solving tools
environmental balance, sustainability
positive energy vs. negative energy
health of the spirit
economic value is rewarded through:
pay, sales receipts, income
social value is rewarded through:
Tax code
E.I.T.C (protect this -- very important!)
Direct subsidy Training
Education “loans”
IDA
Health benefits
Personal Development Account
Child care
Home buyer assistance
Indirect subsidy
Incubator, other “write down” of business cost
Alternative Storage, Recognition of value in our community
Local currency, time dollars, LETS
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6. The Federal Government is Evaporating Before Our Very Eyes.
There is one dominant theory of management of publicly funded programs at the Federal
level and that is that "the governors can do it better." Bill Clinton is the # 1 supporter of this
model, and is “devolving” responsibility to states.
USDA is downsizing and delegating more to the state level.
Welfare Reform is a radical devolution to states; it de-Federalizes public assistance.
Employment and training is in another new block grant that includes vouchers.
HUD has consolidated programs into 3 block grants.
The ripple effects of this Megatrend will wash over social services, too. There will almost
surely be a wave of program restructuring in human services that looks like welfare “reform” and
the changes in employment and training. Do we have any ideas about what this should look
like?
Strategies:

When the wind stops blowing, row. Fill the vacuum at lower levels -- strengthen ability
to influence state and local government. Push contracting out -- to CBO’s.

Use institutions other than government (faith based?)

Invent new institutions to replace government -- market based approaches and social
enterprises.


Draw a line and defend what the Federal government should be doing. (Easier said than
done.)
Get ready for the battle on Head Start.

Keep NCAF going strong -- Federal policy in human services is being reshaped NOW.
7. As power drains from the federal level, the Federally mandated or program models are
crumbling, too.
The structures are crumbling because belief that the programs work is eroded. The
public lost a lot of faith in the ability of government to get things done. So we have reinvention,
devolution, more block grants and the old program models are losing their “uummph.” Just like
the 1970's attention is turning from “categorical” programs to individual benefits.
U.S. government is going out of housing production business. Only housing role is
through tax credits, rent subsidy vouchers and insurance programs (Fannie Mae, etc.).
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Social Security and Medicare were created under entirely different demographic and
economic assumptions, and before modern medicine -- and most antibiotics -- even existed.
8. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs has been misused. The idea that a person “must’ proceed
from basic needs up the scale to self-actualization is incorrect. People can enter and leave at any
level. They can ignore levels. They can work on one level without having met the needs of a
lower level. We can see examples of this in other cultures and in our own culture.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (c/o
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs.png)
The utility of this model is that it shows how ONE PERSON might flow from a condition
of deprivation to a more comfortable and self-fulfilling life. This “whole person” achieves a
state of happiness, of intellectual fulfillment, of social recognition, and of sufficient material
goods to be satisfactory to them. The incorrect premise is that you must have a full stomach,
basic education and so on to be able to move to a higher level. Now this may or may not be true
for any one person, but we have confused this “human development” pathway with the antipoverty strategy in a way that has become self-limiting as far as helping people to earn money.
We have led ourselves into a blind alley. We can not escape from this blind alley until we
eliminate the confusion -- until we separate human development from anti-poverty activity.
The attempt to use Maslow’s Hierarchy as a framework for anti-poverty activity creates
several traps for us.
1. The first trap it creates is that one must address and try to create and try to help our
‘clients” get all of the layers in the pyramid. This is rarely possible, even if you take years to do
it. Maslow thought this was a lifetime pathway, not a social service intervention.
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Anti-poverty activity should be focused on helping people increase their earning-power
on the dimension of their relationship to the economy. The reality is that generations of lowintelligence, poorly-educated, substance abusing, personally obnoxious and abusive humans have
done quite well in America financially. Some of these “types” of people even today are captains
of industry or elected officials. Millions of people have escaped poverty in America but if
measured against Maslow’s hierarchy, they are flops.
The reality is that a person can have something to sell in the market economy that will
earn them money with or without addressing the other issues. Of the 31 million alcoholics, about
20 million of them get up and go to work every day. Of the 40 million people who are
“diagnosable” with a mental illness under the DSM IV-R, about 25 million of them get up and go
to work every day. Of the 11 million substance abusers, over half of them get up and go to work,
every day.
Well, O.K., almost every day. So there may be some cases where the condition is so
severe that the person never get up and goes to work, but for most people who have these
dysfunctions these are manageable dysfunctions as far as their relationship to the economy is
concerned. Now they may be sad people, wreaking havoc on themselves, their family or
neighborhoods, but that is a separate issue. If we as a society, or your agency as a part of its
mission or if you as an individual choose to address these dysfunctions and to try to enhance the
quality of life for that person or that family -- that is well and good Just don’t call it antipoverty activity. Call it human development.
2. The second trap is the unstated assumption that everybody must follow the
progression upward step-by-step, that first we put food in their stomach, then a house, then this
and that and finally at some point after we have given them enough stuff on the lower levels then
they take off and keep climbing on their own.
3. The third trap is that we may be creating confusion. I think some of the best
motivators are hunger, fear of not paying the rent, or wanting that tv or car, or some other objectde-consumer society. The conservatives claim every time we “give” the person some money or
some “stuff,” are we reducing their motivation or confusing them about how the world works. I
think the conservatives are more right that wrong on this point. In other words, there almost no
causal connection between giving a person stuff and moving them to the next level of the
hierarchy -- and, it may be counterproductive to even try to do so.
4. The fourth trap is that social programs use Maslow’s notion in connection with
specific ideological and social value assumptions that are characteristic primarily of middle-class
America. That leads us into program activity that is designed to re-make the person, to make the
lower-class traits disappear and to help inculcate or to help them acquire middle-class traits.
While this may be desirable in a social sense, even if we succeed in making larger percentage of
the lower social class into middle class, there are still not enough “good” jobs for the middle
class, either. And, the percentage of “good” jobs as a percentage of all jobs continues to shrink
and corporations downsize, layoffs occur, people can only find temporary or part-time jobs.
There is no “there” there in the global, national or regional economy even if this human
11
development effort is successful in creating a larger number of middle-class people.
In other words, if we are going to call it anti-poverty activity then we should look at what
it takes for people to get money -- and help them get more.
Replace Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs with Jim Master’s Circle of Strengths
12
9. Too many programs use rhetoric about self-sufficiency but produce no measurable change
in the income of the people who participate.
We need to sort out our strategies in terms of the actual changes the produce in people’s
incomes. There is a weak connection at best between what most social programs do for people
or the results they produce for people and a person's ability to earn money.
13
The Panel Study on Income Dynamics at the University of Michigan Institute for Social
Research offers compelling evidence that the only things that explain income differentials are (1)
educational attainment (30%) , (2) race and gender discrimination (30%) , and (3) having the
right family of origin (15%) (the social class issue, which we have never confronted in any
systematic way.) After studying thousands of families and controlling for hundreds of variables
over a couple of decades, the PSID says that these three items account for about 75% of the
differences in income between individuals who are matched on all other variables. No other item
explains more than 1%. That is, NOTHING ELSE EXPLAINS MORE THAN ONE PERCENT
of the differences in income. Much of our conventional wisdom in human services about the
need to reduce narcotics usage, build self-esteem, stabilize mental health, etc., to increase
earnings capacity -- is largely incorrect. We build entire program structures based on the “worst”
20% of the affected population, but for 80% of that population there is no negative connection
between the person's condition and what these programs do and income earning capacity. There
may be other quality of life issues and family functioning issues, but I am focusing on income.
Our rhetoric is about self sufficiency is used in all programs, but most programs funded
by CAA’s are anti-destitution programs or human development programs, not anti-poverty
programs. There may be good reasons for doing anti-destitution work, but our rhetoric that this
reduces poverty is less and less compelling. I used to believe it, but I don’t believe it any more.
This is a discontinuity between what we are saying and reality. Peter Drucker warns us that this
type of discontinuity creates the opening where a competing approach can make inroads.
Strategies:

Stop claiming that social programs change income levels.

Focus on what they can do in terms of human development or quality of life.

Stop claiming that most programs/strategies result in self-sufficiency.

Why can’t we admit it -- almost nobody is self-sufficient! The issue is what types of help
and subsidy are appropriate, not “getting everybody off of everything.”
10. Sort programs according to their real results.
A. Anti-destitution
Food
$, Stuff
Shelter
B. Human development
Head Start
Family development
C. Anti-poverty
Education
Self-employment
Home ownership
A. ANTI-DESTITUTION or PUBLIC CHARITY
food distribution (bags of food)
14
food stamps
clothes
TANF
SSI
WX
LIHEAP
Benefit: Creates a floor under living conditions.
Problems:
Unbounded
No social standards about how much is enough,
or how long is enough
10-25% group who keep coming back, and back, and back
CAA’s as public charities are small time operators –
The big money is with the major voluntary charities
E.g. Catholic Charities, St. Vincent de Paul,
Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc.
We are confusing the public about the difference between
personal charity to others with the role of govt
The focus is on consumption not on production.
Nobody ever consumed their way out of poverty
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------B. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Head Start
child care
family development, family “self sufficiency” case management
The return of social work to the “front end” of human development
Mental Health
Substance Abuse
child protective services
foster care/adoption
family planning
health
WIC
Benefits:
Quality of life, community social standards
Socialization of marginal people into dominant society
Enculturation of people from other cultures
Increase skill, capacity
Empowerment, self-actualization
C. ANTI-POVERTY. Earn money, build assets. Builds on strengths, on what a person can do.
1. J-O-B
RAISE WAGES. Increase the minimum wage.
15
* increase education to make the person more competitive
* reduce discrimination to open doors
2. Increase net worth thru programs to a level that makes a difference
savings =
IDA
Property =
car
Computer, office equipment
First time home owner
Tenants buy public housing
set aside business assets from eligibility for assistance
local currency
3. Earn $ (self, family, friends)
Self employed
Sole proprietor
Agent
Rep
CAA can make a market place, can be a coach, mentor, advisor. Can do training, make loans.
Farmers market
Flea market
Theme mkt (Mercado)
Carts/kiosks (deregulation is usually needed)
Catalog of local products
Co-op development
Festival
CAA can start an enterprise that provides ongoing employment:
Housing repair, painting, lead
Senior services in home, child care
Kitchen Incubator
Janitorial
Landscaping
Resale
Recycle
Temp Agency
16
11. Some people will always need services.
Most of our service programs are built on the assumption that people should eventually
stop receiving those services and they will be able to stand on their own two feet and take care of
themselves. Well, what does the evidence suggest here? It isn't true, folks. Some people need
permanent assistance; the degrees and type of assistance may fluctuate, but for many people the
need for assistance does not go away.
I believe that everybody should be asked to do something for themselves, for their family,
for their community and for their nation – every day. Or, maybe every other day. The
communitarian idea that there should be a balance of the rights of the individual and the rights of
the society should be explored more fully.
Strategies:
We need a continuum of program activity that offers long-term or even permanent
residential and work opportunities, from "light touch" apartments to group residents residences
down through greater degrees of structure. America now has about five levels; prison, inpatient,
probation, a social service program and on-your-own. We need about twenty-five levels with a
much wider variety of options that exist in terms of the amount of structure and support
provided. These exist in various form such as intentional communities, therapeutic communities,
sheltered workshops, religious communities. And more options are needed!
We could let people search out their own level in terms of the type or degree of structure
that suits them best, i.e., open-entry and open-exit, or even take a vacation from their preferred
social structure, but we should discuss how as a society we can create that continuum of social
structures and how to get people into it -- someplace -- on a permanent basis.
A continuum of services works for some who will eventually not need services. A
continuum of ongoing social structures is a solution for the millions of people who will always
need an organized way of life. People need home, family, friends and community. If there are
none others then new ones should be created.
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12 Program Strategy and Level of Intervention are Matters of Board and Staff Choices.
Individuals have predispositions towards different types of strategies. These are a
function of personality, of a person's willingness to wait for results, of their perception of the
cause of a problem and the viability of different approaches to a problem, need to look into the
eyeballs of the person being helped, and other factors.
Use this exercise to surface the differences of opinion. There are no right or wrong
answers, but in the area of "knowing thyself" the Board members and senior staff should
understand each others preferences.
Ask each person to circle their preferences. Then ask people to raise their hands and fill
in the following grid on a sheet of flip-chart paper.
Option Selected
Question
A
B
C
1
2
3
4
Then discuss the implications for your planning and policy making process.
Reproduce this exercise and use it again.
18
STRATEGY OPTION QUESTIONS
1. Your agency has just received a modest sum of money (e.g. under $350,000) to address
problems relating to starvation and malnutrition. Which of the following approaches
would you prefer that the agency adopt?
a. Conduct a food donation drive and distribute the food to low-income people.
b. Help community residents organize and operate a farmer's market where low-income
people (and others) can buy and sell produce.
c. Assist a local group in pushing for changes in and expansion of federal and state food
programs.
2. Approximately 70% of the children in a primary school in your agency's service area are
from low-income families. Based on available information, only about half of these
children will graduate from high school. Your agency has decided to use a modest sum
of money to address this problem. Which of the following approaches do you think the
agency should use?
a. Provide tutoring and do drop-out counseling with individual students.
b. Get more parent and community involvement in school activities.
c. Help low-income parents and students push for significant changes in the school
system's operation.
3. Which of the following approaches do you think your agency should pursue in helping
low-income people pay heating bills? A modest sum of program money is available.
a. Divide the money and give it to families to pay heating bills.
b. Use the money to purchase Weatherization materials and mobilize volunteers to
install these materials in homes.
c. Assist organizations across the state in seeking utility rate reforms of benefit to lowincome people.
4. Your agency has decided to use a modest sum of program money to try to keep lowincome elderly persons out of institutions and in their own homes. How should this be
done?
a. Hire home-maker aides for low-income elderly persons.
b. Use the money to push the state to increase its home- maker program.
c. Join with other organizations to have a property tax exemption for low-income
elderly persons enacted.
STRATEGIES TO ASSIST LOW-INCOME PEOPLE
19
Type of Strategy
Basic Assumption
Target for Efforts
Types of Efforts
Effect on Structural
Barriers
Unit Cost
Relationship of
Activities to People
Strategy Involves
A
Service
Help low-income
people by
changing/improving
them
Low-income
individuals or families
B
Non-Service
Provide low-income
people goods,
services, cash, Skill
building
Help low-income
people by modifying
structural barriers to
self-sufficiency
Barriers to selfsufficiency
Strengthen
community antipoverty planning and
program coordination,
better organize
existing anti-poverty
efforts, increase the
involvement of lowincome people in antipoverty efforts
None
High
Reduces
Medium
People to People
One-to-one
relationship
Groups
C
Help low-income
people by removing
structural barriers to
self-sufficiency,
Expanding
opportunity
Causes of barriers to
self-sufficiency
Create and implement
innovative strategies
to remove barriers,
involve low-income
people in new ways in
community activities,
mobilize anti-poverty
resources
Removes
Low
Done for or with
Done to or for people people
Done with or by people
Groups
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13. The case management and family development programs in many CAA's are too
generic.
There are 10-20 other agencies in most cities that use this same approach, including the
settlement houses, the Family Services Agencies, the Family Preservation Programs, and others.
Antidote: Define a way that we are different. And, we must link this to Head Start.
14. CAA's no longer have any systematic nationwide or even statewide program
development machinery through the Community Services Block grant -- except for the
Community Food and Nutrition Program (CFNP)
The Demonstration Partnership Program (DPP) was our last big time effort.
Perhaps JOLI or discretionary are the mechanism, but there is almost no transfer from
what is going on in those programs to CAA's.
Strategies.

Bring back the DPP.

Fund JOLI and Economic Development INSIDE the CSBG Network. Have an
annual innovation track and reports on evaluations at the NACAA Conference.

Do at least one real evaluation on a program every other year at every CAA. Find out
what makes a difference!

We need a hundred separate program-development efforts, each focused on
something that may be useful in the future. If there is overlap and competition among
them, so much the better.
Here are five ways to “Just do it.”
A. ANOINT SOMEBODY TO DO IT -- OR ASK FOR VOLUNTEERS
We might create a situation where different teams take a leadership role in different
program areas, e.g. NASCSP on economic development and a new energy program, NACAA on
housing and health, and NCAF on youth and homeless. Or whatever.
Or, the Illinois CSBG Office might focus on self-employment and California Community
Services and Development on immigration issues.
21
Or, Cal-Neva on food and substance abuse, Region VIII on information management, and the
Florida Association for Community Action on day care, or something else. Or whatever.
We need many separate centers of innovation and program development, all producing
strategies, program models that are focused on the general outcomes desired by the CSBG
network. There should be more than one shop for each topic area. Competition is good.
B. FORM A CONSORTIUM.
In the private sector it is common for companies to band together and to do subscription
research. Five or ten or twenty different companies will pledge $5,000 or $10,000 each and
receive the results of a market research effort or some other technological development. This is
a major piece of the bread-and-butter operations of firms like Abt Associates, SRI International,
McKinsey and others.
CAA’s can develop methods for working with each other on areas of mutual interest
through consortia, state and regional associations. The national associations can help to manage
the R&D function. The association may not be the inventor, but it can take that which is
invented, write it down, help design an evaluation for it, disseminate information about it, and set
up a mechanism to replicate it. Create an R&D capacity in order to invent the future! At one
point it looked like GA, IL, NY, ID and a couple of other states were going to do a consortium
on something (I can’t remember what it was-- it may have been communication software or
bulletin boards) but it did not happen.
C. SUPPORT ENTREPRENEURS.
Sometimes a single CAA takes its creation and turns it into a statewide, regional or
national product. How many CAA’s have tried this? Gary Stokes and the team at MICA is one
example. John Kaufman and his Tracker software package is another. Leonard Dawson and his
management system are another. The college-prep program from TAP in Roanoke, VA is
another. There are now family-development programs that are being adopted on a state-wide
basis in PA, CA, IA and ND. There are probably more. There should be a lot more.
D. FORM A LINK WITH A UNIVERSITY.
A link with a university may be important. If the program idea needs validation of the
benefits, a university-based evaluation is essential. These can cost from $10,000 to $25,000.
With an evaluation, your idea is “a proven program.” Without it, your idea is -- just another
idea.
22
E. HOOK UP WITH A THINK TANK OR FOUNDATION.
If the idea it needs the identification with a particular strain of ideology to go anywhere,
then go and get the idea blessed by a local think tank, community foundation, Heritage,
Brookings Institute, or a similar institution.
Any and all of the possible R&D approaches could be used. It does not make much
difference as to which of them is used. The big issue is whether or not ANY of them are used.
P.S. A terrific book on this subject was written by Peter Drucker, Innovation and
Entrepreneurship.
15. Our community participation was real in the 1960's, but it is largely rhetoric now.
This includes low-income participation on various Boards and in influencing the way that
programs actually operate. We need to take a hard look at this. The social movements have
evolved. There are hundreds of options where people can volunteer their time now, and more
people are working which reduces their available time.
Strategies:

Dialogue 2000 rebuilds a role for CAA's in community involvement. Make sure your
CAA is participating.

Community building, community problem-solving, conflict resolution takes on a new
light, given the ideas described next.
Jan and Cornelia Flora have written extensively about the social capital, entrepreneurial
social infrastructure, in which they show the connection between economic activity and social
activity.
They expanded on work done by Robert Putnam in Italy. Putnam investigated the reasons
that Northern Italy had a vibrant economy while the South's economy floundered. He
determined that the prevalence of social organizations and community level associations
contributed to a vital economy because people had a larger number of opportunities to interact.
The informal connection between people enhanced the opportunity for an economic connection
between people, because it built personal experience and knowledge of the other people. The
non-business interaction also gave them a venue where they could explore and refine business
ideas in a non-threatening setting. The trust developed in these non-business associations also
carried over to reduce the transaction cost of doing business with each other.
The numbers of voluntary associations is also influenced by the way in which people treat
dissent in the community. The more rigid the power structure where power is held by a small
23
group of people and dissent is quashed turns out to affect the willingness of people to take other
kinds of risks, specifically business risks in starting new ventures. So squashing dissent stunts
the growth of the social infrastructure that also encourages entrepreneurial activity.
The Floras establish a theoretical bridge between sociology and the economy, between social
structure and economic activity.. They believe in order to have a entrepreneurial social
infrastructure, a community must have a high degree of interaction and tolerance among people
at all levels - informal and formal. This leads to
- acceptability of differing opinions
- informal opportunity for people to test ideas with others
- more willingness to take risks - community doesn't ostracize failure
- personal trust among citizens which speeds interactions in the economic sector
of life (decreases transaction costs - don't have to ask 7 times!)
Taking this argument one step further, the Floras show that community organizing pays
off. However John McKnight argues that too much involvement by agency staff who assume
roles that should be lift to community members can choke off the informal association among
people and actually cut off the natural inclinations of citizens to come together.
The work of Kretzmann and McKnight on asset-based development is relevant here, also.
16. America seems to be heading into a period of intense culture warfare.
The religious right and “main street” appear to have allied themselves against lowincome people, working people, government employees and knowledge workers -- and
immigrants. (Pat Buchanan). This is a re-formulation of the Republican Party’s classic anticommunism, anti-government, anti-taxes, anti-abortion, anti-labor ideology into being “anti”
certain groups of people simply because of who they are. This does not seem like a healthy
development. Professor George Lakof in his new book “Moral Politics: What Conservatives
Know that Liberals Don’t” addresses these issues.
Another perspective is that this is a social conflict between the people who manage the
production and sales of goods and services -- versus the people who are the producers of good
and services and the people who deal in ideas.
Strategies:

Diversity training, multi-cultural appreciation all work against this unhappy trend.

Get: “The California Crucible: Toward a New Paradigm of Race and Ethnic
Relations” by Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, School of Social Welfare, U.C. Berkeley.
Book available for $5.00 from Study Center Press, PO Box 425646, San
Francisco, CA 94142. 888.281.3757
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
Subscribe to “Poverty and Race,” for $25 from the Poverty and Race Research
and Action Council, 1711 Connecticut Ave NW #207. Washington D.C.
202/387-9887. FAX 202/387-0764.

“Civil Rights Journal,” free, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 624 Ninth St,
Room 600, Washington, D.C., 20425.

“The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why American Is Wracked by Culture Wars”
by Todd Gitlin. Henry Holt & Co. 1995.
17. Most CAA's are still command-and-control hierarchies, using an industrial/military
model when most other organizations are moving to teams and matrix management and much
flatter, more collegial types of operation. Most CAA's -- both governmental and nonprofits – are
10 years behind the times here. We are stuck in bureaucracy.
18. Why haven't CAA's done more in economic development? By now every one of them
should be heavy into this, but they aren't. What is missing? Why can't we find ways to help
people earn money other than by getting a j-o-b in the formal economy.
Strategies.

Get at least one economic development strategy working.

Buy local. Invest in locally owned businesses, coops, credit unions, community land
trusts.

Focus on import-replacing rather than export-led development. (Rocky Mountain
Institute, Snowmass, CO, and the Aspen Institute, Washington, D.C. have good models.)

Strengthen self-employment. “Self Employment for Low Income People” by Steve
Balkan, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1989.

Promote earning money in the informal economy.
19. There are several new and very compelling ideas out there.
Strategies:
These are some of the horses for the future, and we need to be riding them.

Going Local, Michael H. Shuman
25

Small is Beautiful, E. F. Schumacher Society, Great Barrington, MA

Community building, National Community Building Network, Oakland, CA

Civic action, NACAA’s project on Dialogue 2000

Individual development accounts. Corporation for Enterprise Development
(D.C.)

Asset based development. Kretzmann & McKnight (Northwestern University)

Social networks and civic activity, Robert Putnam, Harvard University

Center for Civic Networking, Philadelphia, PA

Social structure and economic activity, Jan and Cornelia Flora, University of Iowa

Rural EZ/EC, USDA

Local currency as a community building tool. E. F. Schumacher Society, Time
Dollar Institute, D.C.

Recycle military property into housing. Build communities.

Give CDC power of eminent domain. Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative,
Boston.
20. Work With All the Drivers of Public Policy
Public policy is shaped by several drivers, including:

Demographics

Economy

Science and Technology (What ARE we going to do about the recent research that
shows the DAMAGE done to children who watch TV during early brain
development?

Social Values (TV, religion, morality, attitudes about race and gender)
26

Educational attainment levels

Social structure, social class

Private charities

Elected officials and interest groups (associations)
We pay too much attention to elected officials and interest groups and not enough to the
others.
A chart showing how quickly demographics can change is on the next page.
27
21. Look at the Big Picture: All public policies have
Positive benefits. The good stuff.
Limits. Peter Drucker says these are about 60% to 80% of theoretical maximum.
Opportunity costs. If you are doing X, you can’t do Y.
Negative effects. Ouch!
Unintended consequences. The nasty bugs that come out and bite you, usually years later.
We over estimate the positive benefits and spend too much time pretending the other stuff
does not exist.
Antidote: Use a balanced picture (and the Balanced Scorecard, too!)
22. The ROMA effort in CSBG is very good, but I'm worried that this new program structure
will take several years to "bite." The ROMA program taxonomy is useful in that it separates
services for individuals from activities designed to produce changes in the community. A
program taxonomy can help lead to strategy, but it is not a strategy in and of itself.
The six goal structure must be maintained
1. Low-income people become more self-sufficient.
2. The conditions in which low-income people live are improved (community
revitalization)
3. Low-income people own a stake in their community
4. Partnerships among supporters and providers of services to low-income people are
achieved.
5. Agencies increase their capacity to achieve results.
6. Low-income people, especially vulnerable populations, achieve their potential by
strengthening family and other supportive systems.
The new ideas about how to describe what we do in Goals 2 and 3 are very useful. These
were developed under the leadership of Ted Edlich at TAP, the CAA in Roanoke, VA. So far
they are the best single tool on this subject.
28
23. The CAA is still real.
The purpose is needed.
The tri-partite structure is workable.
The values of the people involved are still valid.
The motive to create opportunities and help people access them is laudable.
The commitment is still there.
CAA’s have a strong culture, but our strategies have lost some of their effectiveness as
the economy and social values have changed around us.
What we need are new strategies keyed to the new economic and social realities to build
the CAA of the Future.
Here are some ideas about grouping functions. In this example, there would be six
divisions, each covering a group of related strategies.
29
24. Boards spend too much time on busy work.
Strategies:

Put limits on the amount and types of Busy Work that the board does. Create a consent
calendar.

Move the board away from being a funding agency’s local volunteer field monitors of
programs and staff -- into an action role.

Spend more time working “on the system and less time working “in the system.”

Do away with committee chairs. This role runs a piece of corporate machinery, the
committee. The top person on each board sub-group could be a ‘strategy manager.”

Focus a specified percentage of the board’s time on goals it can help accomplish that
require it to do work outside the organization’s offices.
25. Your ideas?
30