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An electronic publication of the Community Action Partnership's Risk Mitigation Center
Dear Community Action Colleagues-
IM 138 finalizes the 58 Organizational Standards for Private/Nonprofit CAAs and the 50 for Public CAAs and outlines the process for implementation, assessment, and T/TA efforts. We look forward to working with the Network on tools and resources to help CAAs assess their performance and meet 100% of the Organizational Standards. Join us this Friday, January 30th at 12:00 ET/11:00 CT/10:00 MT/9:00 PT for an update webinar and walk through of the IM. Also, our 2015 events and conferences will each have a focus on the Standards.
We know many of you have tools and resources that you have found helpful as you have worked over the past year to assess yourselves against the proposed standards and we have a request. If you have a tool that you have found helpful in your CAA, please send it along to us here at the Partnership. We hope to have a repository of useful and practical tools and resources that all CAAs can access. Please send them to Cashin Yiu at cyiu@communityactionpartnership.com . We will also be working with State Associations to gather these materials.
Information from our Winter Management and Leadership Training Conference in California has been posted to our website. Click here to access copies of presentations along with video clips shared at the event. Save the Date now for August 25-28, 205 in San Francisco, CA for our Annual Convention. Keep an eye out here for information as it gets posted. The call for presentations will be out very soon!
Thank you for all you do each day for families and communities! Please let us know how our T/TA Team can be helpful as you take on 2015.
Sincerely,
Denise Harlow, CCAP
CEO
Community Action Partnership
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READ IM 138 AND REGISTER FOR NATIONAL WEBINAR
IM 138, released January 26, 2015, can be read here. We encourage you to read it in its entirety.
Register for an update from the Organizational Standards Center of Excellence via webinar tomorrow, January 30, 2015 at 12 ET/11 CT/10 MT/9 PT. This webinar is free, but pre-registration is required. You are encouraged to have multiple listeners with a single log in.
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OCS ISSUES DRAFT IM ON STATE AND FEDERAL ACCOUNTABILITY MEASURES
In a Dear Colleague letter on 1/28/2015, OCS issued a DRAFT Information Memorandum (IM) regarding the State and Federal Accountability Measures. This IM is issued in draft form to allow for a 60 day comment period from the CSBG Network.
The State and Federal Accountability Measures are one part of a three pronged process for improving the accountability and performance management system for CSBG along with Organizational Standards and ROMA Next Generation. The State and Federal Accountability Measures will give performance data on how efficiently and effectively the State and Federal levels perform their critical functions of administering CSBG.
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RESOURCE OF THE MONTH: MONITORING MAP FOR CAA'S - A GUIDE FOR NAVIGATING THE CSBG REVIEW PROCESS
Originally Published April 2012 in partnership with CAPLAW
Written in partnership with CAPLAW, this guide walks through the entire monitoring process as outlined in the CSBG Act and Information Memorandum 116. In addition to providing guidance to the monitoring process, this guide gives practical advice on how a CAA may respond to the State CSBG Office, common findings and potential approaches to address them, and sample letters to respond to monitoring findings.
Under Organizational Standards, the same process for monitoring, follow-up, and corrective action will be in place. As the CSBG Network prepares to incorporate Organizational Standards into contracting and monitoring processes, this guide should be re-visited.
Visit the Resource Bank of the CSBG TTA Resource Center or the National Training Center Curricula to find the pdf of the toolkit, the webinar recording, and the webinar slides of this guide.
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NEW AND IMPROVED COMMUNITY ACTION COMPREHENSIVE ONLINE NEEDS ASSESSMENT TOOL - 2 PART WEBINAR SERIES
Many CAAs have accessed our online tool to assist in the development of a comprehensive community needs assessment. Developed in cooperation with the Center for Applied Research and Environmental Systems (CARES) at the University of Missouri in cooperation with the Community Action Partnership's National Training Center, the Missouri Association for Community Action, and the New York State Community Action Association, this tool has been made available to Community Action Agencies over the past two years. We are now pleased to announce that we will be migrating this popular tool to the Community Commons platform which will allow for expanded data collection and mapping capacity. In addition, we are building a Community Action Hub through Community Commons that will allow the Network to share information and access data sets and maps that other CAAs have found helpful as well as share additional information.
Accessing Community Commons and Using the Comprehensive Community Action Needs Assessment Tool Enhancements
January 27th - View the recording here.
An In-Depth Look at the New and Improved Comprehensive Community Action Needs Assessment Tool and Using the Community Action Hub to Ramp up Your Community Planning Efforts
February 3rd at 2:00 ET/1:00 CT/12:00 MT/11:00 PT
Free but pre-registration is required by clicking here.
View the agenda for the webinar by clicking here.
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THE ROLE OF VOLUNTEERING IN PHILANTRHOPY
From Fidelity Charitable
Community Action volunteers are a vital asset to how our Network operates. A new study from Fidelity Charitable looks at volunteers and agency giving. While Community Action Agencies vary across the US on charitable giving activities, this study may provide insight that may be of interest.
The survey investigated the relationship between volunteerism and charitable financial support, the influence of age and life stage on volunteer activity, factors donors used to evaluate volunteer commitments, and intent to increase or decrease volunteer activity in the future.
This summary tells a story of donors who support their causes with both time and money, and who expect to continue this support in years to come.
Read more here.
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WEBINAR SERIES ON INDIRECT COSTS UNDER THE "SUPER CIRCULAR"
Join CAPLAW and Kay Sohl this winter
Join CAPLAW for this webinar series focused on an in-depth review of how Community Action Agencies handle indirect costs. This series is for financial directors and managers, executive directors and programs directors experienced in working with and applying the current federal grant requirements governing indirect costs. Through four one-hour webinars, we will explore the practical impact of the Super Circular ("Uniform Guidance") on the treatment of indirect costs. We will not only discuss what's new under the Uniform Guidance, but we will also help CAAs analyze whether the ways in which they comply with the unchanged requirements as well new aspects of Guidance are sound and effective. Using scenarios and examples, we will examine how administrative costs may be charged, the 10% de minimis rate, indirect cost rate options, the choice to extend current rates and much more!
February 18 - Will the 10% De Minimis Indirect Cost Rate Work for Our CAA?
February 25 - What is the Best Option for Calculating Our CAA's Indirect Cost Rate/
March 4 - Does Our CAA Effectively Estimate and Reconcile Indirect Costs?
To learn more and register, please visit CAPLAW's website here.
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SCCAP VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS THEIR OUTCOMES FROM 2014
South Central Community Action Programs, Inc.
 | | SCCAP Thank You 2014 |
Agencies are often looking for new ways to tell their story and to highlight the impact they make everyday. Check out this video from SCCAP in Pennsylvania and see visual and relatively easy way to promote your work.
Great job, SCCAP!
For more from South Central Community Action Programs in Gettysburg, PA visit http://www.sccap.org/
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LEADING WITH INTENT: A NATIONAL INDEX OF NONPROFIT BOARD PRACTICES
From Board Source
Curious to see how your Board aligns with other board practices in the nonprofit sector? A new tool from BoardSource can provide your CAA with some insight into this question.
Leading with Intent: A National Index of Nonprofit Board Practices is based on surveys completed by more than 1000 nonprofit chief executives and board chairs.This comprehensive scan of nonprofit board practices, policies, and performance is a powerful window into current board leadership and trends.
While the report includes good news, the bottom line is that nonprofit chief executives and board chairs give their boards a B- grade in overall performance. Leading with Intent explores why and what can be done about it.
Be sure to see the summary from NPQ as well by clicking here.
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WHAT'S THE ASSET POVERTY RATE IN YOUR STATE?
Assets and Poverty Rate Scorecard Released from CFED
The 2015 Assets and Opportunity Scorecard issued by the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), provides state-by-state data on financial assets and income, businesses and jobs, housing and home ownership, health care, and education.
Click your state on the interactive map to get a state snapshot, use the liquid asset poverty calculator, or read the main findings report by visiting assetsandopportunity.org/scorecard/
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GREAT NEWS FOR HOME BUYERS AND HOMEOWNERS
Consumer Finance Protection Bureau
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has launched a set of tools and resources to help homebuyers and homeowners feel more confident and more informed about mortgages. CFPB calls it "Owning a Home."
Owning a Home can help you:
- Learn about your loan options: As you begin your home and mortgage search, this guide will tell you all you need to know to choose the right mortgage for your situation.
- Check interest rates: This tool gives you a realistic sense for the range of interest rates you should expect when shopping for a mortgage, so you can know whether you're getting a good deal.
- Understand your closing forms: Learn what to look for in your closing documents before signing.
- Get ready for closing: As you near the end of the process, a simple checklist will help prepare you for the big day.
Check out their tool newest tool, which allows consumers to enter information that lenders use to determine their interest rate and then provide them with a realistic range of what their mortgage interest rate could be. For more information please contact owning-a-home@cfpb.gov .
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10 WAYS TO KILL YOUR NONPROFIT
Nonprofit Quarterly
That title is one way to get our attention! A quick read from the Nonprofit Quarterly gives us good food for thought on agency practices.
From NPQ, "We spend our time watching nonprofits and reading what people have to say about how nonprofits operate-and as far as we can tell, there's no shortage of ways to run your organization into the ground. Below is just our top ten. We've (NPQ) assembled some of the best crash-and-burn thinking here to help you on your quest to take your nonprofit down."
1. Overwhelm it with liabilities....
Read about the other 9 ways by clicking here.
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2015 NONPROFIT STATE OF THE SECTOR SURVEY
From the Nonprofit Finance Fund
Putting data in service of change. This is one of the ways Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) supports thousands of nonprofits each year. And they couldn't do it without your participation. We hope CAAs from around the country will share their story and take NFF's 7th Annual State of the Nonprofit Sector survey. The Survey is designed to capture nonprofits' trends, challenges, and actions across a broad mix of programmatic, financial, and operational indicators.
Nonprofit Finance Fund's (NFF) nonprofit survey asks about your organization's programmatic, financial, and management challenges and opportunities in 2014 and 2015. The survey will only require 10-15 minutes of your time, and all responses remain anonymous. If different people within your organization wish to see the survey or contribute to the survey responses, please email us at survey@nff.org and we will email you a PDF copy of the survey. Thank you for taking the time to participate in this community data gathering effort!
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30 NEW RESOURCES ADDED TO THE RESOURCE BANK ON HOMELESSNESS
The Partnership recently added thirty new articles to the CSBG T/TA Resource Center's Resource Bank
topic of homelessness. We hope you will visit the Resource Bank to view these and other
available materials including Partnership webinar recordings and toolkits.
And don't forget to visit the Shared Calendar to suggest events or start a conversation on the Discussion Forum.
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UPCOMING TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES FROM WIPFLI
On-Site Trainings April 20-21, 2015  In-Depth Training on OMB's New Uniform GuidanceHilton Sacramento Arden West 2200 Harvard St Sacramento, CA 95815 Register here.
For more information on Wipfli trainings click here.
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SAVE THE DATE FOR NASCSP CONFERENCES
Have you had the chance to attend a NASCSP Conference in the past? If not, now is your chance. Get these dates on your calendar now!
NASCSP 2015 Mid-Winter Training Conference Marriott Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel
February 23-24 | CSBG and WAP Orientation Training
February 25-27 | Conference
More Information can be found here.
NASCSP 2015 Annual Training Conference
Hyatt Regency Sacramento
September 15-18
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SAVE THE DATE FOR NCAF LEGISLATIVE CONFERENCE
March 24-27, 2015
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SAVE THE DATE FOR 2015 CAPLAW NATIONAL TRAINING CONFERENCE
Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront Hotel, Portland OR
More information coming soon here.
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STATE AND REGIONAL CONFERENCES
Maryland Community Action Partnership February 9-10, 2015
North Carolina Community Action Association
May 5 - 8, 2015
Texas Association of Community Action Agencies
May 5-8, 2015
Region 8 and Region 10
May 11-14, 2015
Oklahoma Association of Community Action Agencies
May 13-15, 2015
Arkansas Community Action Agencies Association
May 27 - 29, 2015
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Learning Communities Corner
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Learning Community Sessions at MLTC
The Partnership's Management and Leadership Training Conference offered an opportunity for in-person cluster group meetings, workshops highlighting innovative practices, and peer-to-peer networking.
Workshop and general session materials can be found on the MLTC Event Page of the Partnership's website, so be sure to look for the slides from presentations related to the National Trends in Poverty cluster group, Two Generation Approaches, and Leading a Community Collaborative.
Cluster Group meetings during MLTC featured interesting presenters, including new Homeless Cluster subject matter expert, Dana Jackson, CFED, and ICF, International. Copies of slide presentations can be found on the Partnership's website under each Cluster Group.
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Upcoming Cluster Group Meetings
Decreasing Homelessness:
March 19, 2015 11AM ET
Place-Based:
March 18, 2015 2 PM ET
Financial Empowerment:
March 19, 2015 2 PM ET
Bundled Services:
March 10, 2015 2 PM ET
Click here for the full schedule of cluster meetings, including presentations from consultants.
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Grant Opportunities for Financial Empowerment and Homeless Employment Programs
The Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) is accepting Requests for Proposals applications from organization and partnering organizations that are interested in joining a Community Financial Empowerment Learning Partnership to improve and expand financial capability service delivery within their organization. Proposals must be submitted by February 18, 2015.
Heartland Alliance has launched the Connections Project, an initiative designed to address employment needs of homeless jobseekers. The Connections Project Request for Proposals aims to identify up to five Connections Project Sites that will plan, implement, and strengthen innovative systems collaboration ideas in order to meet the goal of increasing employment and economic opportunity for homeless jobseekers.
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Thank you for reading. We hope you found the content helpful.
Do you have questions for the Risk Mitigation Center? Contact our team:
@NatTrainingCTR
This publication was created by National Association of Community Action Agencies - Community Action Partnership in the performance of the U.S. Department of Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Community Services Grant Number 90ET0437 and
90ET0436.
Any opinion, findings, and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.
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