Several professionals from AJFCA member agencies met up in Houston, Texas this past week for the Points of Light National Conference on Volunteering & Service. Repair the World convened participants for a Jewish Community Delegation, which included a Summit on Sunday to kick-off the conference and a closer look into the sharing of best practices, followed by a dinner to further the networking that is so key in learning from one another. Highlights of the conference included a presentation from The Jewish Board's Director of Board and Volunteer Relations, Hannah Moore on shifting your organizational culture to better engage volunteers as part of the Key to Mission Advancement session, an appearance by George H. W. Bush (who founded Points of Light 25 years ago), as well as many sessions on topics such as "Making Your Nonprofit Attractive to Business Sponsorship", "Strengthening our Nonprofits by Reaching Across the Aisle to Our Fundraising Colleagues" and "Leveraging Volunteer Talent for Organizational Change." The conference closed with the announcement that Detroit will host the next NCVS June 27-29, 2016. For more information contact Jennie Gates Beckman.

Building public understanding of human services, and the will to support it, is arguably one of the most important advocacy tasks for the field in a time characterized by deep funding cuts. Understanding the urgent need for a new narrative about the contributions human services make to a thriving society, the National Human Services Assembly has engaged the FrameWorks Institute to develop an evidence-based strategy for reframing the work of the sector.

The final results of a series of framing studies are in, and you will be among the first to hear the recommendations. Julie Sweetland, FrameWorks VP for Strategy & Innovation, will walk through these key recommendations, model their potential applications, and open the virtual floor for discussion.

2016 AJFCA Annual Conference - Hotel Announcement

In the last decade, the landscape of human service delivery has changed dramatically and funders have pushed organizations to improve the way they evaluate their work. Non-profits are asking themselves questions like "What difference did our programs make in the lives of our clients?" and "How much better off are clients after participating in our programs?" Organizations struggle between the need to evaluate the impact of their work and recognizing that the work is done by human beings for human beings and all of the unknown accompanies those factors. As a result, answering these questions is no small feat. Representatives from JFS Detroit and JF&CS Boston will talk about their agencies' efforts and lessons learned from measuring impact in the past few years. The 2015 AJFCA Annual Conference presentation will include suggestions for choosing evaluation tools to demonstrate your impact; improving the quality of your data; monitoring basic outputs to ensure fidelity to your program model; analyzing and interpreting your data; and shifting the culture of your agency to become more focused on outcomes. This presentation will offer valuable information on how to incorporate data into your practice and get started down the path toward demonstrating impact.

• Presenter Noah Schectman Manager of Data Strategy and Database Consulting, JFCS Greater Boston
• Presenter Yuliya Gaydayenko Senior Director of Older Adult Services, JFS Metropolitan Detroit 
• Presenter Kirsten Mack Director of Counseling Services, JFS Metropolitan Detroit

AJFCA is proud to support the work of Aging Life Care Association (formerly NAPGCM), which works to bring together professionals working to support older adults and caregivers through a holistic, client-centered approach. Kaaren Boothroyd, ALCA CEO, and her team recently shared information about their association and this new benefit to AJFCA members on the webinar "Aging Life Care: Why you? Why now?". Access a recording of the webinar here and download the webinar slides here to learn more about ALCA. 

Professionals from AJFCA member agencies with at least one full dues-paying ALCA member at the Advanced Professional or Professional level are eligible for a 50% discount on new membership for 2016. Applications and supported documents must be submitted to ALCA by November 13, 2015. Download the membership application here and email Liz with questions.