Designing and Planning Programs for Nonprofit and Government Organizations / Edition 1

by Edward J. Pawlak, Robert D. Vinter

Overview

Designing and Planning Programs for Nonprofit and Government Organizations is a comprehensive guide for practitioners who must carry out program planning projects in nonprofit or government human service organizations. Authors Edward J. Pawlak and Robert D. Vinter—experts in the field of program planning—show how planning is a goal-directed activity that will succeed when its tasks are carried out in orderly, progressive stages. In this important resource, the authors walk practitioners and students through the entire process from initiation to completion of planning projects and examine the relationship between planning, implementation, and program operations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780470529775
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	04/06/2009
Series:	Wiley Desktop Editions Series
Pages:	292
Product dimensions:	9.25(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.61(d)

About the Author

Edward J. Pawlak is a consultant in the nonprofit and government sectors. He taught program planning and other subjects for more than twenty-two years in the Policy, Planning, and Administration Program in the Graduate School of Social Work at Western Michigan University. He also served as director of the Knoxville Branch of the School of Social Work at the University of Tennessee.

Robert D. Vinter taught at the University of Michigan School of Social Work for thirty-two years, where he also served as associate dean. His expertise includes funding, budgeting, fiscal management, agency administration, program design and management, juvenile and criminal justice, and organization studies. He is the author of numerous books.

Read an Excerpt

Designing and Planning Programs for Nonprofit and Government Organizations

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By Edward J. Pawlak Robert D. Vinter

John Wiley & Sons

ISBN: 0-7879-7412-9

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Chapter One

EXPLORING THE NATURE OF PROGRAM PLANNING

This chapter begins by discussing the features and structure of human service programs and differentiating these programs and planning projects. Then the chapter examines the organizations that conduct human service programs. These sections provide the context for the subsequent discussion of the nature of program planning and how it differs from program implementation. The chapter ends with a clarification of terms and a discussion of how the book's contents are organized and presented.

Human Service Programs

This book analyzes the planning of human service programs. (The terms service program and program are often used as substitutes for human service programs throughout the book.) The service programs at the core of attention are those intended to provide direct benefits for persons rather than for other organizations (as do corporate law firms, for example). Programs are the main vehicles in modern society through which all kinds of formal services are provided to people: adult education programs; vocational training programs; consumer education or protection programs; parks and recreational programs; libraries; museums; symphony orchestras and civic theaters; services designed to address employment, housing, marital, health, mental health, substance abuse, or legal problems; assistance offered by religious organizations; membership services of professional associations; and so on.

Many distinctive features are shared by these programs and the organizations that conduct them. They are held to a variety of legal and civic standards and are expected (or required) to adhere to these standards in their treatment of the persons served. Two examples are a patient's right to confidentiality, privacy, and participation in decisions about health care, and the regulations governing the treatment of juvenile and adult offenders. The primary targets, or intended recipients, of human service programs are vested with special moral value-that is, as human beings, they must be served with methods that are acceptable. Examples of this include tolerance and respect for diversity and differences in ability and values, selection of the least-restrictive placement for frail elders who cannot live independently, and the provision of housing that optimizes opportunities for independent living for persons with physical or developmental disabilities. The choices and behaviors of service recipients are not easily predictable, and they respond (or refuse to respond) in unique ways to services offered to them. Their views and reactions usually have consequences for the organizations responsible for the delivery of services (Hasenfeld, 1983, pp. 7-11; Hasenfeld, 2000). All of these critical factors are discussed.

These programs and services come into being in response to the demands or the presumed needs of some persons for particular services, and they continue to exist because attention is given to their management, support, and degrees of achievement. The diversity of programs should not mislead us into thinking that they lack fundamental similarities. Because they possess common features, they constitute a class of enterprises, they can be compared in important respects, and we can learn how to analyze, design, and implement-or improve-them.

Although each human service program is unique to a given locale, organization, mission, and recipient population, for purposes of this book, a human service program is characterized by the following features:

It is designed to provide specific benefits of some kind to particular persons who are believed to have distinctive needs or problems.

It is administered by a private nonprofit or a government organization through designated program personnel who engage in services that include direct interactions with persons receiving the service, within a particular locale, and under certain conditions.

Structure of Human Service Programs

There is no uniform or standard way that one type of service or another must be structured in order to constitute a single, identifiable program. In one organization, services such as first-aid training and water safety instruction may be combined in the same program. But services that appear related and compatible to one organization may not appear similarly interrelated in another context. So it is not at all uncommon for a program to offer only a single service such as first-aid training or water safety instruction.

A service can be conceived as a set of concrete activities performed for recipients and with recipients, and a program can be conceived as a composite of linked services that constitute an integrated enterprise. Two or more closely related services may be joined to become one program because all or many of the intended recipients are known to need both services, and the services are compatible. So combining them for service delivery purposes makes sense. For example, one can understand why occupational testing or training services could be linked to employment and career counseling, and perhaps both can be linked with job placement services. Persons seeking employment for the first time (or perhaps change of employment due to a factory closing, for example) could proceed from one service unit to another in the same location, which is more convenient than being successively referred to another organization in a different part of town. Of course, not every person who uses one of these services would need to use the other services.

In addition to compatibility and convenience, reasons for integrating two or more services into a larger entity-which itself may be a single program or a composite of programs-usually have to do with the host organization's policies, funding, resources, and overall structure. Some local government and nonprofit organizations are required, as a condition for receiving state or federal funds, to provide specific related services that are imposed by enabling statutes, policies of the funding source, or regulatory standards. For example, community mental health programs in one state must provide outpatient child and adult services, substance abuse services, crisis counseling, and other services, as a condition of receiving state funds. All of these examples illustrate that there are variations among organizations as they develop service programs and go about structuring (and reorganizing) their constituent parts into endlessly diverse administrative patterns. On a related note, programs, as such, should not be confused with organizational units, such as departments.

Distinction Between Service Programs and Projects

As used in this discussion, there is a distinction between the terms service programs and projects. Service programs have the character of cycles in that their operations are composed of a series of activities that are repeated over particular periods. The most obvious example of a cycle is represented by K-12 school programs. The teaching of each grade is repeated for the next group of advancing pupils during the following school year. The cycles of some programs are far shorter, perhaps lasting only as long as a few interviews or just a few minutes or hours. The cycles of some programs are bound by particular periods, such as school years. Others are known as constant flow in the sense that they are continuously repeated according to the needs evidenced, such as hospital emergency rooms. Each program cycle may be almost identical to the one before it but different in minor details. A given program cycle may also become significantly different when changes are deliberately introduced according to some plan.

Service programs are almost continuously being modified, cut back, or started up in response to changing conditions and opportunities. These activities are undertaken in every organization, with some persons becoming responsible for their planning. This process is conceived as a project because it has the character of being conducted one time only, unlike the cycles of service programs. A planning project is not repeated in the same way for the same purpose in the same organization (or elsewhere). Planning projects also have time-limited durations for accomplishing their aims. Each is distinctive to a time, place, participants, and intended results. New or changed service programs are the deliberate products of these projects.

This book covers only the process of planning by which significant changes, or new programs, are designed-that is, those endeavors that necessitate carefully planned projects to improve or initiate a program or adjust to critical events and trends in the organization or environment. Much of even deliberate program change is actually just tinkering, coping, or adjusting and does not involve making major changes. Programs are always in a state of flux, but much of it is unintended, often unacknowledged, perhaps even unnoticed. These kinds of deliberate and unintended changes are not central to this discussion.

Projects involving planned change in an existing program are far more common than those initiating new service programs. Starting up a new service often seems more interesting and more exciting than modifying an ongoing program, but this is often mainly in the eyes of the participants. It's like building a new home versus making major renovations in one's existing home. Some remodeling, especially of valuable older houses, is as creative, ambitious, and taxing as building a modest home using conventional plans.

Organizations That Conduct Human Service Programs

This book applies to the kinds of service programs that are almost always located within formal organizations. They are corporate entities that host or sponsor programs in the sense that they have administrative structures through which services are supported, coordinated, and managed. The organizations are often referred to as agencies because they are regarded as agents of governments at all levels. For private nonprofits, they are regarded as representing community interests. Some programs are also conducted by various neighborhood, communal, and self-help groups and by other associations that are neither corporate bodies nor chartered by state government.

Formal organizations are chartered or otherwise authorized to operate as enterprises under state laws and by the Internal Revenue Service (Lampkin, Romeo, and Finnin, 2001). All formal organizations have some kind of governance structure that defines their purposes, determines their policies and service priorities, and assumes responsibility for funding, space, personnel, operations, and other necessities. Different phrases are employed to convey the governance, legal, administrative, and fiduciary responsibilities an organization assumes for its programs: "sponsorship," "under the aegis of," "under the auspices of," and sometimes simply "administer" or "operate." Thus the organization sponsors the service program, while the program conducts the activities that provide services for persons and is directly accountable to officials in the sponsoring organization.

Human service programs are conducted by governmental organizations at all levels-municipal, county, state, and federal-and are frequently called departments, as in the case of city consumer affairs departments or county departments of public health. Some state government agencies offer certain local-level services to citizens through district offices, even while performing many other, different public sector functions. Departments of public health, mental health, social services, education, labor, and corrections are found in every state, but they differ in size, structure, and the particular duties and functions they are assigned. At the federal level, of course, departments are huge bodies headed by cabinet-level secretaries, which do many things, including regulating or funding service programs that are conducted by other organizations, as well as many of their own. Many of these governmental units allocate funds to support services administered by other organizations in both the profit and nonprofit sectors and also support numerous programs offered by lower levels of government (Austin, 2003; Young, 2000).

Service programs are also conducted by a bewildering array of private nonprofit enterprises (Grønbjerg, 2001). They are also known as voluntary organizations, members of the voluntary or private sector, or nongovernmental organizations. Some of these organizations are faith based or sectarian organizations that are governed and operated by a particular church or religious denomination (Chaves and Tsitsos, 2001; Farnsely, 2001). Others are nonsectarian, that is, not affiliated with a religious denomination. Some nonprofit organizations are national, some regional, and others statewide in scope, but most are found within local communities. These organizations are so numerous and so varied that there is no single listing of them, but local telephone and community service directories list most of them. These enterprises can be thought of in categories according to the kinds of services or benefits they provide or to some other distinguishing aspect. For example, private, nonprofit medical hospitals comprise a universe of organizations that provide specialized health services in their locales. Another set of organizations offers arts and cultural services, such as art programs for children, annual festivals, museum and other artistic exhibitions, theatrical classes and performances, and so on.

Another way of looking at organizations is to focus on the persons being served by the program. For example, there are shelters, hot meals, and emergency food programs for the homeless and for disaster victims. A well-known set of national and local organizations are concerned with services for children and youth, including the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, 4-H Clubs, and Big Brothers Big Sisters. And these have their counterparts at the other end of the age range in programs for the elderly. Nonhospital health service, education, and advocacy programs are offered by diverse organizations for persons with almost every major illness and disability, as well as many less common problems. An entire class of organizations -membership associations-sponsor particular programs to serve their members; perhaps best known are the professional associations; and many are aimed at other interests that bring people together, such as religious congregations, Little League, historical societies, and collectors' clubs.

Regardless of their other activities and reasons for being, the organizations focused on here are those through which particular human service programs are hosted and conducted and that are in the governmental or private nonprofit sectors.

Continues...

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Table of Contents

Tables, Figures, and Exhibits ix

Preface xi

The Authors xvii

PART ONE: PROGRAM PLANNING FUNDAMENTALS 1

1 Exploring the Nature of Program Planning 3

2 Determining Work Group Participants, Leadership, and Relationships 20

PART TWO: THE STAGES OF PROGRAM PLANNING 33

3 Initiating a Planning Project 37

4 Analyzing Problems and Assessing Needs 71

5 Setting Goals and Objectives 120

6 Laying the Foundation for a Successful Design 144

7 Developing the Essential Program Components 157

8 Documenting the Completed Program Plan 220

Conclusion 247

Resources for Planning Service Programs 255

References 258

Index 263