RespectAbility with Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi for Friday, 25 July 2014

RespectAbility with Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi for Friday, 25 July 2014
Hello!
Given all the troubles in the world, I hope you and yours are well!
Not only was this a very exciting week because President Obama signed WIOA, starting on January 1, 2015 all Federal contractors will need to follow Rule 503, which asks for 7% of their employees in all job categories to be people with disabilities. This is very good news on inclusion. So what are the rules? Go HERE to see. 
If you want to hear a webinar on this go HERE. 
Also, if you want to know what companies in your area get federal government grants, and thus need to follow the rule and have inclusive workforces, go to www.fedspending.org. You can get an easy to use list of all the companies who will be looking to hire and/or identify employees with disabilities!
I hope you find the items below of interest. 
All the best, 
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi
www.RespectAbilityUSA.org
P.S. Happy ADA Anniversary! 
Minimum wage increase shines light on disabled worker earnings
By Kelsey Ryan
Pull a roll of red plastic to a spot marked by brightly colored tape on a table. Cut the piece. Fold it up. Repeat.
It’s a repetitive task for some, but Rochelle Holloway, 53, enjoys it.
She’s worked at Starkey Inc. – a nonprofit organization that provides housing, employment and training services for the developmentally disabled – since 1997.
“I like it here, and I do a lot of work, but I have to constantly tell myself ‘pay attention to what you’re doing’ and not look around,” Holloway said during a break at Starkey on Monday.
Holloway is one of about 210 people who participate in the work program at Starkey, according to Colin McKenney, CEO of Starkey Inc.
Holloway is not sure how much she gets paid, but she lives in an apartment and has someone who helps her with things like bills.
“I make my money, have a budget paying the bills and going to the store,” she said. “You’ve got to pay your bills before you can do anything else and that’s important.”
The issue of wages for the disabled has received more attention in recent years. And earlier this year, the Obama White House said it would issue new rules regarding the minimum wages paid by government contractors, and that the rules would include employees with disabilities.
Organizations such as Starkey are allowed by law to pay those with disabilities less than minimum wage because of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which was originally intended to encourage companies to hire veterans with disabilities.
Through special certification by the government, organizations can pay based on the person’s productivity compared to a person who is without a disability and who performs the same job.
“There are differing opinions from people who provide the services and beyond, but in general everyone wants more opportunity for people with disabilities to find work,” McKenney said.
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 started as a “good intention,” said Curtis Decker, executive director for the National Disability Rights Network in Washington, D.C.
But over the years it led to segregated workplaces with sub-minimum wages, he said, disincentivizing other companies from hiring and accommodating disabled workers.
There are about 400,000 disabled people who are a part of work programs and “sheltered workplaces,” Decker said.
Determining pay
Starkey conducts assessments of workers’ abilities to determine their capability to earn wages, McKenney said.
“That provides allowances for the fact that some of our folks won’t be able to or choose not to work at the same level of productivity,” McKenney said. “We do see people dedicate themselves to a job or task at different levels, just as any of us in the workplace.
“We support each individual to accomplish work tasks at a level he or she is comfortable with, but don’t impose required productivity standards,” McKenney said.
“If we came in and gave it our all and made $8 an hour and the person next to us came in and weren’t focused on work, was socializing or other pursuits, the person really giving it their all is going to feel devalued. It’s really no different with people with disabilities.”
Onsite work program jobs at Starkey are typically paid by unit of production, McKenney said.
Piecework for things like packaging and labeling at the Starkey workshop ranges from $.0073 cents to about 87 cents per unit completed, while commensurate hourly wages range from $3.86 to $7.25 an hour for things like pulling apart electronics for recycling, McKenney said.
At Starkey, some people also participate in a work program that arranges for jobs in workplaces in the community, McKenney said.
Holloway, for example, also works at a Carlos O’Kelly’s restaurant three days a week for about three hours a day, busing tables and picking up trash.
Federal contractors
President Obama’s executive order in February would raise the minimum wage for federal contractors and subcontractors to $10.10 an hour starting on Jan. 1, 2015.
A White House news release from February said the executive order would cover “all individuals working under service or concessions contracts with the federal government will be covered by the same $10.10 per hour minimum wage protections,” including those with disabilities who are currently “paid less than the wage paid to others doing the same job under certain specialized certificate programs.”
Envision, a local nonprofit that provides services, training and employment for the blind and people with low vision, does millions of dollars in federal contracts each year, according to filings at www.USAspending.gov, a government website that posts federal contracts.
However Kathy Cox, vice president of Human Resources at Envision, said the nonprofit organization does not believe the executive order applies to its contracts.
“The way the order defines the contracts, it appears that our contracts do not apply. (We’re) having our legal counsel review if we have to move that minimum wage,” Cox said. “That’s good news for us anyway.”
Other senior staff at Envision said they were not available for additional questions. A New York City-based public relations representative for the organization said in an e-mail they would “prefer not to participate in this article.”
Envision was founded in 1933 as the Wichita Workshop and Training School for the Adult Blind. According to www.USAspending.gov, Envision has received more than $505 million in federal contracts since 2000. The majority of Envision’s work comes from contracts with the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security.
“For most Americans, holding a job is a sign of independence. Unfortunately, more than 70 percent of individuals who are blind or visually impaired are unemployed or underemployed. ... Envision has been dedicated to providing employment and independence for individuals who, because of their visual impairment, are largely overlooked in the competitive job market,” says its website, www.envisionus.com.
According to 2010 public federal labor documents requested by the Eagle, hourly pay varies at Envision. According to the document, an Envision worker that the organization listed as having “severe mental retardation” was paid an average 18 cents per hour, an employee with “mild mental retardation” was paid 60 cents an hour, and another worker with “congenital blindness” was paid an average of $3.82 per hour. All the figures were for small assembly work in 2010, according to the document.
According to Envision’s most recent IRS 990 tax form, it had 310 employees in 2012 and paid about $7.6 million in wages.
Contributing: Dion Lefler
Reach Kelsey Ryan at 316-269-6752 or kryan@wichitaeagle.com. Follow her on Twitter: @kelsey_ryan.
Getting people with disabilities into the workforce
By Brad Sherman
At a time when 70 percent of working-age Americans with disabilities are outside the workforce and more than 9 million working-age Americans with disabilities are living on government benefits, I was proud to join the majority of the U.S. House of Representatives in passing bipartisan, bicameral legislation to increase opportunities for people with disabilities by reauthorizing federal investment in disability related workforce training, employment, independent living and research programs.
The U.S. Senate already passed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) by a vote of 95-3. The president is now expected to sign this historic legislation into law. In an era of partisan gridlock, it is an all too rare bipartisan success that will help the American people.
The strength of our nation is our diverse talents and the energy we bring to progress by working together. WIOA recognizes that we cannot afford to reject people with disabilities from the workforce and our communities. Every person has abilities, including those with disabilities.
This is a larger issue than many people realize. One in five identify as a person with a disability, and as the baby boomer generation ages, that number is growing. We have to plan for the future of America, and people with disabilities want to help.
Polls show that the majority of working-age people with disabilities want to work.
Additionally, despite benefits, 29 percent of people with disabilities live in poverty. Their commitment to working and earning a wage can improve their quality of life, fiscally and socially, and save taxpayers money. Most people with disabilities want a hand up, not a handout.
Companies with inclusive hiring policies are proving that they are more financially successful. This is because people with disabilities tend to be very loyal, enthusiastic workers who help the bottom line by removing turnover and training costs. In many companies they also positively influence productivity amongst other workers. Major companies such as Walgreens, Manpower, Ernst & Young, and AMC have profited from their targeted disability employment programs.
The average accommodation to hire a person with a disability costs less than $500.
Walgreens reported seeing a return on the original investment quickly through increased profits. With the resources and research available today, meeting and surpassing the hiring requirements can be simple, cost-effective and beneficial to the whole economy.
Better access to education and advancements in technology have exponentially increased the career prospects for people with disabilities. The key to successful job placement is matching employee skills with employer needs. There are thousands of men and women with disabilities in every community who are ready, willing and able to go to work and capable of making meaningful contributions to our society. Organizations like New Horizons and Tierra Del Sol in the San Fernando Valley are helping facilitate these matches for individuals with disabilities.
New Horizons provides vocational training, job placement and employment support services to thousands of individuals with autism, intellectual challenges, cerebral palsy, epilepsy and physical challenges. Tierra del Sol works with enlightened employers such the Auto Gallery of Woodland Hills to give these individuals a chance. And a chance is all these men and women need to prove that a great work ethic and the determination to succeed will overcome disability any day. These organizations are helping spread awareness that people with disabilities are a valuable, reliable and talented employee pool.
The inclusion of people with disabilities in the workforce will not only reduce the burden on taxpayer but also contribute to the nation’s prosperity. With the baby boomers on the edge of retirement, we need every working-age American to be as productive as possible. If people with disabilities want to contribute, there should be equal opportunity for them to do so.
As a member of Congress I am constantly frustrated with partisan battles. Thus, the bipartisanship in this bill is especially welcomed, as it is vitally important for all Americans of all abilities to be able to have an opportunity to achieve the American dream.
Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks, represents the 30th Congressional District, the south and west San Fernando Valley.
A Better Bottom Line: Governor Scott Walker Announces Partnerships for Project SEARCH Expansion
Office of the Governor, Scott Walker - Press Release
A Better Bottom Line: Governor Scott Walker Announces Partnerships for Project SEARCH Expansion
Expansion will double the number of partnership sites helping young people with disabilities gain marketable job skills
Thursday, July 17, 2014 - Press Release
Green Bay – Governor Walker today, along with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) and Department of Health Services (DHS), announced an expansion of the number of Project SEARCH sites from seven to 14.  Under this phase of the expansion, first unveiled in Governor Walker’s Blueprint for Prosperity plan, seven additional community agencies and schools join Project SEARCH to help young adults with disabilities gain employment training, and learn marketable skills, to help them enter the workforce.
“Project SEARCH allows young people to learn real-world job skills, giving them the opportunity to pursue their dreams of freedom and independence,” Governor Walker said.  “It also helps employers see what a great asset individuals with disabilities are in the workplace.” 
Wisconsin Project SEARCH provides total immersion in a large business, giving young adults with disabilities an opportunity to explore careers and receive training.  The students report to the host business, learn employability skills in the classroom, and gain job skills while participating in three or four internships during the year. The ultimate goal is to help the students gain independence and competitive employment.  Local Business Advisory Boards are also a key component of Project SEARCH and are partners in efforts to identify potential employers for Project SEARCH graduates.
“We want to congratulate these agencies for being selected as Wisconsin Project SEARCH partners who will help young adults with disabilities gain the training and confidence they need to be part of the workforce,” said DWD Secretary Reggie Newson. "Thanks to Governor Walker's Blueprint for Prosperity Initiative, more Wisconsin businesses will have the opportunity under Project SEARCH to see firsthand how employing persons with disabilities will improve their bottom line, to the advantage of the participating employer and the workers."
DHS Secretary Kitty Rhoades said, “Wisconsin Project SEARCH unites employers with young adults who want to prove that, although they may have a disability, they have plenty of skills and talents to offer in the workforce.  What I particularly like is the collaboration among state and long term support agencies, vocational service providers, schools, parents, the students and businesses to ensure the success of each and every student who is enrolled.”
Governor Walker this year signed legislation for a $35.4 million expansion to the Wisconsin Fast Forward (WFF) worker training program as part of his Blueprint for Prosperity Initiative. Included is $850,000 to expand the number of Project SEARCH sites in Wisconsin from seven to 27 over three years, starting with today's announced expansion of seven sites. DWD's Office of Skills Development (OSD) is working with DWD's Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) and DHS on the Project SEARCH expansion.
Partnering agencies receive pre-paid training and technical assistance required for all Project SEARCH initiatives.  The training is provided by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC). Project SEARCH was developed at CCHMC in 1996 by Nurse J. Erin Riehle, then the director of the Emergency Department there.  Project SEARCH is now an internationally recognized model of employment training for young adults with disabilities.
Project SEARCH is part of the Governor’s Year of A Better Bottom Line to encourage and promote employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
Project SEARCH expansion partners and locations include:

Agency	Type of Agency	City
ASPIRO	Vocational Provider	Green Bay
Sauk Prairie School District	Public School District	Sauk City
River Falls School District	Public School District	River Falls
My Innovative Services	Vocational Provider	Stevens Point
Goodwill Industries of Southeastern WI, Inc.	Vocational Provider	Milwaukee
Opportunity Development Centers, Inc.	Vocational Provider	Wisconsin Rapids
Cooperative Educational Service Agency 5	Public School Agency	Portage

For more information: Wisconsin Project SEARCH: http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/dvr/service_providers/projects/default.htm#project_search
Wisconsin Fast Forward-Blueprint for Prosperity: http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/wff/prosperity/
###
Removing Barriers to Financial Independence for People With Disabilities
By Kathleen Ujvari
For people with disabilities, barriers to employment can be especially devastating.
Nearly 20 million working-age adults have a physical, sensory or cognitive disability. Their rates of employment [1] are significantly lower than among the non-disabled population (33 percent compared with 73.8 percent) and their poverty rates [1] are more than double that of non-disabled people ages 18 to 64 (28.8 percent compared with 13.3 percent in 2012).
disabled working man holding reportIt’s not just about money. Employment enhances personal well-being, identity, purpose and social inclusion. Unfortunately, people with disabilities often are misperceived as unemployable [2].
Barriers include employers’ concerns about incurring costs and risks, and workers’ lack of access to transportation, education, training and reasonable workplace accommodations, including assistive technology.
So what can be done? States, the federal government and private-sector employers can make a difference.
In the state LTSS Scorecard [3] released last month, wide state variation was identified in the relative rate of employment (full- or part-time) of working-age adults with self-care disabilities, compared to those without self-care disabilities. In 2011-12, it ranged from 37.2 percent (South Dakota) to 15 percent (West Virginia).
A number of states have developed strategies and implemented model employer programs [4] to increase employment of people with disabilities.   States have also begun to implement an employment first [5] approach in which people with disabilities are integrated into workplace settings where the majority of people do not have disabilities.
In July 2012, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, then chairman of the National Governors Association, launched an initiative [6] to advance employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. The initiative emphasized the roles that both state government and business can perform to help working-age adults with disabilities to overcome employment challenges.
Federal initiatives to enhance employment among adults with disabilities include the Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration’s (DOLETA) One-Stop Career Center [7] system, which has operated a federal and state partnership providing employment referral and training centers since 2000.
Disability Program Navigator [8] jointly sponsored by DOLETA and the Social Security Administration (SSA) was added to One-Stop Career Centers in most states to better inform people with disabilities about work support programs. The Disability Employment Initiative [9] is also underway with 23 pilot states that participate in the Ticket to Work Program to implement strategies to promote employment of people with disabilities who also receive SSA disability benefits. There also is an executive order [10] signed by President Obama in 2010 to establish the federal government as a model employer of people with disabilities. The order requires federal agencies to develop plans and to hire 100,000 employees with disabilities by 2015.
We are moving in the right direction, but more must be done to address misperceptions and employer concerns and to provide people with disabilities the tools and supports they need to access and maintain employment. Expanding employment among people with disabilities will contribute to their financial independence and quality of life.
Photo credit:  1. SocialWorkersSpeak.org Equality 2025
Kathleen [11]Kathleen Ujvari is a policy research senior analyst with the AARP Public Policy Institute, where she works on long-term services and supports research. She has an MBA and a Master of Science degree in health systems management.  
Article printed from AARP: http://blog.aarp.org
URL to article: http://blog.aarp.org/2014/07/17/removing-barriers-to-financial-independence-for-people-with-disabilities/
URLs in this post:
[1] rates of employment: http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/searchresults.xhtml?refresh=t
[2] misperceived as unemployable: https://disability.workforce3one.org/view/2001126341693391709/info
[3] LTSS Scorecard: http://longtermscorecard.org/
[4] model employer programs: http://www.dol.gov/odep/categories/workforce/NTAR_Issue_Brief_5_States_Model_Employers.pdf
[5] employment first: http://www.dol.gov/odep/topics/EmploymentFirst.htm
[6] launched an initiative: http://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/2013/NGA_2013BetterBottomLineWeb.pdf
[7] One-Stop Career Center: http://www.servicelocator.org/
[8] Disability Program Navigator: https://disability.workforce3one.org/view/2001103676712177340/info
[9] Disability Employment Initiative: http://www.doleta.gov/disability/pdf_docs/disabilityEmploymentInitiative9202012.pdf
[10] executive order: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-increasing-federal-employment-individuals-with-disabilities
[11] Image: http://blog.aarp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Kathleen.jpgor people with disabilities, barriers to employment can be especially devastating.  Nearly 20 million working-age adults have a physical, sensory or cognitive disability. Their rates of employment are significantly lower than among the non-disabled population (33 percent compared with 73.8 percent) and their poverty rates are more than double that of non-disabled people ages 18 to 64 (28.8 percent compared with 13.3 percent in 2012).
Collective Impact
By John Kania & Mark Kramer
The scale and complexity of the U.S. public education system has thwarted attempted reforms for decades. Major funders, such as the Annenberg Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Pew Charitable Trusts have abandoned many of their efforts in frustration after acknowledging their lack of progress. Once the global leader—after World War II the United States had the highest high school graduation rate in the world—the country now ranks 18th among the top 24 industrialized nations, with more than 1 million secondary school students dropping out every year. The heroic efforts of countless teachers, administrators, and nonprofits, together with billions of dollars in charitable contributions, may have led to important improvements in individual schools and classrooms, yet system-wide progress has seemed virtually unobtainable.
Against these daunting odds, a remarkable exception seems to be emerging in Cincinnati. Strive, a nonprofit subsidiary of KnowledgeWorks, has brought together local leaders to tackle the student achievement crisis and improve education throughout greater Cincinnati and northern Kentucky. In the four years since the group was launched, Strive partners have improved student success in dozens of key areas across three large public school districts. Despite the recession and budget cuts, 34 of the 53 success indicators that Strive tracks have shown positive trends, including high school graduation rates, fourth-grade reading and math scores, and the number of preschool children prepared for kindergarten.
Why has Strive made progress when so many other efforts have failed? It is because a core group of community leaders decided to abandon their individual agendas in favor of a collective approach to improving student achievement. More than 300 leaders of local organizations agreed to participate, including the heads of influential private and corporate foundations, city government officials, school district representatives, the presidents of eight universities and community colleges, and the executive directors of hundreds of education-related nonprofit and advocacy groups.
These leaders realized that fixing one point on the educational continuum—such as better after-school programs—wouldn’t make much difference unless all parts of the continuum improved at the same time. No single organization, however innovative or powerful, could accomplish this alone. Instead, their ambitious mission became to coordinate improvements at every stage of a young person’s life, from “cradle to career.”
Strive didn’t try to create a new educational program or attempt to convince donors to spend more money. Instead, through a carefully structured process, Strive focused the entire educational community on a single set of goals, measured in the same way. Participating organizations are grouped into 15 different Student Success Networks (SSNs) by type of activity, such as early childhood education or tutoring. Each SSN has been meeting with coaches and facilitators for two hours every two weeks for the past three years, developing shared performance indicators, discussing their progress, and most important, learning from each other and aligning their efforts to support each other.
Strive, both the organization and the process it helps facilitate, is an example of collective impact, the commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem. Collaboration is nothing new. The social sector is filled with examples of partnerships, networks, and other types of joint efforts. But collective impact initiatives are distinctly different. Unlike most collaborations, collective impact initiatives involve a centralized infrastructure, a dedicated staff, and a structured process that leads to a common agenda, shared measurement, continuous communication, and mutually reinforcing activities among all participants.
Although rare, other successful examples of collective impact are addressing social issues that, like education, require many different players to change their behavior in order to solve a complex problem. In 1993, Marjorie Mayfield Jackson helped found the Elizabeth River Project with a mission of cleaning up the Elizabeth River in southeastern Virginia, which for decades had been a dumping ground for industrial waste. They engaged more than 100 stakeholders, including the city governments of Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach, Va., the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Navy, and dozens of local businesses, schools, community groups, environmental organizations, and universities, in developing an 18-point plan to restore the watershed. Fifteen years later, more than 1,000 acres of watershed land have been conserved or restored, pollution has been reduced by more than 215 million pounds, concentrations of the most severe carcinogen have been cut sixfold, and water quality has significantly improved. Much remains to be done before the river is fully restored, but already 27 species of fish and oysters are thriving in the restored wetlands, and bald eagles have returned to nest on the shores.
Or consider Shape up Somerville, a citywide effort to reduce and prevent childhood obesity in elementary school children in Somerville, Mass. Led by Christina Economos, an associate professor at Tufts University’s Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, and funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley, the program engaged government officials, educators, businesses, nonprofits, and citizens in collectively defining wellness and weight gain prevention practices. Schools agreed to offer healthier foods, teach nutrition, and promote physical activity. Local restaurants received a certification if they served low-fat, high nutritional food. The city organized a farmers’ market and provided healthy lifestyle incentives such as reduced-price gym memberships for city employees. Even sidewalks were modified and crosswalks repainted to encourage more children to walk to school. The result was a statistically significant decrease in body mass index among the community’s young children between 2002 and 2005.
Even companies are beginning to explore collective impact to tackle social problems. Mars, a manufacturer of chocolate brands such as M&M’s, Snickers, and Dove, is working with NGOs, local governments, and even direct competitors to improve the lives of more than 500,000 impoverished cocoa farmers in Cote d’Ivoire, where Mars sources a large portion of its cocoa. Research suggests that better farming practices and improved plant stocks could triple the yield per hectare, dramatically increasing farmer incomes and improving the sustainability of Mars’s supply chain. To accomplish this, Mars must enlist the coordinated efforts of multiple organizations: the Cote d’Ivoire government needs to provide more agricultural extension workers, the World Bank needs to finance new roads, and bilateral donors need to support NGOs in improving health care, nutrition, and education in cocoa growing communities. And Mars must find ways to work with its direct competitors on pre-competitive issues to reach farmers outside its supply chain.
These varied examples all have a common theme: that large-scale social change comes from better cross-sector coordination rather than from the isolated intervention of individual organizations. Evidence of the effectiveness of this approach is still limited, but these examples suggest that substantially greater progress could be made in alleviating many of our most serious and complex social problems if nonprofits, governments, businesses, and the public were brought together around a common agenda to create collective impact. It doesn’t happen often, not because it is impossible, but because it is so rarely attempted. Funders and nonprofits alike overlook the potential for collective impact because they are used to focusing on independent action as the primary vehicle for social change.
ISOLATED IMPACT
Most funders, faced with the task of choosing a few grantees from many applicants, try to ascertain which organizations make the greatest contribution toward solving a social problem. Grantees, in turn, compete to be chosen by emphasizing how their individual activities produce the greatest effect. Each organization is judged on its own potential to achieve impact, independent of the numerous other organizations that may also influence the issue. And when a grantee is asked to evaluate the impact of its work, every attempt is made to isolate that grantee’s individual influence from all other variables.
In short, the nonprofit sector most frequently operates using an approach that we call isolated impact. It is an approach oriented toward finding and funding a solution embodied within a single organization, combined with the hope that the most effective organizations will grow or replicate to extend their impact more widely. Funders search for more effective interventions as if there were a cure for failing schools that only needs to be discovered, in the way that medical cures are discovered in laboratories. As a result of this process, nearly 1.4 million nonprofits try to invent independent solutions to major social problems, often working at odds with each other and exponentially increasing the perceived resources required to make meaningful progress. Recent trends have only reinforced this perspective. The growing interest in venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship, for example, has greatly benefited the social sector by identifying and accelerating the growth of many high-performing nonprofits, yet it has also accentuated an emphasis on scaling up a few select organizations as the key to social progress.
Despite the dominance of this approach, there is scant evidence that isolated initiatives are the best way to solve many social problems in today’s complex and interdependent world. No single organization is responsible for any major social problem, nor can any single organization cure it. In the field of education, even the most highly respected nonprofits—such as the Harlem Children’s Zone, Teach for America, and the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP)—have taken decades to reach tens of thousands of children, a remarkable achievement that deserves praise, but one that is three orders of magnitude short of the tens of millions of U.S. children that need help.
The problem with relying on the isolated impact of individual organizations is further compounded by the isolation of the nonprofit sector. Social problems arise from the interplay of governmental and commercial activities, not only from the behavior of social sector organizations. As a result, complex problems can be solved only by cross-sector coalitions that engage those outside the nonprofit sector.
We don’t want to imply that all social problems require collective impact. In fact, some problems are best solved by individual organizations. In “Leading Boldly,” an article we wrote with Ron Heifetz for the winter 2004 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, we described the difference between technical problems and adaptive problems. Some social problems are technical in that the problem is well defined, the answer is known in advance, and one or a few organizations have the ability to implement the solution. Examples include funding college scholarships, building a hospital, or installing inventory controls in a food bank. Adaptive problems, by contrast, are complex, the answer is not known, and even if it were, no single entity has the resources or authority to bring about the necessary change. Reforming public education, restoring wetland environments, and improving community health are all adaptive problems. In these cases, reaching an effective solution requires learning by the stakeholders involved in the problem, who must then change their own behavior in order to create a solution.
Shifting from isolated impact to collective impact is not merely a matter of encouraging more collaboration or public-private partnerships. It requires a systemic approach to social impact that focuses on the relationships between organizations and the progress toward shared objectives. And it requires the creation of a new set of nonprofit management organizations that have the skills and resources to assemble and coordinate the specific elements necessary for collective action to succeed.
THE FIVE CONDITIONS OF COLLECTIVE SUCCESS
Our research shows that successful collective impact initiatives typically have five conditions that together produce true alignment and lead to powerful results: a common agenda, shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and backbone support organizations.
Common Agenda Collective impact requires all participants to have a shared vision for change, one that includes a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed upon actions. Take a close look at any group of funders and nonprofits that believe they are working on the same social issue, and you quickly find that it is often not the same issue at all. Each organization often has a slightly different definition of the problem and the ultimate goal. These differences are easily ignored when organizations work independently on isolated initiatives, yet these differences splinter the efforts and undermine the impact of the field as a whole. Collective impact requires that these differences be discussed and resolved. Every participant need not agree with every other participant on all dimensions of the problem. In fact, disagreements continue to divide participants in all of our examples of collective impact. All participants must agree, however, on the primary goals for the collective impact initiative as a whole. The Elizabeth River Project, for example, had to find common ground among the different objectives of corporations, governments, community groups, and local citizens in order to establish workable cross-sector initiatives.
Funders can play an important role in getting organizations to act in concert. In the case of Strive, rather than fueling hundreds of strategies and nonprofits, many funders have aligned to support Strive’s central goals. The Greater Cincinnati Foundation realigned its education goals to be more compatible with Strive, adopting Strive’s annual report card as the foundation’s own measures for progress in education. Every time an organization applied to Duke Energy for a grant, Duke asked, “Are you part of the [Strive] network?” And when a new funder, the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation, expressed interest in education, they were encouraged by virtually every major education leader in Cincinnati to join Strive if they wanted to have an impact in local education.1
Shared Measurement Systems Developing a shared measurement system is essential to collective impact. Agreement on a common agenda is illusory without agreement on the ways success will be measured and reported. Collecting data and measuring results consistently on a short list of indicators at the community level and across all participating organizations not only ensures that all efforts remain aligned, it also enables the participants to hold each other accountable and learn from each other’s successes and failures.
It may seem impossible to evaluate hundreds of different organizations on the same set of measures. Yet recent advances in Web-based technologies have enabled common systems for reporting performance and measuring outcomes. These systems increase efficiency and reduce cost. They can also improve the quality and credibility of the data collected, increase effectiveness by enabling grantees to learn from each other’s performance, and document the progress of the field as a whole.2
All of the preschool programs in Strive, for example, have agreed to measure their results on the same criteria and use only evidence-based decision making. Each type of activity requires a different set of measures, but all organizations engaged in the same type of activity report on the same measures. Looking at results across multiple organizations enables the participants to spot patterns, find solutions, and implement them rapidly. The preschool programs discovered that children regress during the summer break before kindergarten. By launching an innovative “summer bridge” session, a technique more often used in middle school, and implementing it simultaneously in all preschool programs, they increased the average kindergarten readiness scores throughout the region by an average of 10 percent in a single year.3
Mutually Reinforcing Activities Collective impact initiatives depend on a diverse group of stakeholders working together, not by requiring that all participants do the same thing, but by encouraging each participant to undertake the specific set of activities at which it excels in a way that supports and is coordinated with the actions of others.
The power of collective action comes not from the sheer number of participants or the uniformity of their efforts, but from the coordination of their differentiated activities through a mutually reinforcing plan of action. Each stakeholder’s efforts must fit into an overarching plan if their combined efforts are to succeed. The multiple causes of social problems, and the components of their solutions, are interdependent. They cannot be addressed by uncoordinated actions among isolated organizations.
All participants in the Elizabeth River Project, for example, agreed on the 18-point watershed restoration plan, but each is playing a different role based on its particular capabilities. One group of organizations works on creating grassroots support and engagement among citizens, a second provides peer review and recruitment for industrial participants who voluntarily reduce pollution, and a third coordinates and reviews scientific research.
The 15 SSNs in Strive each undertake different types of activities at different stages of the educational continuum. Strive does not prescribe what practices each of the 300 participating organizations should pursue. Each organization and network is free to chart its own course consistent with the common agenda, and informed by the shared measurement of results.
Continuous Communication Developing trust among nonprofits, corporations, and government agencies is a monumental challenge. Participants need several years of regular meetings to build up enough experience with each other to recognize and appreciate the common motivation behind their different efforts. They need time to see that their own interests will be treated fairly, and that decisions will be made on the basis of objective evidence and the best possible solution to the problem, not to favor the priorities of one organization over another.
Even the process of creating a common vocabulary takes time, and it is an essential prerequisite to developing shared measurement systems. All the collective impact initiatives we have studied held monthly or even biweekly in-person meetings among the organizations’ CEO-level leaders. Skipping meetings or sending lower-level delegates was not acceptable. Most of the meetings were supported by external facilitators and followed a structured agenda.
The Strive networks, for example, have been meeting regularly for more than three years. Communication happens between meetings too: Strive uses Web-based tools, such as Google Groups, to keep communication flowing among and within the networks. At first, many of the leaders showed up because they hoped that their participation would bring their organizations additional funding, but they soon learned that was not the meetings’ purpose. What they discovered instead were the rewards of learning and solving problems together with others who shared their same deep knowledge and passion about the issue.
Backbone Support Organizations Creating and managing collective impact requires a separate organization and staff with a very specific set of skills to serve as the backbone for the entire initiative. Coordination takes time, and none of the participating organizations has any to spare. The expectation that collaboration can occur without a supporting infrastructure is one of the most frequent reasons why it fails.
The backbone organization requires a dedicated staff separate from the participating organizations who can plan, manage, and support the initiative through ongoing facilitation, technology and communications support, data collection and reporting, and handling the myriad logistical and administrative details needed for the initiative to function smoothly. Strive has simplified the initial staffing requirements for a backbone organization to three roles: project manager, data manager, and facilitator.
Collective impact also requires a highly structured process that leads to effective decision making. In the case of Strive, staff worked with General Electric (GE) to adapt for the social sector the Six Sigma process that GE uses for its own continuous quality improvement. The Strive Six Sigma process includes training, tools, and resources that each SSN uses to define its common agenda, shared measures, and plan of action, supported by Strive facilitators to guide the process.
In the best of circumstances, these backbone organizations embody the principles of adaptive leadership: the ability to focus people’s attention and create a sense of urgency, the skill to apply pressure to stakeholders without overwhelming them, the competence to frame issues in a way that presents opportunities as well as difficulties, and the strength to mediate conflict among stakeholders.
FUNDING COLLECTIVE IMPACT
Creating a successful collective impact initiative requires a significant financial investment: the time participating organizations must dedicate to the work, the development and monitoring of shared measurement systems, and the staff of the backbone organization needed to lead and support the initiative’s ongoing work.
As successful as Strive has been, it has struggled to raise money, confronting funders’ reluctance to pay for infrastructure and preference for short-term solutions. Collective impact requires instead that funders support a long-term process of social change without identifying any particular solution in advance. They must be willing to let grantees steer the work and have the patience to stay with an initiative for years, recognizing that social change can come from the gradual improvement of an entire system over time, not just from a single breakthrough by an individual organization.
This requires a fundamental change in how funders see their role, from funding organizations to leading a long-term process of social change. It is no longer enough to fund an innovative solution created by a single nonprofit or to build that organization’s capacity. Instead, funders must help create and sustain the collective processes, measurement reporting systems, and community leadership that enable cross-sector coalitions to arise and thrive.
This is a shift that we foreshadowed in both “Leading Boldly” and our more recent article, “Catalytic Philanthropy,” in the fall 2009 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. In the former, we suggested that the most powerful role for funders to play in addressing adaptive problems is to focus attention on the issue and help to create a process that mobilizes the organizations involved to find a solution themselves. In “Catalytic Philanthropy,” we wrote: “Mobilizing and coordinating stakeholders is far messier and slower work than funding a compelling grant request from a single organization. Systemic change, however, ultimately depends on a sustained campaign to increase the capacity and coordination of an entire field.” We recommended that funders who want to create large-scale change follow four practices: take responsibility for assembling the elements of a solution; create a movement for change; include solutions from outside the nonprofit sector; and use actionable knowledge to influence behavior and improve performance.
These same four principles are embodied in collective impact initiatives. The organizers of Strive abandoned the conventional approach of funding specific programs at education nonprofits and took responsibility for advancing education reform themselves. They built a movement, engaging hundreds of organizations in a drive toward shared goals. They used tools outside the nonprofit sector, adapting GE’s Six Sigma planning process for the social sector. And through the community report card and the biweekly meetings of the SSNs they created actionable knowledge that motivated the community and improved performance among the participants.
Funding collective impact initiatives costs money, but it can be a highly leveraged investment. A backbone organization with a modest annual budget can support a collective impact initiative of several hundred organizations, magnifying the impact of millions or even billions of dollars in existing funding. Strive, for example, has a $1.5 million annual budget but is coordinating the efforts and increasing the effectiveness of organizations with combined budgets of $7 billion. The social sector, however, has not yet changed its funding practices to enable the shift to collective impact. Until funders are willing to embrace this new approach and invest sufficient resources in the necessary facilitation, coordination, and measurement that enable organizations to work in concert, the requisite infrastructure will not evolve.
FUTURE SHOCK
What might social change look like if funders, nonprofits, government officials, civic leaders, and business executives embraced collective impact? Recent events at Strive provide an exciting indication of what might be possible.
Strive has begun to codify what it has learned so that other communities can achieve collective impact more rapidly. The organization is working with nine other communities to establish similar cradle to career initiatives.4 Importantly, although Strive is broadening its impact to a national level, the organization is not scaling up its own operations by opening branches in other cities. Instead, Strive is promulgating a flexible process for change, offering each community a set of tools for collective impact, drawn from Strive’s experience but adaptable to the community’s own needs and resources. As a result, the new communities take true ownership of their own collective impact initiatives, but they don’t need to start the process from scratch. Activities such as developing a collective educational reform mission and vision or creating specific community-level educational indicators are expedited through the use of Strive materials and assistance from Strive staff. Processes that took Strive several years to develop are being adapted and modified by other communities in significantly less time.
These nine communities plus Cincinnati have formed a community of practice in which representatives from each effort connect regularly to share what they are learning. Because of the number and diversity of the communities, Strive and its partners can quickly determine what processes are universal and which require adaptation to a local context. As learning accumulates, Strive staff will incorporate new findings into an Internet-based knowledge portal that will be available to any community wishing to create a collective impact initiative based on Strive’s model.
This exciting evolution of the Strive collective impact initiative is far removed from the isolated impact approach that now dominates the social sector and that inhibits any major effort at comprehensive, large-scale change. If successful, it presages the spread of a new approach that will enable us to solve today’s most serious social problems with the resources we already have at our disposal. It would be a shock to the system. But it’s a form of shock therapy that’s badly needed.
John Kania is a managing director at FSG, where he oversees the firm’s consulting practice. Before joining FSG, he was a consultant at Mercer Management Consulting and Corporate Decisions Inc. This is Kania’s third article for the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Mark Kramer is the co-founder and a managing director of FSG. He is also the co-founder and the initial board chair of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, and a senior fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. This is Kramer’s fifth article for the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Notes
1 Interview with Kathy Merchant, CEO of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, 1 April 10, 2010.
2 See Mark Kramer, Marcie Parkhurst, and Lalitha Vaidyanathan, Breakthroughs in
Shared Measurement and Social Impact, FSG Social Impact Advisors, 2009.
3 "Successful Starts," United Way of Greater Cincinnati, second edition, fall 2009.
4 Indianapolis, Houston, Richmond, Va., and Hayward, Calif., are the first four communities
to implement Strive's process for educational reform. Portland, Ore., Fresno,
Calif., Mesa, Ariz., Albuquerque, and Memphis are just beginning their efforts.
People with disabilities still find job market a challenge
By Rodger DeRose
People with disabilities are being left out of the economic recovery – a disconcerting development that suggests that more work needs to be done to help create employment opportunities for this population.
After all, PWD can hold public office, earn advanced degrees, crack the starting lineup for a Super Bowl winning team and compete on Dancing with the Stars. 
So, why aren’t more PWD working in everyday jobs? What can be done to correct this?
New strategies need to be developed in order to expand employment opportunities for PWD. Indeed, hiring PWD enhances the diversity of a workforce.  PWD can, and want to, contribute to the economy. Still, to understand how urgently a solution is needed, we must first look at the current situation.
The July 2014 Bureau of Labor Statistics Jobs Report paints a discouraging, frustrating picture.
Three key indicators – employment-to-population ratio, labor force participation rate and percentage of people looking for work – were all down for PWD compared to the same month in 2013. In fact, this has been the case for every single month so far in 2014. The year started off with low numbers – disappointing statistics that have become the rule, not the exception. The most recent BLS Report said 288,000 jobs were created throughout the economy.  But not enough of those new jobs went to PWD.
This is something that can – and should – be corrected.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) turns 24 in July.  More opportunities should exist for PWD by now, nearly a quarter century after the act was signed. We are not as far along as we need to be, however. While many companies — to be ADA compliant — have implemented disability policies, far fewer companies have actual programs in place to hire PWD. 
Consider this:  In 2013, just over one in six — or 17.6 percent — of PWD actually had a job, according to a Labor Department report issued in June. In addition, the employment number doesn’t even reflect how many PWD have given up on their search to find employment.  Even one person is too many. Each year, the number of PWD grows.  So, how do we get more PWDs to work – some of whom have never held a job?
No one solution in itself provides that answer.
The traditional one person at a time approach isn’t opening up as many doors as need to be opened.  We need to apply strategies that will provide jobs to large numbers of people with disabilities.
The Obama administration has issued a mandate stipulating that that federal contractors must employ a minimum of 7 percent of workers with disabilities or prove they are taking steps to hire more in order to avoid facing penalties or losing their government contracts.
Still, while this development is a step in the right direction, it is not the only solution being suggested. Schools, corporations, nonprofit organizations and state and federal agencies are providing resources and developing best practices to create or expand job opportunities, build connections with employers and prepare PWD for employment Large companies are slowly engaging.  Some are actively participating in hiring – others are looking into the best way to integrate more PWD into their workforce. Public-private partnerships are helping to integrate more PWDs into the workforce at national companies such as Walgreens, Lowe’s, OfficeMax and Pepsi Americas Beverages.
Creativity also plays a part.  One non-profit, the Center for Head Injury Services in St. Louis thought out of the box and created their own small business that provides  a service to the community and earns money for the charity while providing jobs for PWD.
These examples demonstrate that everyone can win. 
The business that Center for Head Injury Services started is Destination Desserts, a purpose-driven social enterprise business that employs people with disabilities to bake and sell cookies, brownies, cupcakes and other quality food choices. They use a food truck to extend their brand awareness and sell products at corporate parks and community events. Most importantly, Destination Desserts is providing opportunities for training and employment for people with brain injuries. Funding social enterprise businesses is an effective strategy that benefits the community while expanding job opportunities.
The employment situation for PWD will only improve when government, nonprofits, and corporations work together to implement strategies that integrate people with disabilities into diverse, accessible workplaces.
Real progress can only be made when PWD are held to the same standards as their fellow employees and valued for their contributions to the workforce.  PWD should be hired because employers WANT to hire them, not because they NEED to.
DeRose is president and CEO of Kessler Foundation, a national organization dedicated to improving employment and job training options for Americans with disabilities. In addition, Kessler Foundation is a global leader in rehabilitation research that improves cognition and mobility for people with multiple sclerosis, brain injury, stroke, spinal cord injury and other disabling conditions.
Starting on January 1, 2015 all Federal contractors will need to follow Rule 503, which asks for 7% of their employees in all job categories to be people with disabilities
19. Do the new Section 503 regulations change the requirements for conducting outreach and recruitment?
The new regulations, at 60-741.44(f)(4), require the contractor to document all of its outreach and recruitment activities, and retain these records for three years. This should enable contractors and OFCCP to evaluate the effectiveness of these efforts in identifying and recruiting qualified individuals with disabilities.
Know what companies in your area get federal government grants, and thus need to follow the rule and have inclusive workforces.
Welcome to FedSpending.org
New Data Released on FedSpending.org
On October 17, 2012, the contracts and assistances database on Fedspending were updated with information updated by the government as of July 17, 2012, covering a period from FY 2000 through part of the third quarter of FY 2012. The Recovery Act database was also updated with the latest information available, a set updated on Sep. 19, 2012, covering a period from Feb 2009 through June 2012.
On July 9, 2012, the Recovery Act database on Fedspending was updated with the latest information as of June 20, 2012, covering a period from Feb 2009 through March 2012.
On May 4, 2012, all three databases in Fedspending -- contracts, assistance, and Recovery Act data -- were updated with new information. Federal assistance data is now available from FY 2000 through the first quarter of FY 2012, contracts data is available from FY 2000 through the first quarter of 2012, and Recovery Act data for contracts, grants, and loans awarded from Feb. 17, 2009 through Dec. 31, 2011. In addition, we have updated our Fedspending server so that more frequent updates will now be possible.
Summary of Federal Spending: Financial Assistance and Procurement
(in billions of dollars)

FY 2000

FY 2001

FY 2002

FY 2003

FY 2004

FY 2005

FY 2006

FY 2007

FY 2008

FY 2009

FY 2010

FY 2011

FY 2012*
(partial year)

Contracts

$205.6

$223.2

$264.0

$318.2

$346.4

$391.3

$431.9

$468.8

$541.2

$540.6

$538.4

$536.8

$279.5

Grants

$294.6

$330.9

$406.3

$493.7

$450.1

$441.6

$490.0

$429.9

$418.8

$665.2

$612.3

$558.7

$408.3

Loans

$0.0

$-0.0

$0.0

$0.0

$0.0

$0.0

$0.0

$0.3

$0.4

$0.6

$0.4

$-0.4

$-0.7

Insurance

$431.3

$492.2

$556.6

$567.2

$603.9

$653.2

$771.3

$5.4

$6.3

$444.1

$237.8

$1,273.4

$783.0

Direct Payments
(e.g. Social Security)

$768.3

$839.6

$841.5

$947.9

$965.5

$1,004.1

$1,092.7

$634.5

$1,108.7

$1,279.5

$1,077.4

$895.7

$634.2

Other

$2.8

$2.7

$0.2

$0.7

$0.4

$0.3

$3.8

$3.6

$6.8

$7.9

$3.5

$8.1

$4.3

Total

$1,702.5

$1,888.6

$2,068.7

$2,327.7

$2,366.2

$2,490.6

$2,789.7

$1,542.5

$2,082.2

$2,938.0

$2,469.8

$3,272.4

$2,108.6

We hope you will explore this site. But mostly we hope you will use the data to hold our elected leaders and government agencies accountable for their actions.

*Note: FY 2012 contains data up through part of the third quarter of the fiscal year.

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