Finance Highlights 2008 0729 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Reviewing Infrastructure Efficiencies By necessity, DSFRC needs to stay flexible in order to respond to requests and requirements of funding organizations and to shift focus to take advantage of specific types of funding opportunities. They balance this need to be flexible with a solid core of strong, experienced personnel and stable departments (such as APP, Basic Needs, and the childcare centers). However, there are some areas that could use improvement or which represent significant organizational vulnerabilities and therefore affect sustainability. Some have already been mentioned, such as what appears to be an ongoing period of reorganization and key-staff turnover, which is beginning to overwhelm people being called on to take on more work "temporarily". Other areas worth noting are described below. Communication: Inter-agency and intra-agency communication The quality of DSFRC's external personal communications with peer agencies, funding organization, and community groups is very high. This is primarily because the people that publicly represent DSFRC (such as the Rose Padilla-Johnson, Dawn Valadez, Emile Awwad, and several Board members) are articulate, knowledgeable, skilled (at gaining access to VIP's and in communicating DSFRC's mission), and well-known/respected. In order to maintain and strengthen these community connections, we recommend that DSFRC publish an agency newsletter for current and potential funding organizations, key community businesses, and peer agencies. Frequency should be between 2-4 times per year and the format can be electronic (delivered via email -which keeps costs minimal). Several very inexpensive ($12.50 per 500 emails) online services exist which offer list management and professional email templates that can be customized with agency logos and images. It's very easy to add content to these templates and send attractive, email newsletters to a select list of contacts. This list can be maintained and updated on the internal database and then imported to the online list service for each emailing. Establishing a regular, professional, standardized communication with peer agencies, key community businesses, and current and potential funding organizations would strengthen DSFRC's visibility in the community and its sustainability as a result. In contrast to the quality of communication with funding organizations and peer agencies, the general internal communications within DSFRC needs improvement. Staff surveys reflected strong respect for DSFRC's mission and the majority of personnel expressed satisfaction with their jobs. But a significant minority voiced some dissatisfaction having to do with the quality of their supervision and based, in some instances, on misinformation (such as the imminent closing of the Counseling Center). In some cases, staff members were interviewed further. The manner in which they expressed many of their concerns and reported conversations with others was not very constructive (such as using blaming language, basing opinions and feelings on gossip, describing cliquish behavior, demonstrating avoidance behavior, or otherwise not knowing how to express themselves using direct and assertive communication). It is worth noting that the lack of sustainability Study: Davis Street Family Resource Center - 4/08 Page 45 of 96