Check out the new illustrated version of this page here! The Short Answer 1. Baselines have two parts: an historical part which shows where we’ve been, and a forecast part that shows where we are headed if we stay on our current course. 2. The historical part should have as … Read More
2.12 How do we identify what works to improve conditions of well-being?
The Short Answer 1. Look at the research, but don’t be limited by research. Find out what has worked in other places to turn the curves you are working on. But research will never give us all or even most of the answers. Use your common sense and knowledge of … Read More
2.13 How do we create an action plan and budget?
The Short Answer 1. An action plan describes who will do what when and how. Action plans are developed after your strategy is developed. For each element of the strategy, identify tasks down the left column and across the top: who is responsible (primary and secondary), begin and end dates, … Read More
2.14 How do I finance a results-based plan?
The Short Answer 1. Make sure the action agenda drives financing and not the other way around. 2. Consider financing as a matter of packaging together many different resources. No single financing source will do the job. 3. Stretch your resources by using them to leverage other resources. Seek funding … Read More
2.15 OK, so what’s the link to the budget?
The Short Answer 1. Budgets are about choices. And results based budgeting (ends to means thinking, talk to action thinking) means we will have better choices. It does not mean that we will make better choices, but we will have better choices. 2. Budgets are about allocating scarce resources. Results … Read More
2.16 How do we create a Family and Children’s Budget
The Short Answer 1. Study what others have done. Don’t reinvent the wheel. 2. You will need political and organizational sponsorship, access to data and paid or volunteer staff with good financial analytical skills. 3. Design what you want the budget document and analyses to look like at the beginning … Read More
2.17 How do we create a Cost of Bad Results report and what do we do with it?
The Short Answer 1. Base your analysis on the answers these two questions: Question 1: What are the expenditures we want to go down in the long run because we need less of it? Questions 2: What expenditures are embedded in these that are today devoted to reducing the cost … Read More
2.18 How do we present a results-based plan to the public, to political leadership?
The Short Answer 1. Organize the presentation to match the Results-Based Accountability thinking process. Start off with the results we want, then experience, then indicators, then baselines, then the story behind the baselines, the partners, our what works strategy, and what we propose to do. 2. Include a brief (one … Read More
2.19 How can we get more flexibility in the use of the money in the service system?
The Short Answer 1. Fund flexibility is a means to the ends of better results for children, adults, families and communities. It is not an end in itself. 2. Create individual child case level flexibility through wrap around: Take all the money that is being spent on a child by … Read More
2.20 How do we oversee the implementation of a results-based plan?
The Short Answer Create a regular (i.e. monthly or quarterly) review process which considers: Are the elements of the plan being implemented on time? A common format for an implementation plan lists the tasks (or goals and objectives) down the leftmost column, and then tracks across the top: description of the … Read More