Needs Assessment & Problem Statement
The Norfolk Department of Human Services is known as one of the efficient organizations due to the comprehensiveness of all 5 P’s: programs, projects, policies, personnel, and practice (Iveroth & Hallencreutz, 2016). Nevertheless, regardless of their effectiveness, it would be beneficial to implement changes in policies. Although the developed policies are currently operational and productive, the organization still faces challenges due to the excessive reliance on governmental financial support.
In other words, regardless of the ability to allocate funds and resources granted by the government relevantly, it is advisable to review policies and develop ways to adjust them for the organization to become more financially independent. In addition to being dependent upon governmental support, there is another interrelated challenge – potential donors perceive the organization as that financed by the government. For this reason, they are unwilling to allocate additional resources. Therefore, in some cases, programs other than those related to addressing disasters in the community remain underfinanced. That is why the main direction of developing change is one focusing on tying bonds with private donors that would be interested in financing the organization.
Analysis of the Problem
Based on what was mentioned above, the wrong and biased perception of the Norfolk Department of Human Services is the nature of the problem. The challenge was identified by reviewing financial reports of the organization and finding out that the main donor is the government, and the resources are commonly scarce to meet the needs of all departments and finance all initiatives. The issue is important because community members in need cannot be helped without the adequate support of the agency, and this support is impossible without relevant and effective financing policies.
Therefore, the main factors that contribute to the existence of the problem are insufficiently developed financial policies and the lack of effective communication and ties with the local donors other than the government. As for now, it is complicated to state whether there were any efforts for addressing the challenge because the agency management itself believes that the policies are effective. From this perspective, no significant attempts to initiate change were noted.
Analysis of the Population Affected
The population affected can be viewed from two perspectives – internal and external. The internal population stands for those people employed by the selected organization. In this case, it involves employees of the financial department because they will be engaged in developing new policies and proposals for sending to donors. Also, they will cooperate with employees occupied in other departments to obtain an understanding of the ways to develop the new policies effectively and design them properly, so potential donors are willing to allocate necessary resources. On the other hand, the change in financial policies will have a direct impact on the population of the community – external perspective.
The rationale for making this statement is the fact that the organization is involved in addressing the needs faced by the community. In this way, any changes in its policies are inseparable from development on a larger scale. Based on the identified population, it is evident that the main domain of the problem’s influence is the inability to cope with vital community problems due to being underfinanced.
Analysis of the Arena
All departments of the organization will be the arena of change even though the main target is the financial department. The reason for determining the whole institution as the arena is the fact that change will be implemented on a broader scale to be effective and benefit the community. In this way, all people employed by the agency will be perceived as the drivers of the proposed change.
That being said, department employees will be involved in developing strategies for implementing the proposed improvements, while management (internal stakeholders) and external stakeholders, such as the local government and influential individuals, will be cooperated with to draw the community’s attention to the problem and the criticality of coping with it. As for the consumers – those enjoying the help provided by the Department, – they can be used as those who can create the needed mood in the community and foster the involvement of external stakeholders. This objective can be achieved by launching a campaign in social networks that will point to the existence of the challenge, and motivating ordinary people to share the showed story and statistics can be one of the ways to use the consumers and the community as a whole.
Cooperation between internal and external stakeholders is commonly described in modern literature as one of the most effective ways to address different problems faced by organizations (Mortell & Hansen-Turton, 2012). In this case, however, it is essential to guarantee that stakeholders are aware of their role and power. In other words, an organization or agency should pay special attention to enhancing communication between the representatives of stakeholders belonging to different groups, and it is possible by issuing reports on the needs and progress to address them (Mortell & Hansen-Turton, 2012).
Another popular strategy is seeking the support of nongovernmental organizations by applying to grants. However, in most cases, it requires the introduction of the new program and developing a detailed and attention-grabbing grant proposal proving that the new initiative would benefit the community (Montoya, 2013). Also, the support of voluntary organizations is as well perceived as an efficient tool for increasing the inflow of necessary funds. Still, this one requires quality leadership and morale to be operational (Burke & Cooper, 2012). Finally, in most instances, reviewing expenses to decrease them is used as a strategy for addressing underfunding. However, it is assumed that it is more beneficial to find new donors and attract more resources instead of reallocating the existing funds.
Hypothesis
Proposing the change, it is assumed that in case of reviewing financial policies and introducing relevant alterations, the organization will obtain adequate support of donors other than the government. If this initiative is successful, it will become easier to address all (or, at least, the majority) of vital community needs and benefit the local population in need. For instance, it will be easier to support the local community in paying off tax burned that is not addressed currently or help people in need other than children needing food, shelter, and education or having no constant and adequate access to professional health care. As for now, the main attention is paid to children in need, while other groups of the population are mostly ignored because the agency is underfinanced. In this way, obtaining the support of the donor will be beneficial for initiating positive changes in the community as a whole. It is the central hypothesis of the change proposal.
Change Proposal
Planned Change
As mentioned earlier in the paper, a desirable change will be identified based on the 5P’s approach. As determined, one of the 5P’s that will be addressed in the change proposal is policies. The challenge is that policies developed for attracting funds are ineffective, as around 70% of all financial resources are obtained from the government, while the remaining 30% are collected with the help of other funders. However, in most cases, the remaining need is not satisfied.
Therefore, the desired change is the development of effective strategies for communicating with donors other than the government. The goal is to alter cooperation policies and transfer some of them into the virtual environment to increase the awareness about underfunding and draw attention to the gaps in financing that are necessary to fill as well as decrease the level of financial dependence upon the government. The main objective is to launch a community-wide initiative that will attract donors, such as individual funders and non-governmental, non-profit, and voluntary organizations.
To achieve the desired change, the stakeholder theory of change management is selected as a theoretical framework. According to this approach, cooperation with stakeholders is the key to making the change successful. Still, the stakeholders should be cooperated with based on their potential contribution to the fulfillment of objectives and implementation of change (Hayes, 2014). Based on what was mentioned above about different theoretical frameworks and objectives and desired outcomes of the change, campaign and collaborative strategies are selected for implementing the change and making the new approach to fund attracting policies effectively.
Budget and Staffing
No change is possible without developing the budget and determining people that would be responsible for designing new policies and involved in making them operations. To begin with, it is critical to mention that the ground of the change is a community-wide campaign for attracting more funds. In this way, the additional effort of the external people will be necessary. Also, internal employees will be involved. However, their involvement does not require the allocation of extra funds. That being said, all of the internal changes will correspond with job duties predetermined by the beginning of the change project.
To be concise, the responsibility of the financial department will be to calculate the volume of resources necessary for implementing the programs that are currently underfunded. Also, the employees of this department are required to provide some statistics (for instance, of underfunding of particular programs) to demonstrate the real need to the community and potential funders. As for the employees of other departments, their role is to support the financial department and contribute to the development of the needed statistics because not all details may be identified by the financial department.
For example, the statistics of those requiring help and those members of the community supported by the agency. The motivation is to show that there are real people in the community that does need assistance, but cannot obtain it because of the funding challenges.
As for the outside employees, some people should be hired to design posters and direct videos that will be shared online. In this case, it is essential to note that there is no need to allocate vast volumes of resources in finding popular advertising agencies to become involved in completing this part of the task. Instead, creative youth or freelance directors are assumed to cope with the task perfectly, and their services will be cheaper. At the same time, it is essential to motivate ordinary people, as well as agency employees, to become engaged in initiating change. The belief is that showing them in the videos will make the need for change more visible and persuade funders and influential individuals that the necessity to implement the planned change is critical.
As for the budget, as mentioned above, additional resources are needed only for covering expenses connected to the involvement of external employees and agencies. It means that the effort to avoid unnecessary expenditure will be maximized, as it is essential to find people who would be eager to participate in directing the video for free. See Table 1 for details regarding the budget and staffing.
Table 1: Budget and staffing necessary for implementing the change.
Therefore, the cost of this change is insignificant. It can be covered with salaries and reviewing the current expenditures of the agency. In this way, there is no critical need for searching for cooperation with national or community funders because this change project can be financed internally. Still, if needed, the collaboration with local volunteer organization may be a benefit. However, it requires the development of a concise and detailed change project description and plan.
Planned Implementation of Organizational Change
To implement the change, it is essential to initiate a community-wide campaign that will potentially lead to improved communication with donors and an increased volume of funds allocated by funders other than the government. As mentioned above, the foundation of this campaign is social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and YouTube due to their popularity among the majority of community members.
To introduce the change, it is paramount to cope with several interrelated steps. The first one is the preparation of all statistics that are necessary for including in the planned videos and posters. Another step is to direct the video and create the needed posters. The following step is to post this information in the selected social networks and pay attention to communication with the community, such as answering to the comments and updating people on the developments and progress if any.
When implementing the change, it is critical to be aware of drivers and barriers that are the inseparable element of any change. To determine them, a force field analysis may be a helpful tool. This model is beneficial for understanding what forces might be connected to initiating the change and what might be restraining it, thus achieving the equilibrium and finding the right balance between them. See Table 2 for force field analysis.
Table 2: Force field analysis.
Finally, it is paramount to note that I will be one of the change actors. Working at the Norfolk Department of Human Services, I can and will be involved in preparing statistics necessary for initiating the campaign as well as seek ways to be shown in the video. Also, I will make an effort to motivate employees of all departments to be involved in fostering the change and meeting the deadlines determined for it. Speaking of the deadlines, even though they are nominal, it is still critical to meet them. They can be found in the timeline – Table 3 below.
Table 3: Timeline of the change.
Evaluation
Speaking of evaluation, it will be purely financial and conducted on a timely basis. Because the main objective of the campaign is to attract more resources, the stress will be laid on the volume of attracted funds. However, this one is inseparable from estimating the number of organizations and agencies communicated with, as well as the quality of this communication. The quality of communication can be measured as the number of contacts that entailed the allocation of resources regardless of the size of such allocations.
All in all, to evaluate the effectiveness of the developed plan, the goal approach will be deployed. In particular, the ability to achieve any goal stated – both general of the change project and particularly identified in the timeline – will be used as a standardized measure of evaluation (Smith, King, Sidhu, & Skelsey, 2014). The motivation for choosing this approach is its overall efficiency in estimating the effectiveness of the change management project as well as its easiness in the application.
Core Value of Community
Community is one of Saint Leo University’s main values. It stands for helping to serve the community and contributing to the development of its members through creating the environment of responsiveness, mutual respect, and interdependence (“Mission and values,” n.d.). From this perspective, the proposed change may become the foundation for creating a favorable environment in the local community – one that will help address all needs properly and support those in need concerning their dignity.
References
Burke, R. J., & Cooper, C. L. (Eds.). (2012). Human resource management in the nonprofit sector: Passion, purpose and professionalism. Northampton, MA: Edgar Elgar.
Hayes, J. (2014). The theory and practice of change management (4th ed.). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Iveroth, E., & Hallencreutz, J. (2016). Effective organizational change: Leading through sense-making. New York, NY: Routledge.
Mission and values. (n.d.). Web.
Montoya, C. (2013). From global to grassroots: The European Union, transnational advocacy, and combating violence against women. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Mortell, M., & Hansen-Turton, T. (Eds.). (2012). Making strategy count in the health and human services sector: Lessons learned from 20 organizations and chief strategy officers. New York, NY: Springer.
Smith, R., King, D., Sidhu, R., & Skelsey, D. (Eds.). (2014). The effective change manager’s handbook: Essential guidance to the change management body of knowledge. Philadelphia, PA: Kogan Page.