Identifying and Promoting Best Practices
Understanding
Best Practices | Key
Steps in Promoting and Fostering Best Practices
Identifying Best Practices
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6In order to identify and promote best practices as part of the capacity building services offered to FBCOs, you have two options:
- Identify existing best practices that have already been validated to meet the criteria of a best practice and that meet the needs of the FBCOs served.
OR
- Identify and validate new best practices that meet the needs of the FBCOs served.
You may want to do a combination of both, identifying existing practices where possible, and new practices where needed to fill in the gaps in knowledge and practice. Let's take a closer look at each of these options.
How to Identify
and Validate Existing Best Practices
There are several starting points for you to begin the process of conducting research to identify best practices. These include, but are not limited to:
- Use the National Resource Center's Intermediary
Development Series guidebooks to identify best practices
in key areas of nonprofit operations. Each of the guidebooks
in the series provides detailed information and resources regarding
a key area of capacity building for FBCOs. This is a great
place to begin the process of identifying existing best and
promising practices.
- Utilize the articles, resources and websites included in this guidebook and
the Appendix to search for best practices in a certain dimension
or sector.
- Identify existing best practices through networking with other nonprofit organizations
and academics to determine the practices they have identified
as successful. Suggested organizations and groups for networking
to identify best practices are listed below. If the source being
used does not fit one of these categories, exercising due diligence
will ensure that the source is using sound processes and criteria
to select and evaluation best practices.
- National and local foundations
- Regional Associations of Grantmakers (RAGs)
- State and Federal grant programs
- Universities and academia
- National and local think tanks and research institutes
- United Ways
- Other corporate giving programs
- National policymaker associations such as the U.S. Conference of Mayors or the National Governor's Association
- Faith-based networks and associations such as the Christian Community Development Association or the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability
- State and national nonprofit associations
- You can also search for existing best practices through utilizing searchable web-based databases that house descriptions of best practices. Some sample sources are included in the Appendix.
The primary way in which you can identify existing best practices is through conducting thorough literature reviews to pinpoint those practices that have been identified and validated by other social service organizations and academicians. For example, the University of Nebraska, a 2002 Capital Compassion Fund (CCF) grantee, has identified a research validated best practice for use by the behavioral health FBCOs it serves—the Wraparound approach. The University's NEBHANDS Project, focusing on creating an integrated behavioral healthcare system for the State of Nebraska, is providing extensive training and individual consultations to assist FBCOs in implementing Wraparound.
Wraparound is an approach to treatment to help families (typically those with the most challenging children) function more effectively in the community. Wraparound empowers parents by involving them in the planning and implementation of the services for their family.
The approach has been extensively researched by social scientists and defined as a best practice.2 In providing training and technical assistance on Wraparound, NEBHANDS staff not only provides mentoring themselves, but the team has engaged an expert in the field to conduct video conferencing training and to provide one-on-one coaching to organizations. In addition, FBCOs desiring to implement Wraparound are linked with local experts with extensive experience in the treatment approach.
St. Vincent de Paul Village (Father Joe's Villages), a 2002 CCF grantee, has been cited by the University of Southern California's Center for Religion and Civic Culture as an organization demonstrating “promising practices” in the provision of comprehensive care for homeless individuals and families. On their website, the Center outlines why St. Vincent de Paul's programs qualify as promising practices:
St. Vincent de Paul Village represents an effective and innovative provider of homeless services. First, it has been a groundbreaker in programming, pioneering what is now widely referred to as the Continuum of Care model. Next, it has successfully widened its scope through meaningful collaboration with other community organizations in both the public and private spheres. And recently, it has been a leader in leveraging the capacity of other faith-based organizations through the Village Training Institute, a Compassion Capital Fund (CCF) based initiative. Thus, St. Vincent de Paul Village offers many features that have proven to be effective, can be replicated by other similar organizations, and hold promise of attracting stable public and private financial support.3
Understanding
Best Practices | Key
Steps in Promoting and Fostering Best Practices