Making Demonstration Projects Work: Lessons Learned
Through the State Youth Development Collaboration Projects
FYSB’s State Youth Development Collaboration Projects, implemented
between 1998 and 2003, were designed to explore how to effectively
incorporate youth development policy and practice into State and local
youth-serving systems. The experiences of the State Collaboration
Projects provide lessons that may inform the efforts of organizations
and communities launching similar efforts.
Among the many lessons learned are: (1) the need to commit time and
resources to planning, both before a new demonstration is launched
and throughout the life of the project, and (2) the functional activities
critical to project success, including collaboration, marketing, resource
development, and evaluation. Through sound planning and by concentrating
on essential functional areas, demonstration projects can create a
strong foundation for enduring and positive change.
The Components of Sound Planning
The best demonstration projects typically are managed by agencies
with sound organizational planning processes that enable them to do
the following: (1) create and routinely refine an organizational strategic
plan (including establishing a mission and goals), (2) conduct an
ongoing assessment of organizational progress (assessing procedures,
identifying strengths and areas for improvement, and evaluating program
outcomes), (3) identify and then address areas of service delivery
gaps or special needs, and (4) select and bid for demonstration projects
that will help the organization build capacity to meet the needs of
its service population and community.
Moreover, a strong planning process helps organizations to plan for,
implement, and learn from demonstration projects. Through careful
planning before submitting a demonstration grant proposal, organizations
can set realistic goals (in relation to the organization’s capacity
and other existing supports, including external partners); devise
systems for managing project tasks (staffing and operational procedures);
and conduct continuous quality assurance activities:
- Setting realistic goals: While demonstration projects are
often intended to achieve lofty goals, such as policy changes that
will improve how systems respond to young people, it is critical
that demonstration project teams set specific objectives toward
achieving those goals that are reasonable and measurable. For example,
a project might have the overall goal of increasing the integration
of positive youth development principles into the work of a predetermined
number of youth-related organizations. The specific objectives to
accomplish that goal might include conducting and evaluating the
impact of project-led staff trainings. Achievement of the objective
could be measured through the number of trainings offered, people
trained, and organizations reached through the training; the overarching
goal could be measured by conducting structured followup interviews
with trainees to assess whether changes in organizational policies
or procedures were instituted as a result of the training experience.
- Developing systems for managing project tasks: Because
demonstration projects are funded to enhance knowledge about key
issues, build capacity in the youth service field, or create systems
change, it is fundamentally important to manage them within a strong
operational framework. By developing standard operating procedures
for managing project activities that can be adapted for use by new
demonstration projects, organizations ensure that project teams
can focus on the creative and analytical aspects of designing, implementing,
and learning from each new project. These standard procedures should
include, for example, methods for keeping budget expenditures on
track, training staff, preparing reports to funders, and creating
written products.
- Conducting continuous quality assurance activities: The
very nature of demonstration projects suggests the need for a continuous
quality improvement system. If the goal of such projects is to learn
what works, adjustments to strategies, staffing, and even goals
and objectives must be made on an ongoing basis and should result
from a careful analytical process. In addition, more often than
not, proposed strategies must be adjusted because of changes in
the policy climate resulting from mid-project political elections,
other community and economic conditions that impact project activities,
and changes in the organization managing the demonstration project.
Quality assurance systems are focused on identifying successes,
building upon those successes, and assessing and addressing problems.
While evaluation is a component of any good quality assurance process,
even an annual evaluation does not ensure that an organization is
operating in a continuous improvement environment.
Quality assurance activities can include tracking project actions
and related outcomes; conducting quarterly project reviews; using
an outside facilitator or management consultant to help assess project
progress; and soliciting feedback from those whom the project activities
are designed to benefit, including community leaders and other social
service partners. The most effective quality assurance systems,
however, comprise more than one method of assessing programs or
organizations and include procedures for routinely enhancing how
both function.
Functional Activities Critical to Project Success
FYSB’s State Youth Development Collaboration Projects also
identified several functional activities as being both critical to
their success and challenging to achieve.
These include forging collaborations, conducting marketing and resource
development activities, and evaluating project activities in relation
to outcomes. The following section provides information about each,
with a link to sections of publications on the National Clearinghouse
on Families & Youth (NCFY) Web site that address the topic:
- Collaboration: Collaboration is central to the work of
FYSB’s State Youth Development projects, and it plays a role
in many nationally funded demonstration efforts. Collaboration is
not in and of itself a goal, but rather a process toward achieving
an objective, for example, bringing together cabinet-level agencies
to develop a standard grant application process. And collaboration
is hard; it requires a commitment of time and resources, and a willingness
to change. At the heart of successful collaborations is bringing
together disparate interests in the pursuit of a common goal. This
process requires strong facilitation and a willingness among the
partners to honestly discuss the factors that have stymied similar
collaborative efforts in the past and to explore both the benefits
and costs so often associated with the change that collaborations
are intended to produce.
Essential to this exploratory process is the recognition that collaborative
partners can play quite different roles while working toward the
same goal. Some youth-serving organizations, for example, are designed
to work for change within existing systems, while others are set
up to advocate for change from the outside. To ensure success, therefore,
all the players involved must develop an understanding of the strengths,
and limitations, that the other partners bring to the process; building
on those strengths will ensure that the collaborative process produces
positive results.
- Marketing: Marketing plays myriad roles in all demonstration
projects. It is intended to enhance the visibility of, and generate
support for, the project with community members, policymakers, and
potential collaborative partners both at project initiation and
throughout the life of the project. As the project progresses, marketing
enables staff to share the lessons learned, both positive outcomes
achieved and challenges faced, with other professionals across the
country.
Effective marketing begins with the development of a plan that addresses
the following: (1) marketing goals, (2) activities, (3) target audience,
and (4) projected outcomes and measurement method. Project teams
should develop an overall marketing plan at the project’s
inception and adapt it as necessary, especially as new activities
are implemented, lessons are learned, or products are developed.
Marketing also comprises both complex activities, such as planning
and implementing an outreach strategy for linking with targeted
community sectors, and routine activities, such as responding to
requests for information from the public or the media.
A solid marketing plan is designed to guide an organization’s
efforts to effectively disseminate information on the project’s
interim and final findings and to build interest in, and collaboration
in support of, the project so that project activities will continue
after outside funding ends. And, most important, marketing is intended
to positively change public perception regarding the demonstration
project activities or services, the parent organization, and young
people.
- Resource development: Obviously, most demonstration projects
are short term, and funding rarely continues past the demonstration
phase. Organizations seeking to continue effective project activities
after Federal or foundation funding ends, therefore, must design
and implement resource development (project resource management
and fundraising) plans that will enable them to do so. Such plans
include strategies both for integrating successful project approaches
into organizational programs and for identifying new funding sources
for continuing the demonstration activities independent of existing
organizational resources.
In developing the fundraising section of the plan, project teams
must assess what they have to offer funders and the young people
and communities that they serve (using the project review and evaluation
activities cited above). Their research into funding sources then
will be focused on matching their proposal to the interest of funding
sources.
- Evaluation: Evaluation, if conducted in a continuous quality
improvement environment, can help organizational leaders identify
what works and why, make midcourse corrections to faulty hypotheses
or assumptions, and enhance demonstration projects in an ongoing
fashion. Moreover, evaluations enable project teams to document
that project objectives not only were achieved, but were effective;
this is critical to being able to share project lessons with others
and to obtain continuing funding for effective strategies. Conducting
an effective evaluation involves selecting the right evaluator,
working closely with the evaluator to design the evaluation, and
having the evaluator collaborate with project staff to create a
system for using the interim evaluation results to inform ongoing
project implementation.
Creating a Foundation for Long-Term Change For most agencies implementing demonstration projects, effectiveness
in one of these functional areas strengthens efforts in others. For
example, well-designed collaborations allow projects to market to
wider audiences; sound evaluation efforts create credibility with
potential partners and funders; successful marketing strengthens resource
development efforts; and a well-designed and -implemented resource
development plan makes possible ongoing support for promising project
activities. Through sound planning and by focusing on these functional
areas, demonstration project teams can create a strong foundation
for ongoing and positive change in policies and services affecting
young people. |
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