The Neighborhood Partnership Fund, an OR nonprofit, is seeking a full time Asset Building Manager to focus on asset building for individuals and families . Must be detail oriented, have strong written/verbal communication skills and experience in program analysis and evaluation. Requires demonstrated organizational development, research/ analytical skills and proficiency in Microsoft Word and Access. Three or more years in asset building or a closely related field required. Experience with resident services or employment a plus.

Full job description and application packet available at http://www.tnpf.org/news/ab_manager.php.

Salary based on experience. Good benefits and retirement plan provided. E-mail cover letter, resume, application, and responses to questions by 4:30 PM 06-17-08 tocwinter@tnpf.org. Equal Opportunity Employer.

The YMCA centers in Portland offered nearly $300,000 in child-care scholarships last year to low-income families, including Fackler’s.

Deborah Murray, executive director at the Peninsula Children’s Center in North Portland, said the difference between what the state reimbursed and her center’s costs ranged from $160 to $300 per child each month.

How did the nonprofit stay in business?

“We got a bunch of grants. Hired a full-time development director and spent our time fundraising like crazy,” Murray says.

But the low state subsidy also meant some of the center’s staff earned little more than minimum wage.

Now that the state has increased its subsidy, Murray says the reimbursement is much closer to the actual cost of care.

She’s able to give staff raises. And more of the low-income parents who bring their children to the center have been able to qualify for help. (emphasis mine)

One of the things that doesn’t make sense to me about the way funding for nonprofit works, whether the source be government grants or private donors and foundations, is that there is a bias against covering the costs of wages for the people who actually do the work. A number of the grants I managed previously had funds only for “direct services,” and required that the cost of staffing necessary to provide those “direct” services be raised elsewhere. This ongoing funding crunch makes it hard to develop new programs or take on projects, as staff are already maxed out on responsibilities–and are not being paid a living wage or close to it.

One of the most annoying things I have experienced is looking at income guidelines for some of the federally-funded housing programs and realizing that a lot of the people who provide those services earn so little that they themselves are eligible for the subsidies.

CoC funds are awarded competitively, and are based on past performance. Unfortunately, advocates for homeless programs in rural areas have not been successful in getting the message across to HUD and legislators that rural homelessness is different from urban homelessness, both in causes, the demographics of those experiencing homelessness, and in levels of local resources for providing the full range of services needed in order to stabilize individuals and families and help them remain housed.

I really hate to see this kind of decision, which ultimately will encourage regressive practices such as handing homeless people bus tickets to the Big City so they can get help there.

One way that I’ve used ROMA tools to improve my program management that has nothing to do with submitting loads of data to the government involves outcome reports for case managers. It seemed pretty obvious to me, but when I shared it at the ROMA training yesterday, a number of people seemed to think it was an example of best practices. In case it might be helpful to anyone else in my position out there, I wanted to discuss it a bit.

All of the programs I work with have outcomes associated with them. One way that I’ve worked to focus our energy on accomplishing those is through outcome reports that we now use on a weekly basis. Staff receive individual reports on performance, noting outstanding goals and also showing overall outcomes.

Being able to see outcomes-to-date helps keep all of us aware of the successes we are having with the people we serve, and it’s good motivation–”You’re doing a great job!” is not the same as “Did you notice that you are having an 82% entered employment rate with your homeless clients? Compared to national averages, that is remarkable.”

Outcome check-ins help me and my staff to be more accountable, and it helps us make fast corrections when we get off course with programs or individual clients.

By the way, I email out reports, so it’s not destroying the environment.