FINAL TEAM WRITING ASSIGNMENT – “Woodlawn Community Hous
FINAL TEAM WRITING ASSIGNMENT – “Woodlawn Community House’s Strategic Plan – Why, How and What?Woodlawn Community House has been a venerated institution in Dorchester, a neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, for 100 years. Established on the “settlement house” model as a center of social and health services and political and social reform, Woodlawn’s early directors lived there with their families. Over the years the model changed. Now Woodlawn is a multi-service agency run by a professional CEO with a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Policy and a Master’s Degree in Social Work. The settlement house’s mission, adopted in 1950, is Woodlawn Community House: An Open Door, a Helping Hand, and a Beacon of Light for all Ages and Creeds.Woodlawn’s Board of Directors consists of 30 men and women (mostly men), who have served on the Board for 20 years or more. In some cases, the son, or grandson of the original board member is now on the Board, as part of a family tradition of “giving back”. None of the Board members live in the neighborhood these days, as most are active or retired from business or law and live in Chicago’s affluent north side neighborhoods. Most Board members are devoted to the agency and solicit their friends and business associates for funding during a December Annual Appeal. Every other year, Woodlawn’s Board and staff hold a large dinner GALA. With the help of volunteers, dozens of staff, and donations of liquor, music and decorations, the GALA attracts 500 people, raises $ 500,000 and spends only $ 200,000. The GALA is attended primarily by the friends and associates of the Board members.)Woodlawn has an $ 8 million budget, $ 6.5 million of which comes from the City and State. Most of the funding goes to staff and programs, since Woodlawn has owned its own building since the 1950’s. The agency serves a wide range of populations in the adjacent neighborhoods. The programs include Senior Hot Lunch followed by Bingo and Majong clubs, Meals on Wheels for the homebound, a Sewing Circle where neighbors receive lessons and materials for making their own clothes, a day care program for children ages 2-5, an after-school program providing homework help, board games, and music lessons for ages 6-10, and a teen program of sports for boys ages 10-16 and cooking classes for girls ages 10-16.Woodlawn also runs a summer camp in nearby Indiana for ages 13-17, where families can send teens for 2 weeks for a modest fee. The Camp has been a beloved tradition for neighborhood families for over 50 years, with subsidiesfrom a community Summer Breeze Fund; but the cost of running the camp has been increasing and has contributed to an agency deficit in recent years.Once a stable, white working class and low income neighborhood, Dorchester has changed over the years as middle class African Americans, and working class immigrants from South Asia have arrived in growing numbers. As Chicago has experienced a spike in gang and gun violence, some it has erupted in neighborhoods not far from Dorchester. As the populations have changed, the use of Woodlawn’s services has declined. The CEO is concerned that the agency may not be honoring its mission anymore.The CEO of your agency (or the top manager in your department) decided to embark on a strategic planning process. She/he has asked you for a memorandum answering the questions listed below. Prepare a 6 page memo focusing on all (or most) of the questions. If you think some of the questions are NOT relevant to your agency, don’t ignore the question. Explain why.1. Key Questions: What are the key, basic or long run questions that the agency should address in a strategic planning process at this point in time? Identify the question(s) and explain why you chose them.2. Mission Statement: Should the agency keep, amend, or replace its Mission Statement? Explain3. Decision Making: Who should be directly involved in the strategic planning process? Explaina. Who should be part of the Strategic Planning Committee? “The SP Committee”.b. Who should be directly consulted or surveyed by the SP Committee?How would you do that? (calls? Meetings? Surveys? Other?)c. What would you consider to be the ideal relationship between the SP Committee and the agency’s managers, supervisors and line staff?d. Who should not be involved at all?e. What role, if any, should the agency’s government and private funders play in the process?f. Who should make the FINAL DECISION on the adoption of the Strategic Planning Document?4. Data: Describe at least five (5) types of internal agency data/information you believe should be collected and reviewed as part of the planning process?5. External (environmental) scan: What kind of outside/environmental information should the SP Committee gather? How should the SP Committee find the information?6. Programs:a. Are all the programs in the agency consistent with the mission? Are there any that no longer seem as relevant as they once were? If so, should they be eliminated, modified, or better implemented?b. Are there programs in the agency that should be eliminated due toi. low usage?ii. excess competition?iii. poor results?iv. insufficient funding available?v. other reasons?c. Are there programs or services your agency does not provide now that you believe would benefit clients and should be added? Identify and explain7. Should the Strategic Plan that emerges be distributed to all staff? Explaina. Clients?b. Funders?c. The public?
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