Pivoting a Program to Success (Executive Leadership)
Attendees will leave with ideas, strategies and tools to better their own CAP programs by identifying the critical components related to successful corporate governance, efficient use of management and staff.
Turning a Struggling CAP Agency Around: Testimonies and Best Practices for Boards and Chief Executives to Consider
In this presentation, the speaker will share his testimony of being a rookie Executive Director of a Community Action Agency in North Carolina. As he’ll share, his program was in deep trouble upon him being handed the reins (much of the problems not made aware to him during his interview process). Of note, he received communication from the Regional Office that his program’s Head Start grant was slated to be terminated for failure to correct a deficiency (that he had no knowledge of) during his fifth week on the job! That was really one (though largest) of many other systemic problems within the agency.
Of course, the speaker and his newly assembled management team were able to address these problems (and many other ones), survive DRS for its Head Start grant, avoid a Department of Labor audit of its retirement plan, and weather various staff vacancies (including key management positions) to get to a stable place where the program is today. In this presentation (which is intended to be an open forum as well for attendees to share and discuss), the speaker will provide an overview of major issues a CAP agency leader (Board members, Executive Directors) should consider and address when striving to turn around a struggling CAP agency. The goal is to move from non-compliance to compliance to program excellence. The speaker has polled a number of successful Executive Directors throughout the southeast and will share some of their wisdom for turning around a struggling CAP agency.
Attendees will leave with ideas, strategies and tools to better their own CAP programs by identifying the critical components related to successful corporate governance, efficient use of management and staff, and in many respects, learning from the speaker’s mistakes as a rookie Executive Director as well as his (and his team’s) ultimate successes with turning around their CAP program and getting back in the good graces of Head Start and the CSBG program (as well as various community stakeholders who had lost faith in the CAP agency).