Center for Civic Partnerships

Sustainability

Sustainability Tools – 10 Steps to Maintaining Your Community Improvements

The Sustainability Toolkit: 10 Steps to Maintaining Your Community Improvements grew out of the Center for Civic Partnerships’ efforts to provide technical support to collaboratives and organizations on sustaining their community improvements. As we tested different processes with groups, we developed a 10-step process to guide communities through sustainability planning. Below is a brief description of the 10 steps. We have provided links to additional reading at the end. If you would like descriptions of the activities and additional tools for sustainability based on these steps, you can download the toolkit order form at Sustainability Toolkit or call 916-646-8680 to have an order form sent to you.

We provide a variety of training and consultation services to help groups develop, implement and sustain community improvements. We would welcome an opportunity to discuss how the sustainability process and materials might be of benefit to your organization or coalition. Please contact Val Sheehan, Program Manager, at 916-646-8680 or vsheehan@civicpartnerships.org for additional information, current references and/or rates.

10 Steps to Sustainability

Create a shared understanding of sustainability.

Sustainability means different things to different people. To some, it’s about getting more money. To others, it’s about keeping partners and volunteers engaged. It may even get someone thinking about new things for the group to do. These different definitions of sustainability point out the need for a group working on sustainability to come up with a common definition.

While there are a number of sustainability definitions in the literature, we have chosen a broad definition, which can include improvements in education, employment, housing and other areas, along with more traditional healthcare and public health improvements.
Sustainability: The continuation of community health or quality of life benefits over time.

Position your effort to increase your sustainability odds.

There are a number of factors that influence the likelihood that you will be able to sustain your community improvements. These include a number of choices made at the beginning of an effort and throughout implementation. In the planning stages of an activity, it is wise to consider creative ways to ensure that the loss of one source of funding won’t severely jeopardize continuation. One group that created a neighborhood resource center asked each participating organization to provide services in the resource center using their existing funds (vs. having one grant pay for all of the services). This way, even if one agency could no longer provide a service, the majority of the activities would remain.
Create a plan to work through the process.

With any strategic planning process, it helps to think through the details of the process before you begin. Who needs to be involved (e.g., coordinator, subcommittee, facilitator)? How long will it take? What is the commitment of the individuals involved?
Look at the current picture and pending items.

Before you being to decide which activities to continue, it is important to have a clear picture of what you are currently doing. With busy people and organizations that are involved in a variety of programs, it’s easy to overlook something. A simple way to make sure that the group is clear on the activities under discussion is simply to present a list of the efforts. It can also help at this stage to look at upcoming events (e.g., pending funding, policy changes, new projects) that may impact continuation of one or more of your efforts.
Develop criteria to help determine what to continue.

Engaging in a criteria exercise can assist the group in looking more critically at whether or not activities should be continued. We recommend that the group select the 3-5 most important questions (or criteria) that they want answered before they can decide what to continue. Potential criteria include questions of impact, capacity to continue, broad community support and continued need. Gather/review the information needed and answer these questions about each of your activities listed in the prior step.
Decide what to continue and prioritize.

Now it’s time to decide which efforts your group should continue (or ask others to take over). Many groups have difficulty making these types of decisions. They don’t want to admit that something hasn’t worked, especially if a member is passionate about the activity. Perhaps discontinuing an effort will lead to staff having to find other jobs. It can be extremely helpful to have a skilled, neutral facilitator for this step.

Most likely, there will be some activities that will not be continued. Some efforts may simply be complete and don’t need to be repeated in the near future (e.g., policy forum or health fair). Other programs may not have been successful. While you will not be continuing these efforts after the current funding ends, it is important not to forget about them. In any case, make sure you complete the necessary steps to close out these activities. Also, if it is a client-based service (e.g., injury prevention program), help the individuals transition into another program and/or give them suggestions on where to go for assistance.
Create options for maintaining your priority efforts (including funding issues).

Now that you have decided what you want to continue, it’s time to figure out how to make it happen. Fortunately, there is a lot of information out there to assist you, especially when it comes to fundraising. Flexibility is a key concept for this phase of your planning. It is important to be flexible in exploring potential options for continuation. Just because you decide to continue an existing effort doesn’t mean that the same organization may be doing it in the same way.

Some of the things to consider in this stage are:

What results have you achieved that justify continuing this effort?

To whom is this effort important (or who benefits) and do you have their commitment to finding resources (not necessarily money) for this effort?

What cost effectiveness, cost savings or other financial justification can you document for this effort?

What resources (financial and other) are needed to continue?

What are some possible sources of resources for continuing this effort?
Develop a sustainability plan.

Developing a concrete plan and creating a short summary of it will help your group organize the information and stay on track.

We recommend that you develop two documents as part of your sustainability plan:

An action plan, which lists the steps to be accomplished, the due dates and who will be responsible for implementing each step. Verify that your timeline is realistic and won’t leave a gap between when the current funding ends and when the new resources would begin.

A brief summary, to be used as a marketing document. On one sheet of paper (double-sided), briefly explain who your group is, highlight a few key accomplishments/outcomes, describe what you want to continue and list what you need for that to happen (policy change, in-kind support, another organization to take over a project, financial resources, etc.). Make many copies of this document and share it with everyone (e.g., colleagues, funders, neighbors, friends and association members). You never know who will help you find the resource you need.
Implement your sustainability plan.

You’ve made it through the planning and now you’re ready for implementation. Grab that action plan and get to work! Check in with the individuals involved in carrying out the plan activities to see how things are going. Remain open to new opportunities that may arise, which are better than your original option. Marketing and networking are very important in this phase. It may help to secure additional assistance (staff, consultants, interns and/or volunteers) to help balance the regular project tasks with the sustainability activities. Keep people engaged and celebrate as you find resources for continuation.
Evaluate your outcomes and revise as needed.

Review the list of efforts you wanted to continue – have you secured the necessary resources (e.g., funding, in-kind commitments)? As you implemented your plan, you may have had to pursue more than one option or change your strategy. If you are not able to continue an activity, you may have to revise your plan and phase down the effort instead. It helps to think back to the beginning of this process for a moment. The goal of sustainability is the continuation of community health and/or quality of life benefits over time. Make sure there is a mechanism in place to monitor whether the efforts continue to improve the health of your community.

Sustainability

Sustainability Tools – 10 Steps to Maintaining Your Community Improvements

10 Steps to Sustainability

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