A National Imperative: Joining Forces to Strengthen Human Services in America (Jan 2018)

approached thinking about procurement and its relations with CBOs. There’s more emphasis on partnership and collaboration, less on transactions and costs.

For example: previously, funding provided to a CBO providing child welfare supports could only be used to cover services directly involved in supporting a child in their care. Now, if a CBO determines that a child’s need is rooted in a parent’s mental health or substance abuse disorder, funds can be more flexibly allocated to help both the parent and the child, with the ultimate aim of improving the overall well-being of the child. Similarly, if a CBO determines that investment in indirect expenses that are not program-specific, such as improved mobile technology infrastructure, is critical to their ability to deliver services effectively, they have greater flexibility to allocate funding to these types of expenses. With costs to provide services fully funded by DHS, private funders have turned their efforts toward helping CBOs invest in organizational strength, capacity- building, and innovation. These funders generally provide unrestricted grants and donations that can be used by CBOs to cover costs where needed. Private foundations also work closely with CBOs and DHS to design, fund, and test new and innovative methods of delivering services. Well-funded and financially strong, CBOs are prepared to handle shifts in demand and periods or financial stress. They have built up healthy cash reserves, and have contingency plans for how to respond to financial stress. The County’s human services CBOs have also invested some of their private funding in technology to streamline operations – to automate reporting and other administrative functions. As a result, CBO employees are spending much more of their time actually serving people and far less time on unnecessary and redundant paperwork. CBO employees report far greater satisfaction with their jobs and work environments, and CBOs now have the resources to provide salaries and benefits competitive with hospitals and for‑profit providers. How does the County DHS afford this new approach to reimbursement and contracting? Part of the answer is that the transformation of Freedom County’s human services ecosystem has transformed the County, and the local CBOs are strong and successful. When the human service system reoriented itself to focus on outcomes over outputs, outcomes started improving. And as a result of these better outcomes, the County’s residents are healthier and more productive – and impose fewer burdens on the County’s hospitals, courts, and jails. The incidence of diabetes is down. Obesity is down. Petty crime is down. Freedom County’s DHS, CBOs, and private funders joined forces to align on the same objectives – to determine which services produce the best outcomes for the County’s residents and to allocate funding toward CBOs providing those services. With support from both DHS and private funders, CBOs began

48 |   A NATIONAL IMPERATIVE