Urban League takes a shot at Developing it's own Priorities

What a difference $46,000 doesn’t make.

Ten months ago, the Las Vegas-Clark County Urban League, a $4.5 million nonprofit organization, spent that much money on a strategic plan.

The state Health and Human Services Department told the group to develop a blueprint for positioning itself to be the Las Vegas Valley’s largest poverty-fighting organization. So it chose Gary Stokes of Mountain Consulting to do the job. The result: 10 pages with references to strategies, outcome, three-year indicators, Year One benchmarks — but few specifics.

Now the organization’s board has decided to do it all over again — for free.

A report submitted by a committee of three at the board’s April 23 meeting noted that the strategic plan should have “more emphasis placed on results” and ensure benchmarks are attained.

Kathleen Paustian, spokeswoman for the local Urban League, says the two versions will form “an ongoing, living document — not one replacing the other.”

The first report, the $46,000 one, outlined part of the next two years for the Urban League in the following way: Complete a plan to address poverty in the first year and seek funding for it; present the plan to “the community” and “coordinate internal and external programs” in the second year.

There’s little to no elaboration on any of that. The report doesn’t say what the community is, doesn’t say what those programs are or how to determine whether they are coordinated.

Its benchmarks included “seventy-five percent or more of programs ... achieve program objectives.”

The first draft of the new plan refers to a series of specific programs, though it’s still not clear how the success of those programs will be measured.

There’s no “75 percent of the people in job training program X will find jobs within six months and hold those jobs for at least six months,” for example.

The three-person committee is awaiting opinions from the other 15 board members about the newest version of the plan. Time will tell whether the volunteers can do better than the company hired with public money.

•••