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Community Action Partnership
Excellence in Community Action

LATEST NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Organizational Leadership (Category 1) and Customer Focus (Category 3) Standards of Excellence Category Guides now Available

2008 Standards of Excellence Released

2008 Award Application Package Now Available

Become an Award/Pathways Reviewer in 2008!
2008 Award/Pathways Reviewer Training Application (PDF version)
2008 Award/Pathways Reviewer Training Application (Word version)

Is your Community Action Agency ready for national recognition and honors for demonstrating quality, performance, and excellence on an on-going basis? If so, are you willing to undertake a rigorous and substantive self-study and subsequent peer review to confirm and document your approach to excellence? Are you then willing to share best practices and knowledge with your peers?

Award for Excellence in Community Action

The Award for Excellence is dedicated to recognizing excellence and perpetuating it nationwide among all CAAs committed to improving how they do business. It represents the very best we have to offer — those organizational qualities that set Community Action Agencies apart from others when it comes to performance, community service, and overall excellence.

The Award is modeled after the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, but it is tailored to the structure and mission of Community Action Agencies. Like the Baldrige Award, the Award for Excellence incorporates a national recognition component and as well as a learning/improvement component. The Award’s self-study requirement examines an applicant’s best practices in seven organizational areas.

Pathways to Excellence

Pathways to Excellence is the Partnership’s initiative to build the capacity of CAAs through learning and continuous improvement. Pathways uses the same tools as the Award for Excellence — the Community Action Standards of Excellence and a rigorous self-assessment process — to help CAAs foster an agency-wide environment of excellence and determine organizational strengths and opportunities for improvement.

CAAs enrolling in Pathways receive two days of training for up to three of their staff members in the Standards and how to conduct an organizational self-study. Enrollees also receive "Moving from Compliance to Excellence: A Guide for Conducting an Organizational Self-Study." Each CAA then has nine months in which to complete its self-study and submit it for peer review. Each Pathways CAA receives a comprehensive written feedback report to use as a roadmap on its journey toward excellence.

The Community Action Partnership has announced a new initiative this year involving State Associations and State CSBG Offices. These entities may jointly sponsor Pathways to Excellence in their state as a capacity building initiative focusing on excellence rather than compliance. It is a voluntary and collaborative initiative that may be customized in each sponsoring state to include: flexible start times and CAA enrollment schedules, in-state training, and in-state support tailored to the needs of enrolled CAAs. Contact the Partnership for more information.

There may be multiple Pathways cycles each year.

Award Recipients/Oversight/Quality Resources

The Excellence initiatives are guided by the Community Action Partnership Board of Directors and administered by a nine-member Award for Excellence Commission representing the Community Action network.




Community Action Partnership
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1140 Connecticut Avenue, Suite 1210 Washington, DC 20036 - 202-265-7546 (fax 202-265-8850)
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