Integrated Development Partnership

IDP is a development program that hires into Community Partnership of the Ozarks (CPO) for the purpose of developing skills to increase the chance of successful employment through providing a safe space for '2nd chance employees' to learn and grow.  Participants and their internal development team form a robust inventory of participant values, skills, strengths, weaknesses, job match and goals. Participants collaborate and work with a wide variety of community and social services agencies to help ensure basic needs are met and critical skills are built.  Often, for the target demographic, past or current circumstances have ill-prepared them for success in life or work, and this project attempts to equip them with a community and a goal-oriented development experience that will increase opportunity of obtaining and maintaining employment. Alumni of the program will continue to have access to a technology resource that keeps them closely linked to community, partners, resources, and benefits.

The target population for our solution is: 

• Transitioning military
  • The US Department of Labor reported 284,000 unemployed veterans in 2019.
• Domestic violence victims
  • Unemployment has been demonstrated to contribute to domestic abuse.  A research paper by the University of London and the University of Munich titled Unemployment and Domestic Violence:
    Theory and Evidence demonstrates that female unemployment is a contributing factor to domestic abuse, citing an increase in the incidence of domestic abuse by up to 10%.
• Prison re-entry and halfway house inmates
  • According to the US Department of Justice, an estimated 68% of 2,005 released prisoners were arrested within 3 years, 79% within 6 years, and 83% within 9 years.
• African Americans
  • Systemic racism continues to plague the African American community.
• Aging out of foster care

These demographics often have greater challenges to success as a result of their current or past circumstances that may have little to do with their ability to achieve and sustain their version of a successful life.  The problem can be summarized as a gap problem, whether it be knowledge gaps, resource gaps, cultural gaps, or gaps in the support systems of the target populations.  This solution delivers tools and learning to close those gaps.

The solution has a web based component and a physical component.  The web based component is designed to get to know the individual completely; and thus leverages existing and innovated data collection tools and systems, such as location tracking, audio recording, etc.  The web page consists of a 'managed profile' technology, which is a case managed (eventually autonomous) UI, designed to assist users every step of the way to achieving their goals, delivering on one page, key to-do items, a library of resources, and other coordinating activities to help them work toward their goals.  The physical component is made up of an employment experience within a community service organization, which collaborates with over 450 community leaders and partners on a regular basis - resources that can collectively meet the needs of most anyone, including community and mental health agencies, housing, utility, and transportation resources, skill-building agencies, a banking coalition, and eventually this resource, which also fills in the gaps, to name a few.  Areas requiring experiential learning may include overcoming one's ego barrier or spotting one's blind spots - which doesn't take place efficiently in modern workplaces, as well as building value-added personal and professional habits.

The target population for IDP is:

• Transitioning military
• Domestic violence victims
• Prison re-entry and halfway house inmates
• African Americans
• Aging out of foster care

The needs of this target population are complex, and for that reason IDP is nestled under the Financial Stability Program at Community Partnership of the Ozarks (CPO), which is at the center of meeting the needs of these populations and has been for over 25 years.  

CPO collaborates with over 450 community leaders in  business, social services, community, governmental, and quasi governmental agencies and has extensive experience in working with those in poverty to deliver solutions to homelessness/affordable housing, early childhood education, family development and substance use/prevention, just to name a few.  In other words, the agency is adept at meeting the basic needs of the population and this solution adds a goals-based needs and development component where there is a fit.

The first component to reimagining is redefining what it means to be employed and leveraging the opportunities for development that employment offers, particularly if goal-based needs and development is used as a launch pad to further success.  The second component to reimagining involves exploring the role of technology along the path.  Even great well-thought out pathways have inherent and often unforeseen risks.  The technology partnership equips the individuals on pathways with a resource to fall back on at any point during their life transitions and transformations, to ensure that as pathways evolve, probabilities of success don't. 

51 - full time

5 - part time

CPO has a Diversity and Inclusion Team. This team works to ensure that CPO’s values, strategies and practices use a cultural competence approach and support a diverse and inclusive workplace. It also helps implement the Inclusive Excellence Model and reviews and makes policy and practice recommendations to ensure that our operations and actions reflect a workplace culture that encourages employees to feel valued and engaged. Through our recently updated Strategic Plan, we committed to increasing diverse representation and welcoming those voices within our team, board of directors, partners and collaboratives; educating our team, board, and partners through understanding cross-culture differences with training and development opportunities in the community; and advocating for equity and inclusion in our partnerships, programs, collaboratives and the communities we serve.

Most recently CPO hired a Community Diversity and Equity Director, whose role is to advance diversity and equity across the community, breaking down structural barriers to opportunity, and creating infrastructure for all community institutions that want to develop a culture of equity and inclusion. CPO's Community Collaborative Initiative partners with the City of Springfield, Prosper Springfield and other agencies to host a Tough Talks series, which is a platform that uplifts diverse perspectives. All staff will eventually participate in the Missouri State University's Facing Racism Institute, which is a two-day community workshop focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion. The Leadership Team and most Program Directors have already participated in the Facing Racism Institute. 

The IDP is innovative because it meets people where they are and employs not based on existing skills and abilities, but rather the willingness to improve/goal orientation and resilience in overcoming barriers.  In addition, it is innovative because it makes personal and professional development the full-time job of participants.  This creates a new dimension of performance for workers, one with an emphasis on growth, development, and progress toward goals.  High quality organizations like Bridgewater Associates make development an integrated part of the employment experience, but the IDP certainly doesn't compete with Bridgewater Associates and to be frank, it isn't built for competition, but as a societal resource that fills gaps to benefit everyone.  It is much the same type of solution that you might see in high quality development focused enterprises, but has a focus on winning the poverty game rather than winning the stock market or money game.

The core technology is artificial intelligence and machine learning.  The technology must gather data of a wide variety of types about participants and paint a clear picture of what the person is like.  It must then assist the user in developing their own goals.  Finally, it must deliver a set of resources to the user in helping them achieve their goals.

Our Team Lead interned at Goldman Sachs between his first and second year of graduate school at Arizona State University and experienced the power of a strong development culture.  In addition, he has practiced radical truth and transparency for over two years and has been able to identify his own obstacles and develop ways around them. He has also experienced what happens when distance from that culture is created, and is why he integrated the technology component - to help participants stay close to the culture.  While we don't have evidence that the solution works, the solution is an integral part of the story, and with reason and logic, most would agree that it has a non-systemized high probability of success.

How does the target demographic get from being unsatisfied, underemployed or ill-equipped for the job they want?  First, in order to be sustainable, they must be stable so that once they get where they are going, risk of failure is reduced.  This involves having basic needs met and being well-equipped.  IDP leverages employment to meet basic income needs and deliver resources that well-equip participants with an inclusive community and housing, health, transportation, a home computer, internet, and life skills, including parenting skills, where applicable. Once basic needs are met and they are well equipped, participants need to know what they are good at and what they  are doing well, what they are not good at and in what areas they are doing poorly, what they value, what they like and dislike, and what they are going to do about all those things as they pertain to where they are and where they want to be.  Experiential learning is required to discover many of these details. In many business settings, the inevitable failure that comes with learning may result in termination; therefore, a safe environment to fail and learn is required.  IDP creates a safe environment to fail and learn through the employment experience.  It also has a values enhancement and motivation component being integrated into a community service organization that works with a diverse population of individuals and families in need.  For sustainable development, participants are equipped with a resource that can travel with them through life transitions that 1) connects them to community, 2) delivers ongoing support and resources, such as reminders of their values, and 3) empowers them to be effective independently by accommodating barriers and other strengths and weaknesses through technology.

Over the next year, the primary goal of IDP is to develop the internal systems, including technology and processes, required to effectively coordinate and develop each client in a systematic way.  This includes bringing together the systems and processes currently in use including the Homeless Management Information System with the Community App and systemization of the delivery of resources of Community Partnership of the Ozarks to IDP participants.  

Financial barriers and capacity restraints, including technical expertise may exist over the next year and five years.  Because CPO is a non-profit agency, it operates on a limited budget where new funding sources must be identified to expand services.  While programs are being sustainably designed to be revenue generating and the required systems/processes being built, technology required to effectively offer a community risk management and development solution presents a financial barrier.  Access to technical expertise, including best practices and know-how in human and professional development is a requirement of the program and may present a barrier.  Technology strategy and development are also barriers, including user interface/user experience design and the algorithms that take place in the background.  Staffing capacity and physical space, as the IDP is scaled, will also present barriers.

The barriers identified are financial barriers.  CPO is applying for funding for this challenge as well as exploring crowd funding in partnership with the recently launched MStreetX.  With these funds, CPO will begin building the internal organization, including staff, technology, systems and processes for the IDP programs.

The best data to measure success includes:

• Employment duration and job satisfaction beyond program graduation
• Improvement in participant goals-based competencies
• Participant self awareness of problems, mistakes, and weaknesses
• Program attrition

The CEO and Leadership Team of CPO have spent the majority of their professional careers working in the nonprofit sector, and they have over 135 years of combined experience at CPO. Over the years, working with the most underserved and underrepresented populations in our community, this team has truly learned what these populations experience and how to best serve them. Our team knows we must bring our services into safe and convenient locations that are easily accessible to those we are serving. We also must engage those that are underrepresented in our program planning which we do through focus groups, listening sessions and surveys. 

CPO partners with more than 143 organizations representing 450 community leaders and partners. CPO uses its experience and expertise to build collaborative partnerships that address diverse community needs and reduce duplication. CPO's Community Collaborative Initiative focuses on bringing together key stakeholders to address gaps and needs within our community through strategic action planning and implementation. Currently, we have seven groups focusing on child abuse and neglect, environmental issues, diversity and equity, housing, food, transportation, early care and education.  

There are several business models available.  Exploring and making business model decisions are an integral part of the work that will take place if awarded.

There are several paths to financial sustainability available through the program.  Exploring and making these decisions are an integral part of the work that will take place if the challenge is accepted.  Several options include:

• Contracts with local employers for employers who have identified as targets for participants
• Earnings from programs offered to participants

Exploring and making decisions about raising funds will be an integral part of the challenge work if awarded.

Exploring and making decisions about raising funds will be an integral part of the challenge work if awarded.

Estimated program costs: 

• Administration Costs:                                                                          $12,500--Administration and operating support   

• Salaries:                                                                                             $12,750 -- 25% Annual Salary/Benefits Full-time Team Lead                           $30,000 -- Annual Salary/Benefits for One IDP participant for one year 

• Technology:                                                                                    $68,750 -- Estimated cost of impact catalog webpage                                          
• Advertising & marketing:                                                               $1,000 -- Marketing materials prospective employers                                   

The Reimagining Pathways to Entrepreneurship Challenge is an excellent fit for the mission of CPO, which is to build resilient children, healthy families, and strong neighborhoods and communities.  Access to the financial resources, expertise, and technological capabilities of challenge stakeholders will assist CPO in delivering that mission much more effectively through the Integrated Development Partnership.

Business model - explore business model opportunities and determine best fit based on resources and capabilities

Solution technology - development of web app

Funding and revenue model - monetization of program with prospective employers and other key stakeholders

Talent recruitment - begin exploring talent recruitment resources for program expansion

Legal or regulatory matters - restrictions and limitations built into the business processes and systems

Bridgewater Associates - the culture of Bridgewater Associates is the desired culture for the IDP because it is at that level of development that individuals begin to take accountability for their outcomes and to understand themselves and their circumstances well.

Goldman Sachs - the culture of excellence at Goldman Sachs is a desired cultural aspect of the IDP because we want program participants to believe they can accomplish whatever they set out to accomplish/feel empowered, competent and capable.  

IBM - the IBM Cloud platform will allow for scaling of the technology solutions in a community of practice type of way, rather than being attached to an organization.  This is a desired element of the platform given that people will move on and experience life transitions that the technology.

MIT & Partners - technical expertise and know-how from the best minds available will be critically important in designing an effective strategy and programs, technology, human capital, and so on.