Author Archive

H. Kay Howard

    About the author

    H. Kay Howard
    As a Director in Third Sector’s Boston office, H. Kay delivers feasibility assessments, technical assistance, and project construction support to government, nonprofit, and philanthropic clients. Prior to joining Third Sector, H. Kay worked at Civic Consulting Alliance, a public sector consulting firm in Chicago, where she led a project to physically redesign Cook County Central Bond Court in order to promote fairer bond-setting and lower the daily jail population.

    Lessons for Effective Economic Mobility Work at both the Program and the Systems-Level

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    Coaching has become an increasingly popular method of intervention and has proven effective in a variety of settings. Economic Mobility Pathways (“EMPath”), for example, has codified a mentorship model that uses holistic goal-setting and individualized coaching to support people’s journeys out of the cycle of poverty. I first encountered the EMPath model during Third Sector’s work with the Department of Transitional Assistance on the Young Parents Program. There, we used EMPath’s Bridge to Self-Sufficiency (the “Bridge”) as a way to define and measure progress in a more nuanced way than

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    Committing to a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion lens in our workImproving our culture, norms, and client-facing approaches

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    At Third Sector, our five core values of Rigor, Respect, Resourcefulness, Results, and Reflection drive how we conduct ourselves with clients, partners, and each other. As part of our values, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have always been central to our work. What is more, we simply could not successfully direct public resources in more [...]
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    Redesign for Whole FamiliesTactical Lessons to Inform the Empowering Families Learning Community

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    What would it take to redesign programs with whole families at the center?” The Future Services Institute, an initiative of the Public and Nonprofit Leadership Center at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, posed this question at the onset of the recent Redesign for Whole Families Summit.  Throughout the two-day conference, government [...]
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    Rapid AssessmentIntroducing a Six-Week Outcomes-Oriented Contracting Workshop Series

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    Are you interested in developing systems to improve data-driven decision-making? Do you want to learn more about contracting for positive outcomes? Have you thought about writing outcomes into contracts, but don’t know where to start? Third Sector now offers a workshop-style six-week engagement for state, county, and local government agencies who want to learn about [...]
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    Empowering Young Parent-led Families in Massachusetts to Achieve Economic Mobility

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    The data in front of us was sobering: 45% of adults, who received economic assistance under the Massachusetts Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC) program in January 2018, had grown up in families that also depended on TAFDC. “We have to do something different to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty,” Commissioner Jeff [...]
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    Process EvaluationAn Intermediate Step to Gauge Outcomes and Expedite the Feedback Loop

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    Thanks to innovations in outcomes-focused contracting “because that’s the way we’ve always done it” is no longer an acceptable reason to continue to operate social programs the same way every year hoping for better results. By linking payments to measurable social outcomes, Pay for Success (PFS) contracting has made data and results integral aspects of any social service. Through multi-year randomized control trials (RCTs), which test the outcomes of a PFS project, social service providers and government funders can finally quantify the impact that their programs are making in the

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