North Star Community Support Services Case Summary
Case Descriptions:
North Star Community Support Services (NSCSS) was a fairly large organization with 150 employees and a budget of 8.5 million. It was providing four pillars of services, including youth development, domestic violence and family services, legal services, and workforce development. The youth development unit, was providing services similar to other organizations in the neighborhood, but it remained in a steady status. This unit relied heavily on private funding. While the government funding kept decreasing, workers under this unit needed to work harder on fund raising. The domestic violence unit was providing some unique services such as in-home family support, group therapy and parenting classes. As all staffs had gone through related training, this unit was able to effectively address community needs. The legal services unit was the smallest unit, but serving a very large client group because of its …show more content…
What are the strategic decisions facing the organization?
According to Bryson (1995), Strategic planning is “a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does and why it does it.” When the organization is faced with problems, such as in this case, NSCSS failed to meet the community needs, strategic change needs to be done.
Based on the case description, the main change the Louisa wanted to do was to redirect the current services from fund-oriented to need-oriented. Specifically, whether to shrink, even cut off the youth service department and downsize the workforce development unit, and redirect financial resources to other service areas, in order to better allocate community issues. Also, since strategic planning can be accomplished through a process which focuses on fundamental choices about an organization’s mission, vision and values (Cothran & Clouser, 2006), along with this change, the mission and vision may also need to be updated to suit the change in service
North Star Community Support Services (NSCSS) was a fairly large organization with 150 employees and a budget of 8.5 million. It was providing four pillars of services, including youth development, domestic violence and family services, legal services, and workforce development. The youth development unit, was providing services similar to other organizations in the neighborhood, but it remained in a steady status. This unit relied heavily on private funding. While the government funding kept decreasing, workers under this unit needed to work harder on fund raising. The domestic violence unit was providing some unique services such as in-home family support, group therapy and parenting classes. As all staffs had gone through related training, this unit was able to effectively address community needs. The legal services unit was the smallest unit, but serving a very large client group because of its …show more content…
What are the strategic decisions facing the organization?
According to Bryson (1995), Strategic planning is “a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does and why it does it.” When the organization is faced with problems, such as in this case, NSCSS failed to meet the community needs, strategic change needs to be done.
Based on the case description, the main change the Louisa wanted to do was to redirect the current services from fund-oriented to need-oriented. Specifically, whether to shrink, even cut off the youth service department and downsize the workforce development unit, and redirect financial resources to other service areas, in order to better allocate community issues. Also, since strategic planning can be accomplished through a process which focuses on fundamental choices about an organization’s mission, vision and values (Cothran & Clouser, 2006), along with this change, the mission and vision may also need to be updated to suit the change in service