The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
Volume IV, Number 1, 1998
Issue Topic: Performance Measurement
Promising Practices
Building Support for Statewide Outcomes: Lessons From Florida
Karen Stanford of the Commission on Government Accountability to the People in Florida reveals techniques to engage important stakeholders in the discussion about public outcomes.
For the past five years, the Florida Commission on Government Accountability to the People (GAP), 15-member citizen panel with four staff operating independently within state government, has produced public reports on outcomes. One report, The Florida Benchmarks, is a series of quantitative indicators that describe the well-being of Florida citizens across seven areas of concern: families and communities; safety; learning; health; economy; environment; and government. Its companion publication, Critical Benchmark Goals, identifies statewide goals for the years 2000 and 2010 for sixty of the most important indicators, including children in poverty, racial harmony, child abuse and neglect, and infant mortality.
We have worked to publicize and garner support for the measures using a variety of strategies:
Public hearings: To give citizens an opportunity to shape the benchmarks, the Commission held public hearings in five cities around the state. Because the benchmarks were a new idea, few people attended the meetings or understood what they were to be. However, some early contacts were productive. For example, GAP worked with Joint Venture South Florida, a nonprofit organization developing a long-term economic vision with a set of measures like the benchmarks for five South Florida counties.
In establishing goals for the critical benchmarks, we focused on involving citizen leaders and citizen groups. We used a modified Delphi approach in which we asked 95 organizations around the state to submit up to 10 names of people actively involved in one or more of the benchmark areas. We then sent out a survey to approximately 2000 of these people, providing trends and comparative data on the critical benchmarks and asking respondents to help us set a goal for where Florida should be in 2000 and 2010. We received 700 responses, some quite impassioned, particularly about education and crime. By involving people who are active in their communities in this way, we were able to increase our citizen base even more.
Press conferences and editorial board meetings: We have used press conferences and press releases to advertise the reports. We realize, however, that even the best laid plans don't always materialize—on the day we released the 1996 benchmarks, we were trumped by singer Gloria Estefan, who made a whirlwind visit to the Capitol to advocate for boat safety. We have also developed relationships with editorial boards and have found that the quality of life measures fit nicely with the issues that editors discuss. We have written Letters to the Editor and community editorials, which have been carried in all parts of the state. We visit or call editors when we have a new report or a finding that they might find interesting. Our support comes from all political spectrums; both conservative and liberal editorial writers have praised the purpose and content of the benchmarks.
Widespread distribution: The benchmarks have been distributed widely to state elected officials and state agencies, as well as to the more than 1500 organizations that lobby the Florida legislature. In addition, the benchmarks were sent to all mayors, city councils, city managers, county commissioners, school boards, and media outlets. In 1996, the benchmarks were made available in every public library, and a poster advertising the Goals Report was sent to every library in 1997.
Involvement of civic and business community: The idea of a GAP Commission came from the state's Florida Council of 100, a leading business organization composed of the top private sector CEOs in the state. The Council has actively supported the Commission whenever it has run into political trouble and is an important source of sustained advocacy for statewide outcomes and the reports. Our commissioners, who are from different parts of the state, have sought speaking engagements with civic and business organizations. In turn, these entities have used the benchmarks for comparative data in reaching their own organizational goals. Additionally, we have been supported by the state's Chamber of Commerce, which uses our publication in its Leadership Florida program and has given us statewide publicity through its newsletter. We have also contacted each of the major advocacy organizations in the state and requested mention in their newsletters, and in some cases, have written articles for their publications.
Support for local benchmarking groups: We formed an early informal alliance with the Jacksonville Community Council, Inc., which has published quality of life indicators since 1985. Subsequently, we have generated at least three other local efforts in large metropolitan counties. We have provided technical assistance to them and to some smaller counties which have developed community reports. We have found that local community groups have been our most important allies in this effort, enabling us to build a political base across the state. Legislators are much more likely to listen to their local constituents' opinions than they are to a small state government agency like GAP. Thus, the support of these local quality of life indicator publishers has been invaluable.
The Commission has worked hard to develop a multi-pronged dissemination approach and has been delighted with who uses our report and why: middle school teachers because they have nothing else current on Florida; community colleges in their grant proposals to support funding requests; nonprofits to set organizational goals for their boards; university graduate classes in performance measurement and strategic planning; and editorial boards to back up their arguments.
The greatest challenge we have faced is to garner the support of legislators and their staffs. We have found that while legislators use the benchmarks for civic club speeches and for reference during ten months of the year, during the 60 day session, their concern is with agency operations and specific assistance they can receive in making funding decisions. Social indicators seem like distant sentinels when the question is whether or not to keep an agricultural marketing program in a rural county. Indicative of this is the fact that the 1998 Florida Legislature cut all funding for the GAP Commission. An effort is underway to continue its work outside state government.
Karen Stanford
Executive Director
Florida Commission on Government Accountability to the People