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Engaging Key Stakeholders When Designing Community-Based Efforts
When building support for a new or ongoing community-based effort, having a participatory process that involves the stakeholders who may be affected by or have an interest in the initiative…
Follow the Performance Metrics
Creating good measures of performance in public organizations can be tricky. If managers overemphasize quantity of output when assessing employees’ productivity, employees can grow disillusioned and let the quality of…
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Meaning
It has become increasingly common to associate the phrase, “Kick the can down the road,” with lawmakers at all levels of government when dealing with budget shortfalls, mounting public debt…
Are We Thinking About Infrastructure?
A critical and often neglected component of our profession is infrastructure. While we are knowledgeable about the proper actions to take regarding infrastructure, more attention is needed towards the thinking…
Volunteering During A Disaster
American’s desire to volunteer post-disaster goes back to the very founding of this nation. There are a variety of ways for volunteers to help out after a disaster has hit.…
Financial Condition and Population Decline: The Challenge in Attracting Residents
Shrinking cities are under pressure by their state governments to remain solvent. This has led to an increasing reliance on non-governmental entities to provide important community services—but is this sustainable…
Our Current Situation
As public servants, we know that we serve at the pleasure of the public agenda and that we do not serve personal agendas nor the agendas of those that are…
Political Will: An Indication For Autocracy or a Scapegoat?
Authority, vision and commitment—also known as political will—are needed in enacting reforms to public policies. Yet to what extent is political will a scapegoat? And to what extent is it…
Setting a Vision: A Lesson from History
President Woodrow Wilson failed in his vision to create the League of Nations that he felt would serve as a bulwark to future world wars. Yet Wilson’s historical failure provides…
In Search of Ethics of Character Over Conduct
Governmental ethics center on transparency with the assumption that transparency will lead to accountability. It’s not a bad goal. The problem is that good conduct is not necessarily an indicator…
The Age of Reform and eLearning
The focus on skills-development by the departments of corrections arguably gives inordinate attention to criminal offenders’ at-risk factors. This focus does not adequately consider the social factors affecting working prisoners…
September 2, 20191 CommentRead More