16-01SPR: Performance Measurement of Community Center Innovation

CONTACT INFORMATION

Organization:Seattle Parks and Recreation

Name:Justin Hellier

Title: Strategic Advisor

Phone: 2066848582

Email Address:

Street Address:100 Dexter Ave N

City, State, and Zip Code:Seattle

Please provide some background information about your organization:

Seattle Parks and Recreation provides welcoming and safe opportunities to play, learn, contemplate and build community, and promotes responsible stewardship of the land.
Seattle Parks and Recreation (Parks) manages a 6,200-acre park system of 465 parks and extensive natural areas. Parks provides athletic fields, tennis courts, play areas, specialty gardens, and more than 25 miles of boulevards and 120 miles of trails. The system comprises about 11% of the City’s land area. Parks also manages many facilities, including 26 community centers, eight indoor swimming pools, two outdoor (summer) swimming pools, four environmental education centers, two small craft centers, four golf courses, an outdoor stadium, and much more.

PROJECT INFORMATION

Please indicate which of the following topic areas relate to your project (select all that apply):

  • Social Policy (Poverty, Education, and Social Welfare)
  • Public Policy Analysis and Evaluation
  • Public Leadership, Management, and Decision-Making

Please describe the problem, challenge, or opportunity that the consultant team will address.

Seattle Parks and Recreation's 26 communities centers serve neighborhoods across the city -- providing programs, safe places, and community-building opportunities for thousands of residents annually. In 2016, we embarked on a strategic planning process to develop innovative ways to serve new community needs and promote social equity. This strategic plan makes us eligible for significant additional funding. In this project, the consultant team will develop, pilot, and propose a performance measurement system to track progress toward meeting strategic plan goals.

What would you like to find out or have accomplished; what is the desired deliverable?

The key deliverable will be a proposed performance measurement framework for our community center innovations, including:
- clarity on key objectives
- indicators to track progress toward those objectives
- tools to measure those indicators
- some initial data from piloting the tools and indicators
In a complicated and inherently qualitative system, we want to be able to capture the value of these innovations to the community. In a nutshell, we want to be able to characterize what the public got for their money.

What are some key tasks the consultants will perform to complete the project?

Stakeholder interviews, program and facility observations, strategic plan review, collaborative "data in a day" exercises to engage staff and community in data collection and analysis, development of indicators and measurement tools, piloting of those measurement tools, qualitative and quantitative data analysis, report development and presentation, staff training.

What resources are available to complete the project (e.g., access to data, support from staff, etc.)?

The student consultants will have access to the Department's key personnel on performance measurement, as well as to front-line staff implementing programs in community centers. A budget for additional project expenses is possible. A former Evans student (2012 graduate) will serve as the project contact.

How many consultants is your project suitable for? Select all that apply

  • 2
  • 3
  • 4

Have you submitted a research project to the Public Service Clinics before?No

If students are interested in your topic and have questions, can they contact you directly?Yes