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Performance Measurement: Better Alignment to Strategic Goals and Data Verification Needed at the Corporation for National and Community Service

GAO-10-886 Published: Jul 28, 2010. Publicly Released: Jul 28, 2010.
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Highlights

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) promotes volunteering and civic engagement through a variety of federally funded programs, such as AmeriCorps. In 2009, Congress passed the Serve America Act (Pub. L. No. 111-13), which made substantial changes to CNCS' mission. The Act authorized an increase in the number of service opportunities administered by CNCS, from 88,000 in 2010 to 250,000 by 2017; created new programs; and directed CNCS to focus more on evaluating its programs' performance to ensure cost-effectiveness and the effective use of volunteers, among other factors. To assist the Congress in its oversight role, GAO reviewed: (1) To what extent do the corporation's current performance measures align with the corporation's strategic goals? (2) To what extent do the corporation's performance measures provide a reliable way to assess progress in achieving the corporation's strategic goals? and (3) What progress has the corporation made in developing new performance measures for each of its national service programs?

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Corporation for National and Community Service The Chief Executive Officer of CNCS should determine the most important areas for service and create strategic goals that effectively reflect them.
Closed – Implemented
The Corporation for National and Community Service issued its 5-year strategic plan. The strategic plan was developed based on where the agency believed national service created the most value for the nation: disaster services, economic opportunity,education, environmental stewardship, healthy futures, and veterans and military families. The plan identified 4 strategic goals and outlined the associated performance measures to be used in tracking progress in achieving those goals.
Corporation for National and Community Service The Chief Executive Officer of CNCS should create an effective and uniform system to verify and validate performance data submitted by grantees.
Closed – Implemented
CNCS has done a significant amount of work in response to this recommendation. CNCS has created a new monitoring protocol using five key data quality elements, while also ensuring alignment with the larger CNCS effort to create and implement new performance measures in support of the 2011-2015 strategic plan. CNCS has developed supporting resources and training materials for staff and is currently rolling out materials internally and implementing the first phase of dialogues with grantees this fiscal quarter.

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Topics

Best practicesCost effectiveness analysisData collectionData integrityInternal controlsPerformance measuresProgram evaluationResearch programsStatistical dataStrategic planningSystems managementProgram goals or objectives