Community Balanced Scorecards (CBSCs)
Public, private, and nonprofit organizations use balanced scorecards to map their strategy based on cause-and-effect assumptions, to align the entire organization behind that strategy, and to measure and improve strategic performance. They use balanced scorecards not just to manage for results, but to manage for strategic results that most advance their mission. A Community Balanced Scorecard can bring that power to an entire community by focusing on a community improvement strategy that involves multiple players such as citizens, government, nonprofits, and public-minded businesses. Balanced scorecards are about managing strategy; Community Balanced Scorecards combine the traditional approach with engagement of partners to enable faster, better progress toward desired community outcomes.
Our Community Balanced Scorecard (CBSC) methodology has adapted the balanced scorecard strategy map and added more tools to manage the complexity of collaborative efforts, communicate strategy to partners to help them find their roles, and help partners determine how to implement and measure their contributions toward the realization of the community’s vision.
Project Highlights
- We developed the Community Balanced Scorecard framework used by Communities of Hope, a project in Metro Detroit aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty for residents of subsidized housing projects. CBSC strategies developed by Communities of Hope involve leveraging community assets to improve low-income families’ quality of life, such as cooperative food purchasing and delivery to help families living in “food deserts” obtain affordable, nutritious food.
- In the State of Delaware, the Division of Public Health (DPH) has adopted CBSC strategy mapping as the central tool for their strategic planning process, using a "top level strategy map" intended both to focus strategic planning and help prepare for accreditation. We also helped DPH develop a strategy map for healthy lifestyles, with a strategic focus on reducing African American Obesity, as an initial strategic issue-specific strategy to develop and implement. DPH has been using related tools we provided to refine the strategy and build connections with a new performance management system they are developing,
- Our local public health Community Balanced Scorecard projects have involved six communities in four states. We have helped community partnership teams develop strategy maps with the goals of reducing obesity, increasing child wellness, eliminating preventable chronic disease, improving youth behavioral health outcomes, and increasing access to care. They have been using their strategy maps to build community support for change and to obtain implementation commitments by partners. For example:
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- In Osceola County, Florida, the Health Department and Community Vision, Inc., used their strategy map to obtain the commitment of the Health Leadership Council, which includes the heads of major public, nonprofit, and charitable organizations (including hospitals and the county government), to convene a Community Health Summit to address access to care.
- Strategy mapping in Wood County, Ohio, led to Bowling Green State University to train faculty and graduate assistants to recognize signs of potential mental health problems in students and refer them for screening and treatment before problems become severe. The strategy has also been used to start or increase suicide prevention programs in public schools and school districts in the county.
- In Montgomery County, Ohio, the Get Up Montgomery campaign for healthy lifestyles and obesity reduction has used both their strategy map and "Partner2Partner Handshakes," their adaptation of the Community Results Compact tool we introduced, to develop stong commitments with over 50 partners and counting.
- In Novosibirsk, Russia, we delivered a Train-the-Trainer seminar in Community Balanced Scorecard development for representatives of the Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Center's Network from throughout Siberia.
- For the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the largest nonprofit community development organization in the U.S., we provided Community Balanced Scorecard training to organization development staff from LISC affiliates from across the country. The training focused on how participants could apply CBSC tools to help their local programs transition to a new “Sustainable Communities” strategy.
View Free Recorded Webinars on CBSC
- Community Balanced Scorecards to Improve Public Health Collaboration
- Two webinars introducing CBSC concepts applicable to any community improvement collaboration, available at the “Strategy Aligned Management for Local Governments” (SAM-LG) website.
Other Resources
- Briefing paper (DOC) on Community Balanced Scorecards in Public Health by Paul Epstein and Alina Simone.
- “Community Balanced Scorecards for Strategic Public Health Improvement” by Paul Epstein, Alina Simone, and Lyle Wray in The Public Health Quality Improvement Handbook of the Public Health Foundation and American Society for Quality
Selected Clients
- Bergen County Community Health Improvement Partnership (New Jersey)
- Communities of Hope (Detroit)
- Local Initiatives Support Corporation
- Public Health—Dayton and Montgomery County (Ohio)
- Osceola County Health Department (Florida)
- Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Corporation
- Summit County Health District (Ohio)
- Wood County Health Department (Ohio)