Vision: Communities where everyone’s potential to thrive is unlimited by community conditions.
Mission: East Missouri Action Agency cultivates communities of opportunity and supports people in reach their highest potential.
How We Show Up at Work and In Our Communities:
Values are the beliefs that shape organizational culture, support the vision and mission, and guide interactions between customers, EMAA staff, board members, and partners. At our natural best we are…
Compassionate: We care and go above and beyond for our customers and each other.
Nonjudgmental: We treat all people with dignity and respect.
Resourceful: We work together and with our communities to create solutions.
Dedicated: We don't give up on people, communities, or each other.
PHILOSOPHY
Our philosophy represents practices used to support and encourage people in their journey, meeting them where they are and understanding their needs in order to achieve social and economic mobility. Embedded in our philosophy are beliefs about human capacity and communities that influence our work.
We Believe Poverty Is Complex: Poverty today is complex, and more than just a lack of income. Poverty is multidimensional and presents itself in a way that is unique to each family, individual, and community. When we think about measuring poverty in only a monetary way, we are not addressing the individual, family, or community as a whole. In order to reduce poverty in all of these situations, we must also address crucial potential impacts of poverty such as education, housing, health, safety, and social and emotional functioning, even as an individual or family's situation stabilizes or improves. We believe well-being is made up of personal experiences and vital community conditions. Our personal experiences lead to the perspectives that affect how we think, feel, and function, as well as how we evaluate our lives as a whole. Vital conditions are the community-level conditions that we all depend on to reach our potential.
“…Poverty is a place, physically and mentally. Poverty is a cycle. Poverty is a hole that is hard to dig out of. Poverty feels impossible unless the family has a strong support system. It can literally keep the family or individual pulled down.”
We Believe in Human Capacity: We believe all people have the capacity to grow and reach their full potential. We believe in a growth mindset that recognizes that people can grow, expand, evolve, and change. An individual or family's personality characteristics, talents, and abilities are not unchangeable. We meet people where they are, understand their needs, build upon their strengths, and coordinate and integrate a rich mix of services.
We Are Community-Minded: Families and individuals' freedom to reach their full potential and thrive depends on having a consistent set of vital conditions in the community. We believe the following vital conditions are essential:
Basic Needs for Health and Safety
Meaningful Work and Wealth
Lifelong Learning
Humane Housing
Reliable Transportation
Thriving Natural World
Belonging and Civic Muscle
Community conditions can have a positive or negative impact on people’s lives. We realize that generational cycles of trauma and exclusion are perpetuated by dysfunctional systems that can prevent people and places from thriving. In addition to providing direct services and opportunities to people striving to reach their fullest potential, we are committed to addressing systemic solutions and maximizing the strengths of our community to build a more just and inclusive community for all.
THEORY OF CHANGE
A Theory of Change is a statement that presents our hypothesis about the types of interventions that will achieve certain outcomes.
If EMAA strengthens vital community conditions and integrates and coordinates services, people will be on a path to reaching their full potential and thriving.
STRATEGIC IMPERATIVES
Strategic imperatives serve as crucial focus areas to aid board and staff decision-making in the years to come.
Our three strategic imperatives do not exist independently but have an interconnected relationship. The more a decision or action connects to multiple imperatives the greater the opportunity for maximum impact. Embedded in our strategic imperatives is the necessity to think about whole people and places rather than programs or funding streams.
Thriving Communities:
EMAA will strengthen and advance the vital conditions in communities that people depend on to thrive.
Basic Needs for Health and Safety:
EMAA will engage in collaborative conversations with partners and the community and explore solutions to the lack of access to and availability of mental health and health care for individuals of all ages.
EMAA will respond to disasters in our communities in times of need and crisis.
Meaningful Work and Wealth:
EMAA will collaborate with community partners to expand economic development opportunities (e.g. fostering entrepreneurship, small-business loans).
EMAA will expand education for children ages 0 to 3 through early education and other partnerships, thus supporting families’ abilities to pursue family-supporting employment and children’s healthy development.
Lifelong Learning:
EMAA will expand early childhood education for children ages 0 to 3. Investigate innovative opportunities and create a long-term plan to maintain and expand early childhood education, especially in identified childcare deserts.
Humane Housing:
EMAA will work with partners to develop and maintain the stock of affordable, safe, accessible, and quality housing across the service area. EMAA will work to provide emergency shelter and outreach for houseless individuals and families and engage the community in potential support and solutions.
EMAA will research funding for creative and innovative solutions that address the lack of safe and affordable housing stock in our communities for both transitional and permanent housing solutions.
Reliable Transportation:
EMAA will explore increasing transportation opportunities that are accessible, reliable, safe, and close to work, school, food, child care, health care, and leisure.
Thriving Natural World:
EMAA will increase the energy efficiency of the housing stock across the service area.
Belonging and Civic Muscle:
EMAA will promote opportunities for community members to build bridges and create a diverse and inclusive community where no one is outside the circle.
Thriving People:
EMAA will integrate and coordinate a comprehensive mix of services that help individuals and families thrive.
Individuals and families turn to EMAA during times of crisis seeking help in meeting basic needs such as food and safe housing. When stability has been achieved individuals and families turn to EMAA to seek support with work, training, or education that can help them advance. EMAA is committed to delivering an integrated, coordinated, comprehensive mix of services that help individuals and families reach their full potential. This commitment requires EMAA to ensure or collaborate with partners to ensure that individuals and families have access to services that meet them wherever they are, whether they are seeking crisis, stabilization, readiness, or upward mobility services.
Crisis Services:
EMAA will provide urgent services and support to alleviate short-term suffering and meet people’s basic needs for health and safety in areas such as food, housing, and energy. These include the following:
EMAA will provide accessible and efficient central intake and agency program navigation that leads to customized referral of services that meet the individualized needs of people living in poverty and experiencing health, mental health, housing, heating, cooling, work, education, food, and other crisis situations.
EMAA will deliver compassionate rental, mortgage, energy, and water assistance to families that help them obtain or maintain safe housing and move toward improved levels of security and stability.
EMAA will coordinate street outreach services and wraparound support to individuals experiencing houselessness. When possible, emergency shelter through EMAA services or other community partners. All families and individuals experiencing houselessness are encouraged to participate in coordinated entry for further support.
EMAA will provide resources, referrals, and education for mental health support in our communities.
EMAA will deliver disaster response by mobilizing agency resources to respond to our communities in times of need and crisis, both immediately and in the long term.
Stabilization Services:
EMAA will provide services and supports that extend beyond meeting urgent basic needs for health and safety and help people achieve and maintain greater levels of financial security, stability, and social and emotional well-being.
These services will include the following:
EMAA will coordinate coaching supports that help individuals tap into their natural capabilities and talents by helping to assess the individual or family’s situation. A plan to improve and maintain stability and enhance readiness to pursue personalized goals is created together to increase income and/or improve social and emotional well-being.
EMAA will deliver rental assistance to help families obtain safe, secure, affordable housing. EMAA will provide families and individuals with accessible and understandable information on renter rights, laws, and regulations to prevent eviction and secure safe, accessible, and affordable housing.
EMAA will provide quality, affordable early care and education and health and nutrition services to infants, toddlers, and preschool-aged children from families with low incomes to promote school readiness, health, and physical development as well as parent and family well-being.
EMAA will support families in their journey to upward economic mobility, through courses and coaching that support financial well-being and practical knowledge.
EMAA will provide financial empowerment support such as individual development accounts and financial training to increase economic security and financial health.
EMAA will deliver energy conservation information and energy-saving measures to reduce the impact of high home energy costs on families with low incomes.
EMAA will provide reproductive health care services to women and men to promote adult health, and healthy babies while also helping families plan pregnancies and births.
EMAA will refer individuals and families to agency programs and services that will provide support for obtaining affordable access to healthcare by educating, raising awareness, and enrolling them in healthcare plans such as Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act.
Readiness Services:
EMAA and its partners will provide services and support that use the greater levels of adult and family stability as a springboard for individuals and families to achieve their full potential. These services will include the following:
EMAA will coordinate readiness services and support to parents or guardians of young children. Also, it has been well demonstrated that early childhood education is critical for brain development that takes place from 0-5 years of age. In particular, support for young parents (age 16-24) has had a powerful multiplier effect, impacting the children and the family in both the short and long term with real potential for limiting the period both parents and children spend in poverty.
EMAA will Identify high-demand fields with pathways to quality jobs and create training pathways for customers to pursue to enhance skills and prepare for employment. Training opportunities and support will first be directed to the families and individuals in EMAA programs.
EMAA will use a mix of transportation solutions (e.g., gas subsidy, car repair, car loan, volunteer driving fleet) for adults and young adults engaged in EMAA programs focused on helping people achieve their full potential.
Readiness Services Cont:
EMAA will deliver classes and coaching through wrap-around support services and programs that promote upward social and economic mobility, but support the client where they are in their journey with customized supports, including workforce programs, life enhancement skill building, and financial well-being.
EMAA will assist families in crafting a plan for the reduction and elimination of public benefits.
Upward Mobility Services
EMAA will provide social and economic mobility services and supports that help individuals and families execute their plans for navigating financial effects with the loss of public benefits, consolidating and celebrating their progress, and completing final plans for concluding EMAA services. These services will include the following:
EMAA will support individuals in securing and maintaining a quality job that provides a familysupporting wage, helping the family transition from public benefits and secure greater financial, social, and emotional well-being.
EMAA will help families and individuals complete their journey through intensive coaching and case management that is customized to meet their individual needs and that moves them into upward social and economic mobility when they are ready. Thus, completing their final EMAA journey.
Thriving Organization:
EMAA has the organizational capacity necessary to help people and places thrive. All these areas are interconnected and establish the conditions necessary to achieve a thriving organization. When improvement in all these components is achieved, the organization will experience a synergistic or multiplier effect and become “radically better” and on the path to becoming a thriving organization.
Put Customers First: Customer experience must be our first consideration—ahead of staff, the agency, or our funders. Service integration; central and comprehensive intake and assessment, and communication of resources both internally and externally, will help us to improve customer experience and should be pursued aggressively. We can learn how we are doing by listening to our customers and engaging them in the design and implementation of services.
Treat Our Talent as a Precious Resource: Talent is our most precious resource. Our staff has the biggest influence on the experience of our customers. EMAA leadership knows recruitment, retention, workload, and compensation are immense challenges. By focusing on staff engagement (e.g.., Community Action Academy, EMAA Ambassadors), training on agency programs, services, software, and enhanced onboarding we can ensure that staff is empowered and prepared to fulfill the agency’s mission, vision, and values. This includes continuing education opportunities for seasoned staff.
Assess Organizational Structure and Facilities Against Impact: Reviewing agency structure to ensure we are maximizing agency resources and preparing to reach agency strategic plan goals. Additionally, examine facilities against community needs and strategic plan goals.
Take Steps
to
Center Equity
and Belonging: Essential to all three strategic imperatives is the need to “put on an equity lens” to help us see and understand important truths about how inequities have become embedded in our laws, rules, policies, and systems. EMAA will begin a journey to start learning, talking, thinking, and acting to increase equity and belonging.
Maximize Purpose and Culture: Culture is our “secret sauce.” Culture forms the backbone of organizational health and fuels sustained performance over time. EMAA will be intentional about creating the culture we all want through a focus on our Mission, Vision, Values, and how we show up at work and in our community. We will not leave culture to chance and will focus on breaking down agency silos and examining agency structure to ensure we build upon our current foundation with a focus on the future of EMAA, our community, and the individuals and families we serve.
Communication to Strengthen Agency Initiatives: We know a key aspect of a strong work culture includes communication. EMAA will examine the current structure and communication methods to find best agency practices for ensuring staff have access to, are aware of, and are informed about agency programs, services, changes, and updates. Tools such as an agency intranet, quarterly video updates, and other ways of timely, effective communication will be used.
Be Results and Data Driven: EMAA will take steps to utilize a wide range of data in a more real-time environment. EMAA will shift its perspective from considering data costs as a cost center to seeing data as a profit center. We need data for learning and decision-making. EMAA will work to gain a greater understanding of our business questions. The goal is to create a continuous learning mindset and strengthen data capacity.
