Assessment of Quality of Outcomes within a Local United Way Organization: Implications for Sustaining System Level Change

This paper provides a historical case study of efforts to implement and sustain "outcomes based funding" in a large United Way system in Central Ohio. The case study describes how community practitioners employed specific strategies to promote sustainability. The use of these strategies corresponds to several techniques suggested in the sustainability literature. This case study is offered as a means of considering how practitioners helped sustain the shift to outcomes based funding within the United Way system. In addition, this case study demonstrates how skills related to implementation and sustainability might be transferred to other situations where practitioners are interested in promoting change within large organizations and/or communities. The authors suggest that skills related to implementation and sustainability are essential to community practice.