Background:
The City of San Jose's Office of Economic Development (OED) is committed to a vital, competitive San Jose economy that increases prosperity for people and companies and enhances City revenues. The City provides funds for non profits to enable vital services to the community. With the economic downturn affecting both the performances of business and Non Profit communities it is increasingly important to offer performance improvement services.

Need:
Non Profits: The City needs to help improve the Organizational Performance of the over 300 Non Profits that they have funded. The Non Profit sector of 2000 organizations in the region, provides valuable community services but often have organizational development weaknesses. What was required was a diagnosis of their organizational needs and the development of action plans focused on their priorities. This was to ensure that the rate payers and foundations get increasing returns from their funding.

Solutions:
Non Profits: QLBS was commissioned by The City to develop an Improvement program using their Diagnostic and Action planning approach. QLBS developed a Best Practice model of a Non Profit and enabled both a web based self assessment and an expert one to one approach. These have been used by Non Profits to understand their organizational development needs and develop improvement plans. Assessments have been conducted as self assessment via the web, in group work in workshops and by experts providing independent analysis and advice.

The funding industry is engaged in the feedback process enabling a greater sense that the industry is seeking to mitigate organizational risk and improve returns. They monitor the business assessments using Assessment Manager so that they know who is seeking business support and are evaluating the overall needs of the industry through Dashboard.

The City has also successfully deployed QLBS in the Business Development sector. The City needs to support and help grow the entrepreneurial sector making sure that entrepreneurs are ready to get into business and that the people already in business could increase their growth potential

QLBS has developed a program using their technology to engage and improve the performances of the San Jose Business communities and the Non Profit organizations. Their software and processes are to the best of our knowledge unique in providing a “universal measurement tool that can assist in change management and performance improvement of any organization and community”

Jeff Ruster, Deputy Director, Office of Economic Development, City of San Jose