ROMA

Results-Oriented Management and Accountability
(otherwise known as "ROMA")

ROMA is a performance-based management and accountability system for Community Action Agencies. It was developed by the CSBG Monitoring and Assessment Task Force (MATF) in response to the Governance and Performance Results Act (GPRA) of 1993.

In order to ensure that CAAs would have a management framework and the necessary tools for implementing the six national goals, the MATF developed ROMA or Results-Oriented Management and Accountability.

ROMA is a sound management practice that integrates outcomes or results into the CAA's administration, management, and delivery of programs and services. A CAA can use ROMA practices to demonstrate results and accountability to its Board and staff, to funders, the public, government and other community based organizations.

In 2001, the federal Office of Community Services issued Information Memo 49 - Program Challenges, Responsibilities and Strategies - FY 2001-2003. The information memo identified three central concepts that have become the cornerstone for ROMA implementation. These concepts transcend CSBG as a stand-alone program for addressing the six national CSBG goals and convey the unique strengths that the broader concept of Community Action brings to the nation's anti-poverty efforts:

Focusing our efforts on client, community, and organizational change, not particular programs or services. As such, the goals provide a basis for results-oriented, not process-based or program-specific plans, activities, and reports. CSBG Program Information Memorandum Transmittal No. 49, February 21, 2001

This establishes a client focus on reporting outcomes in addition to program outcomes or results.

Understanding the interdependence of programs, clients and communities. The (six national) goals recognize that client improvements aggregate to, and reinforce, community improvements, and that strong and well-administered programs underpin both.
CSBG Program Information Memorandum Transmittal No. 49, February 21, 2001

This establishes the interdependence of clients and their communities and that CSBG funded community activities are essential to supporting families in their progress towards self-sufficiency, helps distinguish the impact of Community Action from other human service agencies, and establishes ROMA as a method to ensure strong and well-administered programs

Recognizing that CSBG does not succeed as an individual program. The goals presume that community action is most successful when activities supported by a number of funding sources are organized around client and community outcomes, both within an agency and with other service providers. CSBG Program Information Memorandum Transmittal No. 49, February 21, 2001.

This establishes that CSBG funded activities work best in an environment of partnership and collaboration at the client and community level, that CSBG funds are used to leverage other agency and community resources, and that all these activities whether directly or indirectly funded by CSBG are reportable outcomes.

In 2001, to further advance the implementation of ROMA in Connecticut, a Task Force of CAAs and DSS staff, supported by DSS and OCS and convened by the Connecticut Association For Community Action (CAFCA), drafted the Connecticut Community Action Network Outcome Reporting System consisting of the CT FACS Report (CT Family Agency Community Systems) and the Connecticut CAA Outcomes Catalog.

The CT FACS Report provides for the status, frequency and populations for which family, agency and community outcomes are reported, while the Connecticut CAA Outcomes Catalog contains an inventory of all possible outcomes and indicators that can be achieved within the Connecticut Community Action Network.

The CT FACS Report and the Connecticut CAA Outcomes Catalog were developed in consultation with The Center for Applied Management Practices, Harrisburg, PA and is a derivative of a model developed by the Community Action Association of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, the state's CSBG office.