On February 24, DH and DOH hosted a community conversation about sustainability planning. For those who were able to attend, we appreciate your contributions, perspectives and questions around this topic. If you have not had a chance to fill out the post-event survey, please take a moment to share your feedback with us.
PSAT Resource
This conversation was centered around the Program Sustainability Assessment Tool, or PSAT. The PSAT is a tool that helps organizations explore strategies for long-term stability and identify their unique strengths by assessing eight interrelated areas of focus: environmental support, funding stability, partnerships, organizational capacity, program evaluation, program adaptation, communications and strategic planning. Follow the steps below to access this resource and see how your organization can leverage its strengths:
- Step 1: Take the PSAT. The Program Sustainability Assessment Tool is available in both English and Spanish.
- PDF version of the PSAT in English: https://sustaintool.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Sustainability-ToolV2_w-scoring_12.11.13.pdf
- PDF version of the PSAT in Spanish: https://sustaintool.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Spanish-PSATscoring.pdf
- Step 2: Review the Resource page for Sustainability Planning which provides information relating to all eight domains discussed during the webinar. This page provides specific resources for each domain and can be found here.
- Step 3: Create an Action Plan. Washington University of St. Louis provides a few sample Sustainability plans as well as two different Action planning templates. You can download them at the following link: https://sustaintool.org/psat/plan-for-sustainability/
Community Conversation Recap and Resources
During the conversation, we gathered the following key themes shared by community partners:
- Partnerships are essential to improving public health: Your organization can support public health efforts beyond COVID-19.
- Sustainability Planning is not intended to compare against other organizations in a competitive way
- The tool shared can be applicable for community-based organizations and community media outlets
- The PSAT can help organizations identify gaps and strengths to focus on in terms of sustainability.
- Partner organizations value data to better support their communities
For those who were unable to attend, find the conversation recording, presentation materials and sustainability resources below.
- Access a recording of the presentation portion of the meeting here.
- Access the meeting transcript, the presentation slides (which include links to the resources shared by DH and DOH during the presentation), as well as resources related to the Program Sustainability Tool (PSAT) at the Drop Box link here.