Read the Commissioner's Archived Comments

Letter from the Commissioner, Administration on Developmental Disabilities - 10/2008

The Case for a Strategic Portfolio

This is the last Commissioner’s Comments that I will be writing. As a result I approach this task with urgency and suggestions. First, I send my heartfelt thanks for your hard work and your belief in a novel idea, Family Support 360, which has grown into an effort that transforms lives and reshapes how human services professionals interact with and help families.

Second, now that you are in the last year of your 360 grant I suggest that you create a strategic portfolio. I know you have used strategic storytelling to capture the impact of your work with and on behalf of families. With the arrival of a new president and his appointees, and the funding of four new Family Support 360 projects to assist military families, and the funding of the National Clearinghouse and Technical Assistance Center on Family Support, it is a critical time to capture and package your organizational strengths.

What is a strategic portfolio? It is what you want it to be. If I were doing a strategic portfolio on a Family Support 360 project I would do it this way – I would develop one paragraph that simply describes what you do. Then, I would write one or two pages, using lots of bullets, to describe the range of things you do and the partnerships you have. Finally, I would compile samples or write descriptions about specific accomplishments for each year of your project. A portfolio is powerful and useful if it clearly lays out your capacity and potential. It is also powerful and useful if it reflects your evolution and a legacy, things that others would benefit from and embrace.

Once you draft your portfolio, compare it with the new President’s priorities, and see where there are connections. Once you learn about what is planned for military families, extract and share things from your portfolio that will help these new projects have early successes. Share with the new National Clearinghouse and Technical Assistance Center on Family Support products the Center could place on its web site, examples of expertise you offer to develop training materials to empower families, and contacts you have who could collaborate with the Center.

There are many things to do in your last grant year. The key is to do them smartly. You have much to offer others – partnership to transfer, expand, or shift the focus of Family Support 360; resources such as products, expertise, and contacts; and experience in organizational and policy development that fostered broad systemic change for families that helped them thrive and grow in their communities. All of this will be easier if you invest time in preparing a portfolio.

I value you and what you do. I am committed to what you have started. Leaving this position will not lessen my commitment.

Thank you.

Patricia A. Morrissey, Ph.D.
Commissioner
Administration on Developmental Disabilities