Human service agencies and the question of impact: Lessons for theory, policy, and practice

Abstract

Human service agencies are facing an environment in which demands for impact, effectiveness, and performance are rising faster than our knowledge about how to best to achieve those goals. Organizations are increasingly pressured to do “more” with little guidance about what service-related changes might mean for the long-term well-being of their organizations, the consumers of their services, and the communities in which they are embedded. This article introduces a special issue on the effect of the pursuit of “impact” on staff, managers, and organizational processes by tracing the history of how human service organizations became targets for greater demands of efficiency and impact, some of the field level changes that are taking place as a result, and the managerial dilemmas that have arisen under this new regime.

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