Our system of community services is a patch-quilt of nonprofits, government agencies, and corporate enterprises crossing the spectrum from the survival services of food banks and homeless shelters to general public services such as education, medicine, and mental health care.  Each program, each service, each agency has its own internal bureaucratic guidelines, restrictions, funding limitations, and agency-specific focus of vision. 

Even as all are intended for the benefit of those in need, much of what we put in front of the public in the name of service all too often become barriers to the very services we wish to provide.  With little or no coordination of these service agencies and their missions, there is a lack of coherence regarding identifying the public needs and the collective attempts to address those needs.

The causes for the resulting confusion, chaos, gaps, and breakdown of services are complex.  Within our contemporary bureaucratic models, there is no center that holds, there are only parts; there is little sharing of visions or of data regarding the needs or resulting successes.

As systemic prerequisites grow more complex and demanding, the pressures upon all of the providers become so great they are hardly able to survive – let alone thrive as services in our community. Despite our bravest efforts, we are most off stuck with only our fingers in the dikes and with prayers that we don’t lose what we have. The root causes of these frustrations and limitations are deeper and more systemic than the usual suspects of project planning or management effectiveness. These underlying cross-systemic issues are the result of the antiquated bureaucratic models we continually maintain our allegiance to, when in fact they are in many ways our worst enemy.