BANNHSA

The Bay Area Network of Nonprofit Human Service Agencies (BANNHSA) is a group of executive directors of Bay Area family and children's agencies launched in 2006 as a think tank formed in collaboration with the Mack Center to focus on issues related to the nonprofit human services sector. Located in the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, BANNHSA was founded with the support of the Bay Area Social Services Consortium (BASSC) and a seed grant from the Van Loben Sels/ Rembe Rock Foundation of San Francisco.

BANNHSA meets quarterly and focuses on three key areas:

  1. Field-Based Research: Applied research related to leading and managing nonprofit human service organizations.
  2. Promising Practices: Teaching cases and comprehensive literature reviews aimed at identifying and disseminating promising practices in the nonprofit human services sector.
  3. Management Leadership Development: A training program for middle-managers in the nonprofit human services sector based on Organizational Development principles of peer learning and support.

Research

The BANNHSA Research Team, overseen by the Mack Center, began in 2006 with two major projects: 1) mapping the knowledge base of nonprofit management in the human services, and 2) compiling organizational case studies of pioneering human service organizations in the Bay Area. More recently, the Mack Center and BANNHSA have collaborated on the Performance Management Project, examining data informed practice and data systems in nonprofit human service organizations.

Training

The Managerial Leadership Development Program, overseen by the Mack Center, was a learning lab for mid-level managers from participating BANNHSA agencies. It provided an environment in which middle managers could: a) evaluate the ways in which they are taking up their current roles, b) assess their capacity for transitioning from manager to leader, and c) receive the feedback and coaching necessary to make that transitions. The results of this learning lab are found in the following publications:

Austin, M.J., Regan, K., Samples, M., Schwartz, S. & Carnochan, S. (2011). Building managerial and organizational capacity in nonprofit human service organizations through a leadership development program. Administration in Social Work 35(3), 258-281.

Austin, M.J., Regan, K, Gothard, S., & Carnochan, S. (2013). Becoming a manager in a nonprofit human service organization: Making the transition from specialist to generalist. Administration in Social Work. 37(4), 372–385.

Regan, K. & Austin, M.J. (2015). Becoming a Leader in Nonprofit Human Service Organizations. Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley, Mack Center on Nonprofit and Public Sector Management in the Human Services, School of Social Welfare

Current BANNHSA agency members:

Uplift Family Services
Samaritan House
Huckleberry Youth Programs
Community Gatepath
Catholic Charities
Edgewood Center for Children and Families
Peninsula Family Service
Family Support Services of the Bay Area
Petaluma People Services Center