Resource Library
Talking Points & Social Media Tools for CSBG, WAP, LIHEAP & Head Start
This toolkit provides talking points, graphics, and social media messages that specifically address the impact and necessity of the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) as well as the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and Head Start.
2025 Community Action Messaging Toolkit
This toolkit provides a collection of network talking points for communicating the critical importance of Community Action Agencies to local communities across the country. The toolkit also includes sample graphics and social media posts, along with guidance on how to quickly and easily add your agency’s logo to the templates provided.
Board Discussion Guides for Navigating Uncertainty
These two guides are designed to help boards explore uncertainty, strengthen decision-making, and plan for the future. Use them to spark meaningful conversations, assess options, and align on next steps.
Communities in Action Together Media Toolkit
We’re excited to announce the release of the Communities in Action Together Media Toolkit — a newly compiled collection of outreach and advocacy resources originally developed by the National Community Action Foundation (NCAF). This brand-new resource is designed to help Community Action Agencies amplify their voices, tell their stories, and engage the public and policymakers around the importance of the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG). Inside, you’ll find ready-to-use messaging, social media templates, talking points, and outreach strategies to support your advocacy efforts. Whether you’re crafting a press release, planning a social post, or preparing for a conversation with a legislator, this toolkit has you covered. Check it out here and help elevate the impact of Community Action nationwide.
When Your CAA’s Upcoming Fiscal Year is Uncertain: A Guide for Community Action Agency Boards
This guide helps Community Action Agency boards lead effectively through funding uncertainty at the start of a new federal fiscal year. It centers on four priorities: prepare for strategic action, understand the landscape, plan for multiple scenarios, and elevate Community Action. It provides practical guidance to support timely, informed decision-making during uncertain times.
2023 Standards of Excellence
The Standards of Excellence describe thirty-five of the very best practices of the very best Community Action Agencies. They are aligned closely with the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence—used world-wide for organizational performance and improvement. Developed and updated biannually with broad input from the Community Action Network, these Standards help answer the question: What does an excellent Community Action Agency look like? The bar is set high, as excellence represents the very highest operational objectives for Community Action Agencies. It is about striving for and seeking to stretch the limits of performance.
Community Action Board Discussion Guide for Uncertain Financial Times
Financial uncertainty can challenge an organization’s ability to sustain its mission. Boards play a key role in guiding the agency through these challenges by overseeing financial strategy and ensuring long-term sustainability. This guide equips Community Action Agency boards with a structured approach to assess financial health, ask critical questions, and navigate tough decisions. It offers tools for scenario planning, decision-making, and balancing risk with opportunity.
Community Action Network Scenario Planning Toolkit
We’re excited to announce the release of NCAP’s new Scenario Planning Toolkit, created specifically for the Community Action Network. This toolkit is designed to help CAAs and State Associations navigate uncertainty by exploring potential future conditions and their impacts. It offers curated resources to assess and plan for key impact areas, including financial, operations, programmatic, and community.
Achieving the Community Action Vision: A Toolkit
This tool has been created in direct response to the Community Action Network’s request for language and tools to build their capacity related to equity and mobility as they are core to the current and future work of Community Action Agencies (CAAs). This toolkit also aims to provide a national perspective that CAAs in every community can learn from, draw inspiration from, and embody.
Whole Family Approach Building Blocks Resource Guide
This resource guide provides an overview of the Building Blocks for Community Action Agencies shifting to a Whole Family Approach. The guide defines the Building Blocks and provides examples of how each can be integrated within a Community Action Agency as well as its partners. The outline also provides helpful resources for further guidance to assist your team along the way.
2024 Community Action Month Toolkit
The purpose of the Community Action Month Toolkit is to provide resources to promote your Community Action Agency and to raise awareness of Community Action Month this May. We encourage you to share your stories throughout the entire year, but Community Action Month is a great way to showcase your successes in empowering families. To those ends, this toolkit contains sample social media graphics and messaging, press release and government proclamation templates, fundraising ideas, video production tips, and event and activity information that your agency can use to increase your visibility!
Protected: Community Action 60th Anniversary Toolkit
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Report: How Did the Community Action Network Respond to the COVID-19 Pandemic?
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit American communities in early 2020, the nation’s Network of over 1,000 local Community Action Agencies (CAAs) sprang into action. CAAs adapted existing services, implemented new ones and – almost overnight – shifted their entire organizational operations. How did they do this? Read this report to find out.
Aligning Systems to Advance Family and Community Well-Being: A Partnership Playbook for Community Action and Human Services Agencies
In this playbook you will have the opportunity to learn about the ways Community Action and human services agencies worked together to meet the pandemic challenge—what worked well, obstacles and difficulties, and lessons learned to inform our path forward, partnering to achieve a more equitable recovery. You will also explore how communities have leveraged opportunities to partner on approaches that hold the promise of deeper, longer lasting changes for families—work shaped by families’ wishes and strengths and designed to advance both family-level and systems-level change.