Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo

The Challenge

Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo is a “nonprofit agency that focuses on helping people and changing lives through serving nearly 40,000 persons across Central and Southern California. They are committed to eliminating poverty by empowering individuals and families to achieve economic self-sufficiency and self-determination through a comprehensive array of community-based programs.”

And, CAPSLO had a challenge common to many organizations: all of their staff training took place on-site in a classroom. Additionally, the agency was challenged by having a changing seasonal staff, frequent staff turn- over and strict compliance and verifiability requirements for its various funding resources. This meant time out of the field for training coordinators, slower staff training, inconsistent training and high costs both in travel and staff burn out. They wanted a way to reduce costs and time away as well as a reliable, consistent and successful way to train staff on- demand and across diverse and changing environments.

The Solution

The solution was two-fold: create engaging and easily adapted online learning and provide the platform for content delivery. KMI Learning collaborated with the CAPSLO SMEs to take the content typically created for the classroom, apply compelling online learning principles and design to develop staff training. These online modules could be used in concert with classroom sessions or as stand -alone learning or as a reference when classroom sessions were not readily available. . The experiential value of the classroom training was important and had been successful. To build on that successful learning experience, simulations of the classroom activities and creation of additional skills scenarios were incorporated in the eLearning modules. The design style of the modules reflected the actual environment in which the staff would work, the clients they would support and provided the tools necessary to be successful.

KMI also implemented our LMS to provide a user-friendly, intuitive platform for delivery of the online content, webinars and management of classroom sessions. The LMS allowed for single sign on for learners through the CAPSLO intranet making access simple and direct. All learning events were now managed through a single platform ensuring that staff, supervisors and managers all had training data easily available.

KMI worked within the particular constraints that are often part of working with non- profit organizations. Just as funding and budget challenges were addressed through a multi-year plan, the curriculum plan was similarly viewed. Content priorities were evaluated and the course development was managed through this long term perspective.

The Outcome

CAPSLO is now able to provide consistent and replicable staff training exactly when a learner needs it. This reduces travel costs and frees up training coordinators for content development. And, with the LMS all training is tracked and verified. As CAPSLO adds course to its curriculum, they will have a robust staff university.