About Us

Board Members Finances Ethics Strategic Plan

The National Human Services Assembly is an association of the nation’s leading national non-profits in the fields of health, human and community development, and human services. Many of the member organizations are national offices of large networks of local health & human service organizations. Others are national research or resource organizations or national programs.

The National Assembly is a learning community where leaders with parallel responsibilities at different national nonprofit human service organizations (e.g., CEOs, HR directors) share knowledge and expertise about their work in this sector.

It is also a vehicle for collaborative action among its members and other interested parties in the public, private and nonprofit sectors.

Mission
To engage leaders of the national nonprofit health & human service sector in collective efforts to advance the effectiveness of health & human services in the United States.

Vision
A just and caring nation that seriously and effectively addresses human development and the health & human service needs of its citizens.

Goals
1. Provide collective leadership to shape national human development/health & human service strategies.
2. Serve as a catalyst for sharing of resources for the purposes of individual/professional development and organizational efficiency and effectiveness.
3. Increase awareness of the importance of and trust in the nonprofit health & human service sector.

Programs & Activities (see also Membership & Services)

Issue Coalitions: Coalitions of members focused on collaborative efforts around three areas currently: youth development, aging, and family strengthening.

Peer Networking Groups: Peer networks of leaders of member organizations with parallel responsibilities (e.g., youth development program VPs, COOs) that convene literally and virtually to share common concerns, learn, and, in many instances, take collaborative action. It serves as a professional development outlet. For more information on the latest working peer networks, click here.

Executive Leadership Institute: An annual two-day institute for CEOs and board chairs on current national nonprofit leadership challenges with cutting edge presenters. Typically in November.

Essence of Leadership Awards: Annual recognition program for a national executive, a national board volunteer, a member of the media, and a national public or civic leader.

National Human Service Leaders Summit: The Leaders Summit is held in September in conjunction with e Essence of Leadership Awards. The summit is geared towards nonprofit leaders and managers of Assembly member organizations.

Policy Collaboration: Two policy groups of representatives of member organizations—one on youth development, the other on broader health & human service/nonprofit sector issues—that meet and communicate regularly to coordinate strategy.

Benchmarking: Surveys and other means to document common practices and data of national nonprofit health & human service organizations. At present, an annual salary and benefits report, conducted in partnership with the National Health Council, available to members only.

Business Services/Benefits: Partnerships formed by the National Assembly or groups of members to provide savings or effect efficiencies for member organizations and their affiliates or constituent organizations.

Publications: Reports and how-to guides, typically the result of collaborative initiatives of the Assembly and its members. Also, a fundamental of the sector: Standards of Accounting and Financial Reporting for Voluntary Health and Welfare Organizations, produced in partnership with the National Health Council. Coming: publications of the Amherst Wilder Foundation on nonprofit management/leadership practices and concerns.

Web Sites: Websites or pages provided as vehicles for the exchange of information: www.nassembly.org, the primary site; www.nydic.org, National Youth Development Information Center, diverse information on youth development issues and programs; www.youthfilmproject.org, F.I.L.M. Finding Inspiration in Literature & Movies is a film and literacy initiative of the National Collaboration for Youth; www.youthcoordinationact.org, Highlights NCY's support of this important act.

Newsletter: The semi-monthly electronic Human Services Newsbytes, available to anyone interested. To see the latest edition, click here.

Nonprofit Standards & Accountability: Monitoring and providing sector input to standards-setting efforts, striving for the highest common denominator.

Special Initiatives: Collaborative efforts, often grant-funded and typically generated by an issue/affinity group or peer council of the Assembly. Current Initiatives:

History
Executives of twelve leading national social work organizations began regular monthly meetings in 1920. Formally organized in 1923, the National Social Work Council (NSWC) held meetings and conferences until 1945 when, upon revision of its by-laws, the Council expanded its functions and became the National Social Welfare Assembly.

The National Social Work Council did not undertake initiatives but helped existing agencies better fulfill their functions by mutual informational exchanges and discussions. Representatives of government, philanthropic foundations and agencies outside the NSWC were frequently invited to speak at the Council's monthly meetings and examine with its members topics of mutual concern. Other meetings revolved around reports from member agencies of programs and projects undertaken, and topics of current importance for social work, which were discussed at the Council's "Round-Table Meetings."

Early NSWC meetings were largely concerned with bases of financial support, budgets, and endorsement. Subsequent topics of discussion included: attempts to achieve better understanding and closer cooperation between agencies functioning in related areas or the same communities; relationships between national organizations and their local agencies; problems arising from the Depression, including the financial pressures toward retrenchment in a period of increasing welfare and relief requests; defense mobilization and its social repercussions; and, a few years later, demobilization and the social needs and problems created by massive relocation.

At an all-day meeting January 18, 1945, Council members concluded that some structural and functional alterations were necessary in order to create an organization capable of meeting more effectively the diverse social welfare problems in the post-war community. A new constitution was approved by the membership, and at its December 1945 meeting, the National Social Work Council became the National Social Welfare Assembly.

The two broad functions of the National Social Welfare Assembly, according to the 1965 edition of the Encyclopedia of Social Work, were to define and study problems of broad social policy affecting the needs of people and to plan action to meet these needs and, also, to serve national organizations and local communities in developing effective programs, operations, and administration in the field of social welfare.

The social health and welfare problems accompanying the relocation of Japanese-Americans during the war were studied by the National Social Work Council and again became a topic of concern for the Assembly when the difficult post-war resettlement began. The Assembly's Committee on Japanese Americans prepared a series of bulletins covering problems related to discrimination in housing and employment, legislation under consideration and prejudices against Japanese-Americans.

Social welfare agencies serving the interest of youth combined in several bodies of the Assembly to coordinate their work and undertake special projects. One such association, the Young Adult Council (YAC), was founded in 1948 as the coordinating organization for 28 national student and young worker organizations. Particularly concerned with youth in the 18-30 year age group, YAC sponsored a United States Assembly of Youth in 1953 at Ann Arbor, Michigan and also represented young adult organizations in the United States to the World Assembly of Youth (WAY).

Several name changes later, the descriptors in this history are as apt today as they were in those early years. And from the original twelve members to the twenty-nine that comprised the National Social Welfare Assembly in 1945, the membership has grown to nearly seventy national organizations. Those organizations and their respective local service networks collectively touch or are touched by nearly every household in America---as consumers of services, donors or volunteers. They comprise a $32 billion sector that employs some 800,000 workers, operating from over 150,000 locations.

The work of the Assembly is accomplished primarily through the collective efforts of its members. Following are examples of the members’ collective efforts:

During the Depression, the members strategized and shared information on “retrenchment in a period of increasing welfare and relief requests; defense mobilization and its social repercussion; …and the social needs and problems created by massive relocation.”
The Milford (PA) conference of 1923 focused on the commonalities in the practice of social casework across all areas of specialization.
Six national agencies, five of which worked together through the National Assembly (then the Council), established American War Community Services. The cooperative service agreement forged at that time continued through the Assembly after the war.
The Assembly’s Committee on Japanese Americans issued a series of bulletins covering discrimination in housing and employment and pending legislation that affected this population relocated during World War II.
The Assembly formed the Young Adult Council in 1948, a coordinating entity for 28 student and young worker organizations. It hosted the United States Assembly of Youth in 1953 and it became the home of the National Collaboration for Youth, which continues today.
Published first in 1974, the Assembly, in partnership with the National Health Council, published the fourth edition of Standards of Accounting and Financial Reporting for Voluntary Health and Welfare Organizations in 1998.
Also in the late 90’s, “NYDIC”—the National Youth Development Information Center, a website where all youth agencies and their workers can easily access information on youth programs, research, policy, jobs and more—was formed by the National Collaboration for Youth of the Assembly.
In 2002, the Assembly and its forged a partnership background checks to perform background checks on volunteers. This was part of a continuing focus on safeguarding clients, especially children, which included the publication of Screening Volunteers to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse a few years before and continuing advocacy for protective legislation.
With terrorism rising and war looming, United Way of America and the Assembly convened youth-serving agencies to share resources for helping children and families cope with terrorism and war. The results can be found at http://www.nydic.org/resource_crises.cfm.
In 2003, the National Assembly was cited as an effective collaborative effort in the Harvard Business Review article entitled, "The Non-profit Sectors $100 Billion Opportunity."

The traditions of learning, sharing, and collaborative efforts within the Assembly family of national nonprofit health & human service organizations continue.

National Assembly Board Members

Officers:

Chair

Jill Schumann

President/CEO

Lutheran Services in America

Vice Chair

Daniel Cardinali

President

Communities in Schools

President

Irv Katz

National Assembly

Treasurer

Carl Augusto

President & CEO

American Foundation for the Blind

Secretary

Kathy Cloninger

CEO

Girl Scouts of the USA

Executive Committee/ At Large

Gail Manza

Executive Director

MENTOR

Directors:

Ian Bautista

President & CEO

United Neighborhood Centers of America

Donna Butts

CEO

Generations United

Mishaela Durán

Vice President of Public Policy

National Network for Youth

James Firman

CEO

National Council on Aging

Donald Floyd

President and CEO

National 4-H Council

Charles Gould

President

Volunteers of America

Joe Haggerty

Chief Operating Officer

United Way of America

Kathleen Horsch

Past Chairman, Honorary Life Member

American Cancer Society

Lt. Col. David E. Jeffrey

National Chief Secretary

The Salvation Army

William C. Kelly, Jr. (At-Large)

President

Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future

Diane Keller Kessler (At-Large)

Marguerite Kondracke

President & CEO

America’s Promise Alliance

Jonathan Larsen

Policy Associate

National Youth Employment Coalition

Annelle Lewis

Senior Vice President

National Urban League

Tom Nelson

Chief Operating Officer

AARP

Neil Nicoll

CEO

YMCA of the USA

Jill Pasewalk

National President and CEO

Camp Fire USA

Joyce Roché

President & CEO

Girls Incorporated

John Strong

President & CEO

Consorta, Inc.

Kala Stroup

Chief Executive Officer

American Humanics

Kenneth Wade

President

NeighborWorks America

Dr. Susan Weinberger

President

Mentor Consulting Group

Finances

To view the financial reports of the National Assembly, please visit www.guidestar.org. Using Guidestar you can view reports and download our 990.

EIN: 13-1624112

Please note: The National Assembly is in the midst of a name change, reports on Guidestar will be listed under our previous name; National Assembly of Health and Human Service Organizations.

Code of Ethics

The National Assembly recognizes that as an association it is accountable to its members and as a nonprofit organization it is accountable to the government and the public as well. It must earn the support of its members and the trust of the public every day, trust that can only be earned by adhering to the highest ethical standards for the nonprofit sector. The Assembly aspires to no less than this.

Adhering to relevant laws and regulations is the minimum standard of expected behavior for a government-sanctioned nonprofit organization. We aspire not just to obey the law but to embrace the spirit of the law, going beyond legal requirements to ensure that what the Assembly does is consistent with what it is established to do. As such, transparency, openness and responsiveness to public concerns are integral to our practices.

Click here to view the National Assembly Code of Ethics Document. (PDF)

To report any perceived ethical wrongdoings of the National Assembly, please click here.

Note: This is not to report on other organizations, only the National Assembly itself.