Organizational Development: Key Learnings

Training Across Distance 1 : Organizational development

Thursday, November 26, 2009. Noon EST.

Facilitator : Tatiana Fraser, Executive Director, Girls Action Foundation

Description: Girls’ programs seed and grow in differing contexts. In this session we will reflect on the impact of our work and ideas around sustainable growth. We will explore strategies and models to increase our impact, scale up our efforts and have a broader influence in our communities.

Key questions :

How can a youth-led grassroots organization simultaneously develop the influence that it has on the world and develop its capacity to deliver programming?

How can an organization continue to stay relevant to its stakeholders and community while also working in partnership with governmental organizations who are applying the principles of the organization on a very large scale?

What kind of support is there for capacity-building for youth-led organizations?

Key learnings:

The importance of strategic thinking around your organization’s capacity to deliver programming and actually function as an organization before putting a lot of energy into thinking about the huge-scale influence you’re having. Need to figure out priorities for program delivery, influence, etc.

How to build capacity for an organization, especially when you are working in an early start-up phase?

Draw on people who have shown a commitment, i.e. advisory board, and look to the specific skills that individuals have. Connect with people individually around those skills and how they can support the organization

Traditional strategic planning is not always the most useful tool: try to build plans out of the needs of your particular stage of growth.

When you are feeling torn between internal organizational development and also continuing to deliver programming, consider scaling programming down slightly, and make sure that you are working with volunteers who are skilled and committed to the same principles you/the organization are.

In terms of creating tools to show the work you are doing as an organization, video documentation & media arts projects in general are really strong testimonies to work with youth.

Resources:

Book (not available online) : Getting to Maybe – Frances Westley & Brenda Zimmerman

Articles: See PDFs attached.