Monday, May 23, 2022
At the Bringing It Home Conference, Beth and Stan held a session on building your organization’s capacity. They introduced the Marguerite Casey Organizational Capacity Assessment and shared with the participants a simple start to assessing your organization’s capacity.
STEP 1. Build a team.
This team should consist of board and staff members and possibly other stakeholders depending on the diverse perspectives that are needed.
STEP 2. Complete an organizational assessment tool.
There are many to choose from. Beth and Stan shared the Marguerite Casey Organizational Capacity Assessment because it is comprehensive, covering four core areas of capacity: Leadership, Organizational, Management, and Operational. Our team has modified this tool into an online Google Form for ease in analyzing results. Note: there are some drawbacks to this tool as there are with any tool. Watch for our next blog about Beyond the Tool: Using a Consultant to Strengthen Your Organizational Assessment.
STEP 3. Talk about results with a facilitator
We highly recommend a facilitated discussion to connect your discovery from the assessment to the organization’s vision and values. This will help the team prioritize changes that may need to be made. This is a time to celebrate the current strengths and also identify and build a plan for the capacities that need to be improved. It is wise to not tackle too many elements of the plan all at once.
Consider what needs to be prioritized in order to better live into –
- who you want to be
- how you want to function
- how you want others to see you
- the impact you want to make
STEP 4. Create goals and strategies
Every strategic plan should include goals for organizational change and improvement as well as goals addressing the community impact you are working towards. Following the assessment and facilitated discussion, the goals and strategies that you develop can be incorporated into your organization’s strategic plan.