Category Archive for ‘Capacity Building’ at Creating the Future!

Archive for the 'Capacity Building' Category

Goals for 2010 and Beyond

Published

on January 17, 2010

in Capacity Building, Consulting, Nonprofit Planning, Pollyanna Principles and Transparency / Open Source

. 7 Comments

CloudsParting The vision of the Community Driven Institute is a healthy, vibrant, resilient, peaceful, humane world. To make that vision a reality for all of us, the mission of the Institute is to encourage and support the Community Benefit sector to leverage its considerable resources to do so.

In developing our plans for the next 12-24 months, we started with that vision of a peaceful, vibrant world and reverse engineered the cause-and-effect conditions that would ultimately lead to that vision. The following are among the immediate conditions we want our work to create:

* There must be ample proof that it is not only possible but practical (and simple) for “nonprofit” Community Benefit organizations to create visionary community transformation
* There must also be proof that functioning according to The Pollyanna Principles is a practical way for organizations to do their work.
* Social Change agents must be able to easily learn about and engage with the principles that undergird visionary community improvement. They must be aware that there are more effective options than “the way we’ve always done it.”
* Those who are ready to take the step of transforming their work must have access to teachers and mentors who can help them do so.
* Individuals who are on the path to creating transformation must have a place to learn together and support each other in their work.

To create these conditions, we have three major goals (and a lot of smaller goals / objectives) for the next 12-24 months. Those three include
• A Demonstration Project
• Expand Education Programs
• Engage and Expand the Conversation re: Creating Visionary Community Results

Demonstration Project: The Community-Driven Institute!
Over the last 2 years, we have kept an eye out for demonstration projects that could provide evidence of the results that happen when work is rooted in The Pollyanna Principles. The more we sought such projects, though, the more it has become clear that the first demonstration project is the Institute itself!

As the Institute separates from its nurturing incubator in our consulting firm (ReSolve, Inc.), we will be doing the kinds of things every organization does in the beginning – building a board, applying for tax exempt status. We will also be doing the kinds of things strong organizations do throughout their whole lives – ongoing learning and exploring about effective governance, building sustainability (financial and otherwise), and all the rest of what it takes to run the day-to-day of a community benefit organization.

The difference at the Community-Driven Institute is that we will be basing that work as consciously as possible on The Pollyanna Principles, determining at every turn what it means to walk that talk.

For example, what does it mean to build open, transparent, engaged governance? To recruit transparently? To build bylaws by engaging the wisdom of others? To make choices and operate by engaging transparently? To develop resources and form collaborations transparently?

How do we ensure our vision and values are infused in every action and decision, large and small, this new organization will make?

Over the next several years then, we will be exploring all our organizational infrastructure choices and actions openly, here on the blog and elsewhere. We will begin in the next week or so, engaging conversation about the decision-points we encounter in filing for our tax exemption – asking for advice and wisdom from the very people who will be not only benefiting from our work, but some of whose taxes will, in part, be supporting our work!

Similarly, we will engage conversation about how to build the board, about how to fund the Institute’s work (currently it is being supported entirely by Dimitri and me – certainly not a plan for sustainability in the long term OR the short term!). We will engage dialogue about changing the name of the Institute – a huge effort in the next few months, as the current name doesn’t come close to describing the work we are doing to engage this sector in creating the future of the world.

Being our own demonstration project infuses every action we take, no matter how seemingly “internal” or “unrelated to the mission” with the knowledge that those actions indeed have consequences for our mission. In reality, that is already true for each and every organization in each and every community. We are just vowing to be as conscious as possible and to transparently engage beyond our “4 walls” as much as possible about how our vision and values influence that seemingly “non-mission” work.

If our being a case study helps others learn what it looks like in practice to aim all our work at the difference we want to make in the world, it will be well worth the effort.

Expanded Education Projects
With our classes for consultants and MSO leaders already underway, we will be expanding the Institute’s learning opportunities to other leverage points in the system. Over the next year, those points will include:

• Consultants. We will continue to teach consultants and MSO leaders. Teaching the sector’s “Johnny Appleseeds” continues to be the fastest way to spread the mission.

• Social Entrepreneurs. This year we will be developing an immersion course for social entrepreneurs, one of the fastest growing areas of this sector’s work. Social entrepreneurs are passionate about creating visionary change, often employing innovative methods for program delivery. However, in most cases they are using the same infrastructure systems for governance, planning, and resource development that have proven to preclude the very change they want to create! As a result, most social entrepreneurs are quietly struggling - frustrated at what it takes to run an organization, frustrated that their ideas are not immediately springboarding into incredible community results, and all the while thinking they should know better.

• On-the-Ground Learning Communities. As word of the Institute’s work spreads, and as more people read The Pollyanna Principles and want to put that work into practice, it is becoming clear there is a need for supportive learning communities – not just virtually, but on the ground. These learning communities will convene and leverage the passion of otherwise disparate individuals, who believe they are alone in their belief that visionary change is not only possible, but practical and happening. By convening and supporting these groups of passionate community leaders, can you imagine what they will accomplish?

Engage Broader Dialogue / Change the Conversation in the Sector

I’ll be honest: the old drumbeat of blame and shoulds has become almost unbearable. The battle cries for more rules, more regulation. Huge publicity for competitive prizes coming at the same time as huge outcries about the need for collaboration. More checklists and standards and rankings of things that create no impact in communities but create stronger, more competitive, individual walled organizations. The myth that if we have effective organizations we will necessarily have great communities…

It is time that a new conversation become the pervasive conversation. The conversation about what is possible for our communities and how practical it is to achieve it. Conversations about how to build upon our interconnectedness, how to identify and build upon our assets and strengths. Conversations about the vibrant healthy world we are creating, and the vibrant healthy aspects of the world we are part of right now.

The goal of igniting and keeping a fire under a new conversation will include ongoing discussion at this blog, as well as the development of other blogs. It will include social media. It will include speaking engagements and writing in mainstream publications.

And it will include encouraging other bloggers and speakers and writers to also aim at what is positive and affirming and working well in this sector full of individuals who care passionately about our world. (Because if it’s just us, we will not get very far!)

The goal will also include a new means for engaging the dialogue – a new website for the CDI is clearly long overdue.

But beyond that, we are extending a challenge to the world, to ensure that every group working to “change the world” has the web presence it needs to do so. In our minds, one cannot separate the dialogue from the tools for dialogue, as those who don’t have the tools will continue to be excluded from the conversation.

And so we will simultaneously be
• Re-working our own CDI website to include considerably more avenues for conversation;
• Engaging that conversation elsewhere both online and off-line;
• Carrying the torch for an open source platform to ensure every group in the world has easy access to creating an engaged web presence.

*****

That’s it for our 2010-2012 goals. For each of these goals, you will hear more soon. For now, we hope you will share your thoughts about all or part of what we are presenting here. And we look forward to having you be part of this amazing journey.

So hold onto your hats, kids. The fun is just getting started!

What Management Support Orgs Make Possible

Published

Hildy

on November 24, 2009

in Capacity Building and Consulting

. 0 Comments

(This is the final installment in a 4-part article. Head here to start with Part 1.)

Management Support Organizations have immense potential. Looking beyond just helping the individual organizations they serve, their highest potential is the highest potential of our communities themselves.

No one could be more interested in that potential than Gayle Valeriote and Rick Carter.

Gayle is the Manager of Training & Consultation at the Volunteer Centre of Guelph/Wellington, a Management Support Organization in Ontario, Canada. Gayle is doing Community-Driven work from within the Volunteer Centre, and she is also working to develop a full-service Community Benefit Resource Centre in Guelph – an entity that does not yet exist.

Rick Carter is Executive Director of the Human Services Federation in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. Lincoln does not currently have a Management Support Organization, and Rick is hoping to help develop and perhaps even incubate such a resource.

Both Gayle and Rick have studied at the Community-Driven Institute. The following is excerpted from email and phone conversations with the two of them about this topic.

Hildy: What would be different in your community if there were a Community-Driven Resource Center?

Gayle: First, people from all walks of life would be having regular and fruitful conversations with each other about building the community they love. They would no longer be thinking about an “other” to distrust, shun, be puzzled by, ignore, discriminate against or harass. There would be only “we.”

Rick: Exactly. I would see us having deeper cooperative efforts within and across community sectors, based upon trust. We would be building upon the capacity and strengths of all sectors to work together and impact the way we think about and view our community.

Gayle: As part of that strength, community members would see themselves as active partners in the success of every initiative whose aim is community improvement. Our community would be described as a model of welcoming and inclusiveness.

The community would also be regarded in a holistic manner. People would be treated like citizens who have a significant interest in the outcome of efforts to improve their community. And they would be participating in making that happen. They would be skilled in the art of engagement and action, in service to that vision of a healthy, vibrant and joyful community. There would be substantial participation and a high degree of community “ownership” in the outcomes.

Rick: And that’s the most important – the outcomes themselves would be driven by community visioning that identifies the shared future we all want to be a part of.

Hildy: What then would be different internally for an MSO that was Community-Driven?

Rick: Currently our community’s capacity building efforts provide technical assistance, trainings, education, and other opportunities for organizations deemed “lacking” in certain areas. I envision an MSO that highlights organizations’ strengths and builds upon those strengths.

It all comes down to whether we narrowly define organizations as “problems to be solved” or if we are reaching for a vision of what is possible. If we’re reaching for a vision, we would ask different questions, starting with that vision. What would our community look like if not only community benefit organizations but all sectors who care about the community had the support to make the community better?

Gayle: The vision would be that we are building a vibrant community. And I mean that literally – community-building. A Community-Driven volunteer centre would see its job as creating a deep abiding relationship between people who are helping each other. We might stop calling them “volunteers” and start just talking about building a community where all people help each other. Then we would figure out how to measure how much difference our work is making in the community.

Rick: I think it speaks to how we work together as well. A truly Community-Driven MSO would cross all sectors. It would start with the vision, saying, “We can be a better community if we work together towards that end – businesses and educational institutions and chambers of commerce and governments and community organizations.”

The question is then not, “How do we build capacity for nonprofit organizations?” but “At the end of the day, if I care most about how to have a positive impact on the lives of the people in my community, what management supports need to be in place? And for whom?”

Gayle: Another key area is how and why we collaborate. Programs at a Community-Driven MSO would be built not just by the professionals at the MSO, but by everyone who would be affected by the program. Instead of the programs being expert-driven, we would be asking, “Where is the expertise in the community? How can we learn from each other?” We would be building learning communities, rather than having only “experts” teach.

Rick: I see those learning communities as places where we all would come to the table with an open mind, to learn from one another without labels of “weak” or “strong.”

Another point about collaboration is how we actually do it. I have seen programs that are almost entirely finished before they are presented to potential partners. And then the organization says,“We have sketched out what this program will do, and here is how we want you to collaborate with us.” That is very different from building programs together from the beginning.

So often collaborations are based on a revenue model, rather than asking, “How will the community be better because of what we do?” the concern is more about, “Who can we partner with to make our organization stronger?” Partnering becomes a mechanism for financial or political power to build a strong organization, rather than a way of being – that we always do our work in a way that builds a strong community.

Gayle: Another place a Community-Driven MSO might differ from the standard model is that leadership would be developed at all levels of the organization. By including and involving not just experts but everyone in the community learning together, the organization would create more opportunities for increased skills and a greater certainty regarding “representation” and “voice.” It’s again about community building, community organizing, building relationships – all focused on making our communities strong and healthy.

Rick: In the end, it’s all about learning how to leave “my agency” behind, and focus on reaching for the vision we have of “our community.” It’s about teaching how others can do that, and modeling that in the work the MSO does itself. It’s about being the change we want to see, not just in the organizations the MSO helps, but building the community we want to live in.

*****

In virtually every community in the developed world, one finds a chamber of commerce and/or a government-sponsored economic development office. It is time that same emphasis on infrastructure was devoted to the efforts that make our communities healthy, safe, vibrant, resilient, compassionate places to live.

The January 2010 Consultants’ Immersion Course is just for leaders and consultants in Management Support Organizations. Join us and learn how your Management Support Organization can become a catalyst for bringing out your community’s highest potential!

Management Support Organizations – Catalysts for Community Potential

Published

Hildy

on November 10, 2009

in Capacity Building and Consulting

. 0 Comments

(This is Part 3 of a 4-part article. Head here to start with Part 1.)

What would it look like in practice if Management Support Organizations were catalysts for Community Potential?

Here is just some of what that might be:

• The board and leadership of Management Support Organizations would see the organization’s purpose as being a catalyst for community wellness, vibrance, resilience – and their decisions would all aim towards those results.

• The Management Support Organization’s annual planning would aim at building community strength and “client” organizational strength at the same time.

• Systems would be developed for measuring the extent to which stronger organizational infrastructure is contributing to community change. The Management Support Organization could then evaluate its own progress by evaluating the increased effectiveness of organizations in achieving that community success.

• Management Support Organizations would think of the organizations with whom they work as partners in creating extraordinary communities (rather than thinking of them as weak and/or dysfunctional clients with layers of problems to be solved).

• Programs would be developed with an eye towards permanently changing organizational behaviors and culture (rather than episodic skills development).

• Programs would be developed to build the collective capacity of multiple groups together – building trust among them, teaching by modeling cooperation in the very way the program is taught.

• Management Support Organizations would not only work to catalyze change in on-the-ground provider organizations, but would work just as intimately to enhance capacity among the community’s funders, who need that assistance and have few places to find it.

• Programs would be developed to teach funders how to fund cooperatively rather than competitively.

• Management Support Organizations would be funded as critical community infrastructure.

• The content taught in classes at Management Support Organizations would aim organizations at creating significant, visionary community change (rather than teaching the very things that keep organizations struggling with disengaged or micromanaging boards – or teaching them to compete and then wishing they would stop).

In other words, all aspects of a Management Support Organization’s work – from leadership and planning to program design and measurement – would be aligned behind Being the Change They Want to See. Every aspect of the work WITHIN a Management Support Organization would be modeling and walking the talk of precisely what they want their partner / client organizations to do.

It all comes down to the following choice:

Management Support Organizations can choose to hold themselves accountable for simply providing educational programs.

Or they can hold themselves accountable for creating strong, healthy organizations.

Or they can choose to reach for the highest potential of the organizations they serve – creating a healthy, vibrant, resilient, humane future for the whole community.

Every day, Nonprofit Resource Centers, Volunteer Centers, Community Foundations and all the other organizations that provide infrastructure for community benefit work can choose which path to take. Which direction will the Management Support Organizations in your community choose?

*****

In Part 4 – the final part of this post – we hear from leaders in Management Support Organizations, talking about the potential they see as they aim their own work at creating extraordinary communities. Find that here!