“Organizational capacity” is a term that has a unique definition in the nonprofit world, and quite frequently stirs fear in both staff and board members. At its core, organizational capacity is the nonprofit’s level of ability to pursue and meet its mission. By measuring organizational capacity, a nonprofit can assess organizational health to get to the underlying root problems hiding behind symptoms. The process, when done correctly, creates stakeholder buy-in and positions the organization to be more strategic with limited resources.
But completing the assessment isn’t enough: organizations seeking true transformation must make sense of the results, design an action plan, and implement changes…which is where the Nonprofit Help Center comes in.
Working with us, you will introduce organization-wide learning that will jump start the process of positive change across six key domains: leading, learning, resource generation, planning, managing, and financial oversight. We use the Impact Capacity Assessment Tool (or “iCAT”), an industry-standard nonprofit assessment tool developed by Algorithm, to analyze your organization’s capacity, where it stands in its life cycle, and develop a suite of recommendations to prioritize your capacity-building efforts.
We co-create a plan for administering the iCAT with your board and staff, ensuring that they are well-informed and prepared for participation.
We open up the online survey for participants and offer them a one-week window in which to respond. The Nonprofit Help Center team monitors participation and follows up with those who need encouragement to complete the 20-minute questionnaire.
Once we've reached full completion, we prepare a substantive report detailing what was revealed at this singular point in time.
Selected leadership from your team meet with Dr. Emilie Socash to explore the three sections of the report: the overall capacity score plus individual capacity and sub-capacity scores; the estimate of the organizational capacity stage; and ten prioritized capacity-building recommendations.
Many nonprofits opt to take the findings further through a board retreat or staff workshop series with the Nonprofit Help Center team. Others also opt in to the Merit® Nonprofit Professional Development system, which aligns directly to the iCAT findings.
The first step to understanding how your organization is doing in pursuit of its mission is to schedule a chat with our founder, Dr. Emilie Socash. During this call, you'll think together on how a capacity assessment could help you better understand your work... and your team.
Click below to chat about the iCAT.
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