Webinar: Building Organizational Capacity

A couple of months ago, Common Ground's founder, Craig Bowman, was asked to present a webinar focusing on capacity building as a tool for creating organizational sustainability in the social profit sector. The session was part of the technical assistance being provided by the National Mentoring Center to YouthBuild USA National Mentoring Alliance sites. Though focused on YouthBuild, the webinar is applicable to most social profit organizations.

Since then, we've had a lot of requests for the recording of that workshop, and we're now able to make it available here. The workshop is just an hour and is really intended as an introduction to the topic. We've also created a comprehensive organizational self-assessment. If you're interested in using that assessment tool, please contact us at info@commongroundconsulting.org.

Here's an overview of that workshop and a link to the recording:

Building Organizational Capacity Webinar Recording

Session Description

Participants (primarily YouthBuild Directors) will develop an understanding of the key elements of organizational capacity building and long-term organizational sustainability. This will allow YouthBuild USA National Mentoring Alliance sites to better plan for the ongoing success of the mentoring component and the overall YouthBuild program.

Abstract

In the for-profit sector, companies invest millions of dollars annually in the people and systems that affect their bottom-line. The social profit sector has been slow to embrace this strategy, yet we are faced with solving some of our nation's most dire social problems. Burnout and turnover are epidemic in our organizations, but social profits tend to avoid taking a hard look at their infrastructures with an eye towards long-term stability, let alone growth.

In this session, YouthBuild Directors will define capacity building using a particular approach that looks at seven key indicators of capacity. All participants will leave with a tool for assessing their own organizations.

Specific to the work of the National Mentoring Alliance, Directors will be able to use this capacity building framework to work more effectively with their Mentoring Coordinators and other staff in preparing for the time when their OJJDP-funded mentoring grant ends. This webinar, combined with follow-up Regional Trainings taking place in the fall, will give National Mentoring Alliance sites a planning framework and specific strategies needed to keep both mentoring and the overall YouthBuild program on solid ground for the long haul.

Objectives

1. Define capacity building as it is used in the social profit sector.
2. Recognize and explain the seven key indicators of organizational capacity.
3. Learn how to use a particular model and capacity assessment tool.
4. Understand how the capacity assessment work can inform the sustainability of the mentoring component of their YouthBuild site.