A Determined Attack on Need... Empowering America's Grassroots

Promising Practices for Improving the Capacity of
Faith- and Community-Based Organizations

Table of Contents | Chapter 2: The Intermediaries and the Organizations They Served |  Chapter 4: Group Training

Chapter 3.

Organizational Assessments

The first capacity-building activity for most of the intermediaries was to conduct an assessment that identified the organizational strengths and weaknesses of each FBO and CBO they recruited. The intermediaries used the assessment results to tailor technical assistance in ways that addressed each organization's most immediate and pressing needs and interests.

Five of the six CCF intermediaries conducted an assessment.⁹ One intermediary collaborated with a specialist in nonprofit organizational development to conduct the assessments. The others developed new assessment tools and conducted the assessments themselves. Although each instrument was unique, they covered the same key topics in organizational development: organizational purpose and legal status, board development, fundraising and marketing, financial management, program development and evaluation, community collaborations, personnel management, and information technology.

Several assessments used questionnaires to quantify capacity levels by assigning scores to the answers. Some of the questionnaires relied on yes/no statements. A sample question reads: "The board has adopted a clearly written mission statement that reflects the organization's purpose, values, and constituency served." The sum of all the "yes" responses was totaled for an overall score. Other questionnaires had assessors rate criteria along a scale; they would then average all responses to obtain a quantitative measure. In this approach, a sample question reads: "The organization's mission statement is reviewed periodically." Response categories include "never," "seldom," "occasionally," "often." The reliability or validity of any of these scales is not known, since they have been used with small samples and not validated against other measures of capacity or measures of organizational effectiveness. However, their practical usefulness seems clear. Intermediary staff believed these instruments helped them to pinpoint the areas of greatest need, and the FBO and CBO staff generally concurred.

Intermediaries used two valid approaches to using these questionnaires: external assessment and participatory assessment. In external assessments, intermediaries collected information through interviews with FBO and CBO staff, generally spending several hours with one or two key informants from the faith- or community-based organization. While some interviewers asked the questions exactly as they appeared on the assessment tool, some of the more experienced intermediary staff adopted a conversational tone. For example, a lead-in question such as "Tell me about your board of directors" got them much of the information they needed, and they asked follow-up questions when necessary.

In participatory assessments, FBO or CBO members completed the questionnaires themselves, and also engaged in group discussions or open-ended interviews. This innovative and inclusive approach (described more fully below) typically involved at least three representatives from the organization, including a board member, the executive director and a staff person; and it helped them identify organizational issues and needs that, before the assessment, they had not necessarily recognized as important priorities.

Benefits

Intermediary staff reported several benefits of the assessments and the work plans that followed. The assessment process educated FBO and CBO leaders both about their specific strengths, weaknesses and potential, and about general organizational principles. As one intermediary staff member noted, "It gives everyone a picture of what is good, what is weak, what is missing, and lets us work on these things." Many organizations do not take time out of their day-to-day operations to think about the "big picture" of where they are heading. And leaders of small organizations that lack a background in nonprofit management often have not thought about these organizational issues before: "Most don't know they are supposed to have x, y, or z until we go in there."

Another benefit of the assessment and resulting work plan was that it focused both the intermediary and service organization on a small number of achievable steps. (See the box on the next page for an example of steps taken by one organization.) The work plan listed the areas or activities to be undertaken, who was responsible (for example, consultant, executive director, board) and a timeline for completing the tasks. An overriding issue raised by many intermediary staff members concerned the need for grassroots organizations to "stay focused on their mission." The assessment process helped channel their efforts. While these benefits accrued to both external and participatory assessments, below we describe a particularly strong implementation of the participatory approach.

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Promising Practices

Participatory Organizational Assessments

Participatory self-assessments involve multiple staff from the FBOs or CBOs—from senior leaders to volunteers—and allow for dialogue and discussion among them about the organization's strengths and weaknesses. Intermediaries reported that this approach provides them with an in-depth and reliable grasp of the key issues that grassroots organizations face. They also reported that by increasing the organizational staff members' involvement in the process, this type of assessment increases those members' dedication to the resulting work plan and capacity-building efforts.

Associated Black Charities (ABC). Research that showed grassroots service organizations were "not getting the help they needed, just the help they asked for" inspired ABC's partner, the Resource Mentoring Project (RMP) of the University of Maryland's Social Work Community Outreach Service, to formulate, in partnership with ABC staff, an assessment process that collected more accurate information about organizations' needs.

To this end, ABC and the RMP adapted the Capacity Assessment Grid developed by McKinsey & Company for Venture Philanthropy Partners. The ABC/RMP tool contains 62 items, divided among eight categories in the following areas: mission and goals; human resources, such as staffing levels and board composition and commitment; and organizational skills, such as financial planning and budgeting, grant writing, and outcomes measurement.

The items are scored along a 1 to 4 scale, with "1" indicating the greatest need for development: 1) clear need for increased capacity; 2) basic level of capacity in place; 3) high level of capacity in place; and 4) exceptional level of capacity in place. Bulleted descriptions provide criteria for scoring each item. For example, the rating scheme for "mission" includes:

	1. Clear need for increased capacity	2. Basic level of capacity in place	3. High level of capacity in place	4. Exceptional level of capacity in place
Mission	No written "mission statement" No widely shared or expressed reason for group's existence	Some expression of mission Lacks clarity; not often cited	Clear mission statement Held by many Often cited	Clear mission statement Broadly held Frequently cited

The assessment begins with at least three people in each FBO or CBO (for example, a board member, executive director, and line staff or volunteer) using this tool independently to rate their organization, a process that takes about an hour.

One week later, the intermediary representative facilitates a meeting with everyone who completed the assessment from the organization. During the meeting, they work through the questionnaire item by item: organization members report their ratings for each item and discuss differences in their responses. Through this process, they often learn a great deal about each other's perceptions of the organization. In one organization, for example, a volunteer staff member did not know that the organization had a mission statement, while the executive director had given the mission category the highest rating.

For RMP staff, the point is not to come to a consensus on rating each item. Instead, the discussion provides the chance for participants to explain their ratings. Once they start talking about the ratings, other issues surface (for example, lack of engagement by the board or the need for a stronger focus on fundraising). This meeting, which lasts up to two hours, gives the RMP staff insight into the organization. RMP then takes the assessments and analyzes the results. They present the scores to the organization and also prepare a written narrative that reflects the discussion and offers recommendations for the organization. The organization then uses this document to develop an action plan. ABC used this information to direct technical assistance, training and sub-award funding to grantee organizations.

Document Review as Part of Organizational Assessment

In addition to conducting interviews and facilitating group discussions, intermediaries can learn about FBOs and CBOs by reviewing relevant documents. This additional method of data gathering was reported to enhance the assessment process by helping intermediaries gain a fuller view of the organization with which they were working.

Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA). While many intermediaries limited their organizational assessment procedures to taking an organization's word that they have a "concise mission statement" or "a strategic plan," MEDA requests and reviews 15 documents from each organization, including:

• Documents that articulate the organization's current mission, goals and vision.
• Bylaws and other policies or guidelines used by the board, as well as board officer and committee job descriptions.
• An organizational chart, job descriptions for key staff and employment policies.
• A strategic plan.
• The annual operations plan and budget, and an annual report or financial statement.
• Information brochures used to promote the organization.

MEDA staff members, all experienced nonprofit managers, analyze the information collected during the document-review process to develop an in-depth look at the organization and the issues "holding it back." This approach uncovers issues that do not necessarily come up in interviews and helps the intermediary to better target its technical assistance.

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An FBO Story Organization: Operation Nehemiah Intermediary: Mennonite Economic Development Association Operation Nehemiah is a Pittsburgh-based 501(c)3 affiliated with Petra International Ministries. Established 11 years ago with a focus on youth services, this faith-based organization has grown into a multi-service agency, whose programs include drug and alcohol treatment, economic development activities, a residential facility for males involved with the juvenile justice system, and in-home services for families. It has 24 permanent staff members and an operating budget in excess of $1 million, with funding from a variety of sources, including several grants from local county government. A major challenge facing Operation Nehemiah, as identified by MEDA through its organizational assessment, was reducing its dependence on county funding. MEDA provided support in this area by granting a sub-award that allowed Operation Nehemiah to develop a website and public relations materials, including an organizational logo and stationary. It is hoped that the "branding" of the Operation Nehemiah organization will assist with name recognition and fundraising. Building on these materials, the organization plans to receive technical assistance from MEDA on developing a volunteer base and launching an individual contributions campaign.

Table of Contents | Chapter 2: The Intermediaries and the Organizations They Served |  Chapter 4: Group Training