Organizational Development
Newsletter 2018, continued
ALPHA-
With CSIO’s mentoring, Agencia ALPHA:
Accomplishments
ALPHA-
With CSIO’s mentoring, Agencia ALPHA:
- Developed and implemented work-plans to transform the Coffee hour to an organizing space, attracting over a dozen key leaders for ALPHA’s work.
- Created leadership development plans with volunteers and members, culminating in a member-led ALPHA media campaign (Immigrants Make America Strong) to change the mainstream public’s perception of immigrants.
- Built the organizer’s capacity to make ALPHA a transformational organization.
- Adopted plans to develop a more transformative legalization department.
Accomplishments
- ALPHA’s organizer grew her capacity to develop the leadership of volunteers and members in the organization and campaign, with less and less support from CSIO as time went by.
CSIO and ALPHA working on community organizing.
CSIO started working directly with ALPHA in December 2015 after ALPHA staff and volunteers participated in a CSIO Grassroots leadership Institute. We started with an organizational evaluation, where ALPHA reviewed its programs, services, mission and vision. At the beginning of 2016 we held dialogues with the entire staff and key volunteers to talk about what it would mean for ALPHA to incorporate community organizing as a core practice in the organization – placing constituents at the center of the work.
After ALPHA decided to prioritize organizing, we started providing intense on-site support to ALPHA’s community organizer, Damaris Lopez. We developed organizing plans for each piece of ALPHA’s work –coffee hours, citizenship classes, legal services and a weekly radio program. We connected plans to the broader organizational goals and then began the process of leadership development and organizing.
From fall 2016 to the beginning of 2017 we coached the community organizing staff, facilitated trainings and dialogues with the entire staff so that everyone was on board to the organizing goals. Trainings included:
- What is community organizing?
- The differences between community organizing, services and advocacy.
- Grassroots leadership development.
- Individual and organizational transformation, among others with the idea that this will help the whole organization to be in the same page and for them to support the internal work that already was impacting the way they deliver their work in the community.
CSIO has helped ALPHA incorporate a community organizing framework into 2 program areas and is presently working with the legalization program. All staff support legalization, so everyone has been involved in developing and understanding the framework. Given ALPHA’s legalization reaches thousands each year, we will build the organizing work in these services in stages, so as not to overwhelm staff or constituents.
OUR APPROACH
CSIO brings to its organizational development work a framework for community accountability which helps emphasize the importance of grassroots leadership as the core of organizational functioning. We believe that in immigrant community based organizations, members of the immigrant constituency should be leading the organization. The organization should have mechanisms that help it to be accountable to the needs of the community as the community defines them. The board should be comprised in large part of members of the community which the organization was set up to serve. Ideally, these community representatives help to articulate the community's vision for the organization and help hold the organization accountable to that vision. The Executive Director, or other coordinating or executive body, is accountable to the community board and to the larger vision for the organization which the board and the organization help the community to define. The Executive Director also helps each staff member of the organization to understand their particular role in achieving the vision and how their work each day helps make progress towards that vision.
Since 1999, CSIO has been providing organizational development support in the above framework in a multitude of areas:
- Leadership development strategies (staff, board and membership)
- Organizational assessments
- Evaluation and planning of organization and programs
- Work plan development
- Coaching for executives and organizers
- Strategic (3-5 year) and operational (1-year) planning
- Grant writing, research and reporting
- Budget development and financial planning
CSIO helps Agencia ALPHA develop 2016 work plan based on organizing goals
Groups with which CSIO has worked in the above areas include:
Massachusetts: Chinese Progressive Association, City Life/Vida Urbana, Brazilian Immigrant Center, Metrowest Workers Center, Association of Haitian Women (AFAB), Multilingual Action Council, Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores, South Boston en Accion, Mass Worker Education Roundtable, Neighbors United for a Better East Boston (NUBE), Allston-Brighton CDC, Boston Tenant Coalition, Agencia ALPHA, Brockton Interfaith Committee.
Rhode Island: DARE, Olneyville Neighborhood Association, English For Action, ASOVENE, Providence Youth Student Movement, Muslim Community Center, RISE, Oasis International
Language capacity
CSIO is a fully bi-lingual Spanish/English organization. CSIO will work with groups that are not immigrant-led when capacity allows.
Organizational Development priorities for 2015 and beyond
CSIO is a small organization which prioritizes in-depth organizational support to grassroots-led groups. We know that effective capacity building must be comprehensive and multi-faceted. Skills-building requires in-depth information sharing as well as opportunities for onsite implementation of what is being learned "on the job."
For the above reasons, CSIO prioritizes onsite support and organizational assistance work with those organizations that are involved in our multi-organizational initiatives (such as NIAAS and the Institutes). We believe that the opportunity to attend trainings and participate in peer learning and networking with other practitioners greatly enhances the experience and impact of onsite support and technical assistance.
Finally, we recognize that ideally on-site support work should happen in a flexible manner which allows organizations to choose to take on certain pieces of work when it best suits them. We have formulated an approach to support which creates a "bank of hours" which an organization can draw down on as opportunities for particular kinds of assistance arise in their work. If capacity building work can be done in discrete pieces, which are staged in a way that suits a particular organization and timed to meet the most favorable organizational circumstances, then, in our experience, the impact is greater and more long lasting.
CSIO is flexible about considering organizational development work that falls outside the above parameters. But, with sufficient resources, we believe this more integrated approach offers the most strategic use of our capacities and time.
Massachusetts: Chinese Progressive Association, City Life/Vida Urbana, Brazilian Immigrant Center, Metrowest Workers Center, Association of Haitian Women (AFAB), Multilingual Action Council, Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores, South Boston en Accion, Mass Worker Education Roundtable, Neighbors United for a Better East Boston (NUBE), Allston-Brighton CDC, Boston Tenant Coalition, Agencia ALPHA, Brockton Interfaith Committee.
Rhode Island: DARE, Olneyville Neighborhood Association, English For Action, ASOVENE, Providence Youth Student Movement, Muslim Community Center, RISE, Oasis International
Language capacity
CSIO is a fully bi-lingual Spanish/English organization. CSIO will work with groups that are not immigrant-led when capacity allows.
Organizational Development priorities for 2015 and beyond
CSIO is a small organization which prioritizes in-depth organizational support to grassroots-led groups. We know that effective capacity building must be comprehensive and multi-faceted. Skills-building requires in-depth information sharing as well as opportunities for onsite implementation of what is being learned "on the job."
For the above reasons, CSIO prioritizes onsite support and organizational assistance work with those organizations that are involved in our multi-organizational initiatives (such as NIAAS and the Institutes). We believe that the opportunity to attend trainings and participate in peer learning and networking with other practitioners greatly enhances the experience and impact of onsite support and technical assistance.
Finally, we recognize that ideally on-site support work should happen in a flexible manner which allows organizations to choose to take on certain pieces of work when it best suits them. We have formulated an approach to support which creates a "bank of hours" which an organization can draw down on as opportunities for particular kinds of assistance arise in their work. If capacity building work can be done in discrete pieces, which are staged in a way that suits a particular organization and timed to meet the most favorable organizational circumstances, then, in our experience, the impact is greater and more long lasting.
CSIO is flexible about considering organizational development work that falls outside the above parameters. But, with sufficient resources, we believe this more integrated approach offers the most strategic use of our capacities and time.