The Strategies Center at Youth for Change

Organizational success is driven by effective leadership, a motivating vision, a clear mission, and values that are aligned with the mission.

Leadership. Effective leadership is critical to an organization’s resilience and its long-term success. To enhance this capacity, the Strategies Center may administer the Leadership Vital Signs (LVS). This assessment (developed by Six Seconds) measures a leader’s capacity “to produce strong results, build a thriving organization, and drive change.” The LVS answers questions such as:

• Is your leader able to inspire motivation?
• How strong is your leader in execution?
• To what degree does your leader foster teamwork?
• How skilled is your leader at generating buy-in for change?

Vision/Mission/Values. If needed, the Strategies Center can facilitate discussions to create or to revise your organization’s vision, mission, and values statements.

Nonprofits exist to achieve positive community outcomes. Successful organizations are guided by:

• A strategic plan that outlines priorities
• Program designs based on a theory of change that makes sense and reflects best practice
• Data collection, evaluation, and analysis that provides feedback for program improvement and documents the outcomes achieved

The Strategies Center provides learning and development in these areas, as well as technical assistance to develop your strategic plan, set up your evaluation methodology, analyze and interpret your data, and more.

Effectively identifying, obtaining, and using existing resources—people, goods, services, and funding—is critical to an organization’s ability to carry out its mission. Hearing the word “sustainability,” most people think of money. This element looks at money and more:

• Giving trends
• Taking a total resources approach using people, goods, services, and money
• Mapping current and desired funding streams
• Creating a fund development plan
• Strategizing to diversify and more effectively use resources

Sustainability depends upon positive relationships and active partnerships with those whose support is integral to achieving an organization’s vision and goals. Marketing and outreach to the community served, and to other stakeholders builds visibility and reputation. Covered in this area:

Allies and Champions

• Engaging community support
• Becoming a better partner
• Strategic collaboration and partnerships
• Developing an outreach plan for building allies and champions

Marketing & Communications

• Visibility
• Reputation
• Telling your story
• The public relations value of evaluation results
• Strategic communications
• Marketing plan development

The “behind-the-scenes” operations of an organization are critical to its long-term success. Included in this element are learning and development, and technical assistance in the following areas:

• Governance and board development
• Financial management
- Financial planning and budget development
- Cost analysis
- Financial reporting and monitoring
• Human resources/people management
• Program design, evaluation and monitoring systems
• Facilities and equipment
• Risk management
• Disaster planning

Another aspect of organizational resiliency is the ability to learn, respond successfully to change, and adapt to new or unexpected conditions.

Topics in this area of capacity include:

• Becoming a learning organization
• Developing critical thinking skills in your team
• Selecting, completing, and analyzing assessments
• Monitoring and evaluating change
• Facilitating change

Cultural proficiency may be defined as “the policies and practices of an organization, or the values and behaviors of an individual, that enable… effective interaction with clients, colleagues, and the community.” (Terry Cross)

The Strategies Center integrates cultural proficiency with organizational resilience because it influences each of the nine areas of capacity. Topics covered include:

• Cultural proficiency learning and development

• Creating a cultural proficiency plan for your agency

Organizational culture is defined as a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs that governs how people in an organization behave. An organization’s culture creates an organizational climate.

The Strategies Center measures organizational climate and workplace climate for teams using:

• Organizational Vital Signs. The OVS measures key indicators of organizational climate across your nonprofit, private, or public agency or organization. The OVS assesses the people-side of the organization and supports improved outcomes such as retention, productivity, customer focus, and future success.

• Team Vital Signs. The TVS measures the vitality of the work group, its capacity to achieve great results, and its readiness to meet new challenges. Results may be used to improve outcomes like team satisfaction, results, agility, and sustainability.

Following completion of these assessments, the Strategies Center provides results and facilitates planning for improved performance.

Social and emotional skills permeate every aspect of organizational resilience. The abilities to problem-solve, exercise leadership, think critically, promote positive communication, create trust, mediate conflict, and manage one’s own thinking, feelings, and behavior in relation to others are critical relationship skills.

The Strategies Center facilitates development of these skills among leaders and staff.