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The Spirit of Capacity Building
By Noël Rozum, AmeriCorps VISTA
Becoming More Effective Agents of Development & Change
Food for Thought
Living successfully in a world of systems requires more of us than our ability to calculate. It requires our full humanity, our rationality, our ability to sort out truth from falsehood, our intuition, our compassion, our vision, and our morality.-Donella H. Meadows
What is Capacity Building?
As a VISTA, do you feel like you have a good understanding of what capacity building is?
Definition of Capacity Building
Capacity building is the “process of developing and strengthening the skills, instincts, abilities, processes and resources that organizations and communities need to survive, adapt, and thrive in the fast-changing world.”-Ann Philbin, Capacity Building in Social Justice Organizations Ford Foundation, 1996
Systems Thinking
Recognizing the Patterns
Thinking Intentionally about Why They Exist
Uncovering the Structures that Support Them
Wisdom for Working the Systems
1. Know the history of the system
2. Don’t ignore the wisdom of the system
3. Be permeable
Wisdom for Working the Systems
4. Learn from the system
5. Honor all information
6. Design for intrinsic responsibility
Wisdom for Working the Systems
7. What’s important is not always quantifiable
8. Understand the ecoSYSTEM
9. Focus on AND beyond your VISTA year
Wisdom for Working the Systems
10.Be effective at interdisciplinary communication
11.Build caring capacity
12.Allow for the complexity that exists
Wisdom for Working the Systems
13.Strive for goodness
Resources
Where do you go from here?
Books
Bringing Out the Best in People: How to Apply the Astonishing Power of Positive Reinforcement By Aubrey C. Daniels
The NTL Handbook of Organizational Development and ChangeEdited by Brenda B. Jones and Michael Brazzel
Strengths Finder 2.0By Tom Rath
Articles
A Framework for Organizational Development: The Why, What and How of OD Work http://www.ufv.ca/Assets/BC%20Centres%20%28CRIM%29/Non-Profit%20Development/Articles/Board%20Governance%20and%20Leadership/Framework%20for%20Organizational%20Development.pdf
By Ann Philbin and Sandra Mikush
Systems in Sync Articleshttp://www.systemsinsync.com/ARTcapacity.htm
Websites
The Third Sector. Transforming Nonprofits: Powering Changewww.tsne.org
The Organizational Development Network. Advancing the Theory and Practice of ODhttp://www.odnetwork.org/
Capacity.Org A Gateway for Capacity Developmentwww.capacity.org
Comments? Insights?
Questions?
