ALP Success Stories

June 2022:

Reclaim Finance

“ALP has proven so useful for Reclaim. The leadership coaching provided by Joe came at an important time for our organisation, that has been growing significantly since its creation two years ago. The coaching has allowed us to structure and improve our management style and internal coordination and processes. It has made life easier for the entire team, and we're all the better for it.”

Elinor Rafaelli, Reclaim Finance, France, GCF

The NEXT Group (Korea)

ALP provided us a myriad of learning options that we’ve had thirst for. Thanks to ALP, I feel much more confident about communication and fundraising for the organization.”

Rachel Eun Ko, The NEXT Group, Korea, GCF

CCCA

“The Action Learning Program (ALP) has been (and continues to be) a fantastic resource for CCCA. The CCCA is relatively young, and we have ambitious organisational development goals in areas such as strategy, fundraising, external communication, leadership development, financial management and compensation and benefits. We have strengths and weaknesses across each of these topics. Discovering and eliminating our blind spots used to be time consuming and therefore frustrating. ...We had to find consultants, factor in the cost, research online sources, reach out to our networks, etc. But with ALP these processes have been significantly streamlined! Cooperating with ALP is like having our own internal learning and development unit. When we joined the ALP in 2021/22, members of our leadership team attended all the 90 min seminars, even if the topics were not a short-term priority. We did a deep dive into overall strategy and fundraising strategy via customised workshops, and we did mini deep dives into other topics offered by the ALP. All of this has helped us learn fast and apply it to our work.”

**Julia Solana (legal) and Joel Rache (operations), Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA)/FILE.

AktivAsia

"I can honestly say that the ALP has been crucial to supporting AktivAsia in successfully navigating the first year of our organisational development. Through it we have been introduced to some incredibly high calibre organisations that have provided key structural support as well as mentoring, clarity and strategic direction. We could not have achieved all that we have without the ALP, and I am eternally grateful to the professionalism and care of Anna, Daniel and the ALP team."

Alex Ryan, AktivAsia, Australia, Tara Climate

CCCA <> Janet Dalziell:

[based on oral discussion with Anna] Janet facilitated our strategy revision sessions in a way that allowed us to take ownership of the process, she helped us open up and share our insights and more importantly - talking about sensitive topics on which we had opposing opinions. Then she managed to find the common grounds and reconcile those opposing opinions and help us build on them. She made sure everyone is heard and feels safe to expresses themselves. So the strategy revision workshops had value beyond just developing our strategy - it was a significant team building and leadership development exercise.

Matt Davis <> SYND/Ghana:

[based on oral discussion with Anna] After the fist session, where the whole team of 20 people showed up, Ellen and myself felt a bit discouraged and thought the process is going to be hard to manage. However we stood up to the challenge and the second workshop, where Gifty, the communication director, and her colleague were involved was really gratifying and we felt we are on the right way. The workshop was very productive, with excellent team dynamics, feeding on each other’s ideas. And we have the feeling that the following 2 workshops would be even better!

Chibese is a great leader but he does too much, and sometimes does not prioritize comms campaigns. Gifty has leadership potential and would need to develop it more, she would love to get that external support, it would let her be more assertive and be heard. There is a gender dynamics where she lets Chinese lead.

Another conclusion is that implementation package would be needed, with some light check ins every 3 months, with some advice or coaching on the matters of putting the communication strategy in action.

One of the other challenges was also the fact that climate change is a topic out of attention for the young Ghanian people, who are concerned more about getting food for their family or having a job. So the messaging would need strengthening. So, we found a person in the team, Enoc who does advocacy in a college against forest fires (they suffered themselves from the forest fires), this makes climate change more concrete and close to the real life of the young people, so we suggested to make Enoc a hero within our story telling exercise.

Earlier in 2022:

Alex Ryan, AktivAsia:

What I have found to be particularly useful in the Action Learning Program is when the presenters give work to do during the session. This could be based on the frameworks or different tools they are presenting. One example I have of this is an early session that I did on a fundraising pitch with AComUnity. The presenters asked us to come prepared with a pitch, we then had time during the session to present the pitch, and then get feedback and improve the pitch. After the session I set up a one-to-one with the presenter and we worked for another hour on the pitch. I really loved how they came prepared to the 1:1 having already done work to fit my pitch into their framework. It was super useful for me and I have since used that pitch in lots of different applications. The less effective sessions for me are those that don't include practical applications.

One thing I would like to see is support for organisations who have been newly established in identifying key priorities for the first 1 to 2 years of operations. I'm not sure if this is possible as it might be very country specific, but it would be useful to know things like what sorts of policies organisations need to have in place for different types of funders. The two sessions that I went to on fundraising were super useful in that they gave me an overview of the funding landscape. Getting into this in more detail in terms of governance requirements would be very helpful.

Also I think something on setting up and managing boards or advisory groups would be useful. And I'd like to see something on options for revenue generation, i.e. generating income outside of grants to ensure long-term sustainability of organisations.

I have found the sessions to be very smooth from an operations perspective. Anna is highly organised and she does an awesome job of ensuring materials presented are readily accessible straight after the sessions. She is super responsive. The time zones sometimes don't work, but that is tricky given that we are working across so many times zones. Perhaps one thing that can be done is adding two of the same sessions to cater for the different times zones for the more popular topics, which I think is done in part already.

I hope this is helpful. Looking forward to connecting again soon.

In terms of additional support, I am really happy with the support from the ALP. In addition to this, I am working with Rathana Chea who is mentoring me to set up AktivAsia. If there were any mentors from inside your network, that would be most helpful.

Rafael Colombo, AAdeAA / ETF:

Thanks for sharing all this. Right now we are going to distribute it among the team of our association. Thank you again also for contributing to the generation of this kind of spaces, which is particularly useful for us. Best wishes...

Tom Wang, PACS/GCF:

“I have been doing quite regular and ad hoc talks with Lida and she has been a great sounding board and mentor so far. We in fact just had another quick conversation and things are getting clearer each time. Thank you for introducing her to me.”

Letty Thomas, FILE Foundation, Grants Manager:

“We are very happy to participate in the Action Learning Programme and nominating two organisations to join. Collection of consultants and careful work to build partner engagement and “match” consultants with our partners has been really impressive and we would recommend this. We wouldn’t have the time or skills to manage this programme in-house and we understand that our partners are really benefitting.”

Gillian McEachern, Energy Transition Fund ETF, Director: "

As a re-granter, we continually see the need for organizational development support across our grantees. In order to tackle climate change at the scale needed, we will need to keep building the capacity and diversity of the groups leading change. The ALP program provides a service to support this in a way that is effective and easy to access for funders and grantees.”

Sofía Nemenmann, Abogados Ambientalistas/ETF :

“...we wanted to tell you that we are very happy and excited to have started a mentoring process with Domingos and Fernando. They are kindly dedicated and highly experienced in their studies.”

Muhammad AbdulRafe, ALC/Tara: 

“I just wanted to inform you that I had a wonderful talk with Bono from the Huridocs. We have discussed in detail the nature of our needs and what they can offer. ... I fundamentally believe that we would love to explore the technological journey of our organization with the Huridocs folks.”

Stuart McWilliam, Director, Global Gas and Oil Network /ETF:

"Although I have only had a few, short sessions with a consultant so far I have found the experience with the program to be incredibly useful and productive.  It's advanced our organisation development thinking in a way that would have taken us months to figure out by ourselves.  The initial conversations with the program team were vital too, helping me to prioritise what areas I needed help with, how the program could help and then rapidly transitioning into bespoke consultancy sessions."

Tom Wang, PACS/GCF:

“The programme was highly efficient and accurately targeted in finding the right mentor for my organization's specific needs. For a very new organization, this support has come in extremely timely and handy.”

Elinor Rafaelli, Reclaim Finance /GCF:

“As a young and fast-growing organization, our work with Action Learning's program was very precious. The personalized and adaptable approach, which takes into account our very busy schedule was a perfect fit. We met extremely capable consultants, who gave us important support based on our real needs, and not on pre-drafted templates.”

Muhammad AbdulRafe, ALC/Tara: 

“I hope you are well. I would love to share my thoughts with you about the program which has definitely been fruitful for us on many fronts. Before this program, we did not give ALC the systematic attention- its scope, objectives both long term and short term, growth plans and especially the articulation of all these remained obscure. However, this program has all been about exploring these important facets of the organization. The process of selection, the possibility of choice with regard to the consultants, of knowing who looks close to our soul has perhaps been the most rewarding experience. The initial expert sessions with the panelists as scheduled by your organization on various themes were also interesting. I think that even if there had been more I would have enjoyed them. With the consultants that we came across, It has been a mixed bag- Many a time I felt that they want us to commit to a long training consisting of many sessions when I thought that the objective could be achieved with less of them. Not alleging some nefarious design on anyone, just sharing my experience. I cannot think of anything else right now. But I felt the urge of saying something later, I shall share with you.”

Julia Solana (legal) and Joel Rache (operations), Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA)/FILE:

“My colleague and I work at the Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA) and we attended all but one of the NPB live action learning sessions.  NPB records each session and posts them on their website, so we were able to catch up on the one we missed very quickly. The CCCA is a new organisation and NPB’s programme could not have come at a better time for us.  The range of organisational development topics were incredibly broad and the delivery by NPB’s network of consultants was excellent, as were the templates and training materials they provide after each session – many of which are now being used to help drive CCCA’s development.

In addition, our Leadership Team did a deep dive into the topics of strategy and fundraising. The customised workshops for these topics aligned beautifully to our needs and the support we received from each of the consultants was, again, excellent.

Finally, given the size of the programme, we really benefited from the networking aspect. We even noticed how good the interpreter was so she’s now supporting CCCA internal collaboration between our English and Portuguese speaking colleagues! All in all, we are so impressed with NPB’s capacity to develop and deliver such a great programme.”