Resource library · free toolkits, templates and guides
The practical library for people who build nonprofits
211 really practical toolkits, templates and guides for nonprofit and NGO leaders, and the consultants and funders who support them. A mix of the classics and newer methods.
Suggestions are welcome211 resources · 15 topics · 137 publishers · 197 free to use
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10 resources found
- Search: organizational development
- 1.2C008
Bridgespan Organizational Effectiveness Framework survey
An online team survey on Org360 that runs a Bridgespan-based organisational assessment for nonprofits. It has 85 questions and takes about 34 minutes. Areas include strategic clarity, governance, financial sustainability, and diversity, equity and inclusion, with rating questions and open reflection questions. Leaders, board members and staff respond, and Org360 produces an automatic report with strengths, gaps and a development plan. It is free to use after sign-up.
Start hereEmergingTool or templateFree with sign-upNonprofit Builder tool - 1.2C007
Pact's Organizational Capacity Assessment
A guide for Pact staff, partners and other organisations that want to run Pact's Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA). The OCA is a participatory, strengths-based method and tool that helps an organisation measure its capacity, rank its organisational challenges and put improvement strategies in place. The guide sets out how a facilitator prepares and runs the process with an organisation. It is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence.
CurrentTool or templateFree - 1.2C002
A Guide to Organizational Capacity Assessment Tools
A memo for funders, consultants and nonprofits on choosing and using organisational capacity assessment tools. Informing Change reviewed 91 assessment tools, checklists and guides for the Hewlett Foundation. Sections cover methodology, what a good assessment experience looks like, cross-cutting lessons, how to select a tool and specific situations for using one. A companion spreadsheet database lists the tools. Its main finding is that the process around a tool matters as much as the tool.
ClassicKey online resourceFree - 1.2C003
Organizational Capacity Assessment Tool
A self-assessment spreadsheet that nonprofits complete to rate their own capacity. Developed by the Marguerite Casey Foundation from The Conservation Company's Capacity Assessment Grid, it covers 4 areas: leadership, adaptive, management and operational capacity. It includes instructions for filling it in and a scoring calculation, so organisations can benchmark progress over time. Grantmakers also use the results to understand grantee capacity and track its growth during a grant.
ClassicTool or templateFree - 1.2C004
Organizational Capacity Assessment Tool (OCAT)
A survey-based capacity assessment that a nonprofit's leaders complete to rate the organisation across a set of capacity areas, producing scores that show strengths and gaps. Social Venture Partners and other funders use it to open a conversation with grantees about where to invest in capacity. Social Venture Partners International hosts version 1 as a free Excel workbook.
ClassicTool or templateFree - 13.1C167
Capacity Building 3.0: How to Strengthen the Social Ecosystem
A paper that proposes a new way to talk about capacity building, drawing on TCC Group's 35 years of designing and evaluating capacity-building work. It has 4 sections: core concepts and definitions of capacity and capacity building; who needs to build capacity; how the idea of capacity has changed, leading to an organisational actualisation framework; and newer methods used in effective capacity building. Funders and consultants use it to frame their approach.
ClassicResearch and evidenceFree - 7.3C094
Evaluation Flash Cards
A set of 25 one-page cards by Michael Quinn Patton, each explaining one evaluation idea in plain terms with an example from Otto Bremer grants. Topics include evaluation questions, logic models, theory of change, outcomes versus indicators, triangulation, formative, summative and developmental evaluation, and lessons learned. Teams pick a card to discuss in staff or board meetings to build evaluative thinking.
ClassicTool or templateFree - 1.4C011
Reinventing Organizations
A book on self-managing organisations based on 3 years of research. Part 1 traces how new organisational models have emerged over history. Part 2 is a practical handbook with case examples, such as the Dutch home care nonprofit Buurtzorg, on structures and daily practices. Part 3 looks at the conditions these organisations need, how to start one and how to change an existing one. Teams read it before trying flatter structures. An illustrated version also exists.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideBook - 1.5C219
Scaling Up
Verne Harnish's book on growing an organisation through the stages from a few people to hundreds. It's built around 4 decisions every growing organisation has to get right: people, strategy, execution and cash. It comes with one-page worksheets, including the One-Page Strategic Plan, and routines such as daily and weekly meeting rhythms and priorities. Written for companies, it's widely used by nonprofit leadership teams that are growing fast.
ClassicKey manual or guideBook - 1.5C226
Good to Great
Jim Collins's study of companies that moved from good results to great ones and stayed there. It introduces ideas many nonprofit leaders now use: level 5 leadership, first who then what, confronting the brutal facts, the hedgehog concept and the flywheel. Collins's website offers free tools to go with it, including a diagnostic tool, a discussion guide and a vision framework.
ClassicKey manual or guideBook
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