“Resilience is the ability to deal with adversity, withstand shocks, and continuously adapt and accelerate as disruptions and crises arise over time.”

Stability + agility = resilience.  When you work on capacity-building, you really want to be working on both: the things that will increase your stability and the things that will improve your agility.

Some examples of what capacity-building might look like for an organization that wants to become more resilient:

• Environmental Scans – Paying attention to what is happening in your external and internal environments is very important. You can start by conducting a SWOT assessment (INTERNAL Strengths and Weaknesses, EXTERNAL Opportunities and Threats) before you create a strategic plan. Even better is to be constantly scanning the environment in efficient ways so that you are able to assess and react far sooner than you would if you had to wait until the next planning cycle. For example, you can set aside time on a monthly or quarterly basis for people to report on any changes they are observing or reading about.
• Needs Assessments – Knowing the needs and desires of the population you serve is very important to being able to satisfy those needs and desires, and keep your clients engaged and happy. The same applies to your staff and volunteers, indeed all of your stakeholders. You can start by doing a needs assessment before planning a new program or service. This could consist of interviews, a survey, and/or a meeting where you engage with the target group. Even better, build in ways to do needs assessments on an ongoing basis, like quick polls or “spot checks” to make sure you are aware of any changes, and also skim any relevant research or articles about the general population so you are aware of wider trends.
• Creating/updating and embedding your vision and mission – Your vision is your “why” and your mission is your “how” laid out in broad and aspirational language. Spending some time as a group to get really clear about these two things will provide your organization with a “north star” which can be used to guide everything you do. You can start by creating or updating your vision and mission statements. Even better, examine all of your programs and processes, including purely internal ones, and update them if needed so that they are aligned with your vision and mission.
• Defining your values – Organizational values may or may not be identified in writing or explicitly discussed, but they underlie everything that you do. Being a value-based organization means putting your values front and centre, and being prepared to be held accountable to them. It’s not a fit for everyone, but when it is, it can be a very powerful motivator and source of guidance. Identifying them and allowing them to guide your organization can enable you to act quickly when you need to because you just “know” what the right thing to do is. Start by going through a values identification exercise and communicating the results widely. Even better, review your programs and processes to ensure that they reflect your values. If they don’t, change them.
• Planning – Having a plan enables you to focus your work and get more done. It provides stability and direction, and can make your work much more efficient. Being prepared to update and adjust your plan, or create a brand new plan, enables you to be agile. Start by engaging staff and volunteers in completing an environmental scan and providing suggestions for a plan with a clearly defined timeframe. A “strategic plan” is a formal version of this that flows out of your vision/mission/values and includes goals or outcomes that are measurable and time-limited, but really any plan is better than none at all. Even better, review your plan on a regular basis and make it a “living document” that you update to reflect changes in your environment that need to be addressed.
• Updating and improving structures, processes, programs, and technology to make them future-focused – How often have you heard “it’s how we’ve always done it” or “it’s never failed us yet” or similar references to how something has worked in the past? Keeping things the same provides a sense of stability, but it might actually be making you more vulnerable to future threats. Looking ahead and adjusting to changing needs and what might be coming makes you more agile. Start by looking at your weaknesses, where you are struggling the most, and finding a ways to turn those areas into your strengths. Even better, create a review process whereby you make time on a regular basis to review your entire organization, in manageable bit by manageable bit, and make it future-focused.
• Evaluation – Do you know if you are making a difference? Sometimes it’s obvious. You make a plan or create a program, you complete the plan or run the program, and the results are clear. But sometimes, without a way to measure your results and someone to do the measuring, you can only guess that all your work has been worthwhile. Start by identifying the results you want to achieve and how you will measure them. Then create a plan for how you will collect, analyse, and report on the data. Even better, create a constant feedback loop so that you can adapt and adjust your programs based on what your evaluation is telling you.