Organizational Development

Empowering The Civil Society Through Capacity Building

Well managed institutions are a fundamental building block for promoting changes that have positive impacts on the lives of families, particularly the most vulnerable. In our projects Pact invests in some form of building the organizational capacity of our partners, who include community-based organizations (CBOs), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and governments. These investments help the public and private sector deliver better quality services in a more cost effective manner. For civil society organizations seeking to achieve policy changes, well-managed, sustainable organizations are better positioned to join hands with their peers to carry out campaigns for long-term, sustainable change.

The types of investment that Pact makes in organizational development (OD) vary from project to project, depending upon project objectives, the needs of our partners, as well as available funding. In most cases we start with an organizational assessment process that allows our partners to assess their strengths and weaknesses along multiple dimensions of management, including strategic direction, organizational structure, governance, planning, fundraising, and financial and grants management, human resource management, and monitoring and evaluation.

Based upon the results of these assessments, which are generally done with a cohort of organizations, we develop a tailor-made, capacity-building program, which usually combines training, mentoring, and one-on-one technical assistance. These OD capacity-building investments help partners develop and follow clear by-laws that enhance the transparency of organizational governance; they help NGOs develop a focused mission and strategic plan that builds off of the strengths and responds to the needs within the context in which they operate. Civil society groups and governments learn the basics of developing clear, actionable operational plans and budgets. Basic financial management and monitoring and evaluation systems are put in place, preparing our partners to successfully manage larger scale grants. Once systems are in place our partners are better positioned not only to manage the grants they receive from Pact, but also to compete for new funding opportunities as they arise, thus ensuring their long-term financial sustainability. In order to measure the impact of our organizational development investments, Pact generally reapplies our organizational capacity assessment tools in the second or third year of program implementation.