June Resiliency Roundup
June 29, 2020
To weather uncertainty and change, civil society organizations need to cultivate resiliency in their systems, staff, and strategies.
PartnersGlobal’s Resiliency+ Framework helps civil society organizations identify the external threats and internal vulnerabilities impeding them from implementing resilient operations and offers strategies, tactics, and tools to build resiliency around 7 key factors.
Check out what we’ve been reading recently, organized by our R+ factors.
Adaptive Capacity
Check out this hour-long recorded discussion from Nonprofit Quarterly hosted by Jeanne Bell about what is needed for financial leadership in nonprofits during times of uncertainty.
Mark Johnson offers tips and insights on why it is important to think about what the future will look like post-crisis in this HRB IdeaCast, “To Build Strategy, Start with the Future.” He argues that leaders should imagine the future and work backward, so they can build their organization for that new reality.
In “Leading toward a Transformed Future in a Disrupted Present,” Robin Katcher calls on nonprofit leaders to “embrace the complexity” of our current moment and offers several areas which may be requiring our attention right now in order to “recognize, release, and reimagine the fundamental structures, practices, and habits that have informed our work to this point.”
Business Acumen
This oldie but goodie Matrix Map tool from Spectrum Nonprofit Services can offer support in thinking through generating organizational revenue.
In times of uncertainty and change, it is important to think about a funding landscape. We’ve revisited several pieces lately that help to put this into perspective: 1) Resilient Funders; 2) Promoting an Enabling Environment for Philanthropy and Civil Society; and 3) Unlocking Philanthropy’s Potential.
Connectedness
Do you have a new idea or process that you would like to test? The Virtual Peer Input Process from the Tamarack Institute in Canada is a quick and structured way to get input and insight from peers into a current challenge you or your team are facing.
Legitimacy
Feedback Labs offers four key listening competencies in “Listening: A Key Element of Crisis Preparedness” that they believe nonprofits and funders should have in place before a crisis hits to respond effectively, efficiently and equitably.
Want to learn more about how your organization can ensure self-accountability? Read about the Rendir App – a questionnaire-turned-self-assessment tool developed by Rendir Cuentas based on the Global Standard for CSO Accountability’s 12 accountability commitments – in this recent piece by Analia Bettoni on CSOstandard.org. Once you are all caught up on the amazing self-assessment tool for CSO accountability (available in English, Spanish, and French), join CIVICUS’ 90 day accountability challenge! Learn more here from Belen Giaquinta and Juliette Wiss of CIVICUS.
Narrative Competency
First Draft News – an international Partner Network of newsrooms, universities, platforms and civil society organizations that strives to empower societies with accurate information in critical moments – offers free tools and training materials on digital security and combatting misinformation. Check them out HERE.
Open Global Rights and JustLabs developed a new Guide on Hope Based Communications which highlights simple steps human rights groups can use to create their own vision for the future and communicate that vision in response to the pandemic in “Three Ways Human Rights Groups Can Create Hope During Covid-19.” This resource is also linked to Connectedness, as one of the steps focuses on the importance of collective action.
Get a brief overview of Root Narrative Theory from Dr. Solon Simmons and how it can help us to understand the root causes of conflicts.
Resiliency Ethos
In “Bouncing Forward, Not Bouncing Back: Adapting with Resilience,” Gwendolyn VanSant reflects on her own evolving understanding of the term resilience and how it’s impacted her journey. She also offers tips on how to build personal resilience in the face of crisis.
Situational Awareness
David Algoso writes in an article for Medium titled, “Scenario Planning: Two Methods and Some Options” offers just that – two tools and guidelines to help develop scenarios that will help organizations prepare for and mitigate possible challenges of the future.
Alex Evans and David Stevens of the Long Crisis Network – a group of change makers that incubate ideas, devise strategies, and build coalitions for action – share their analytical report of a scenario planning exercise that explores four possible futures post-Covid. The report titled, “Our Covid Future”, looks at three layers of impacts that will shape the future, namely public health, economic implications, and polarization and security.