PartnersGlobal Resiliency+ Roundup – April 2021

  April 20, 2021

Cultivating resiliency in your organization or movement is an ongoing process. Rather than reaching a set endpoint, you must continually evaluate risks, prepare for the unknown, and adapt as new challenges and changes come your way, drawing on different resiliency factors at different points in time.

With this in mind, we’ve curated the articles, resources, and tools around the seven reinforcing factors of organizational resiliency in the PartnersGlobal Resiliency+ Framework that continue to offer inspiration.

We have also pulled 5 top resiliency tweets for a quick way to plug into the resiliency conversation. Check those out below!

5 Top Resiliency Tweets

  1. Missed the Transition Network’s “What Next Summit?” Check out this YouTube playlist to catch up on the latest in their “why is our movement green, but mostly white” series around environmental movements becoming actively anti-racist.

2. Check out Thinking Like a Network 3.0 from @curtisogden to learn his twelve principles for network thinking and action. Here’s a quick snapshot!

3. @the_hope_guy has dedicated his life’s work to finding narratives that help people care about human rights. Check out his new piece Seeing Hope: A Visual Communications Guide for Human Rights.

4. Interested in learning about books that change the world? Check out this thread from the @OnionCollective for some top recommendations.

5. Think communities of practice are self-organizing? Think again. In this thread @KaraKane_kk postulates that there are “no ‘self-sustaining’ communities without leadership, visibility, and support.” Read on for more. 

Resiliency Resources by Factor

Legitimacy

Trust is at the core of an organization’s legitimacy, but in today’s digital world, building this trust can be challenging. “To build trust in the digital systems that connect us all, it is essential first to understand how people do (or don’t) trust their digital ecosystems today,” write authors Bhaskar Chakravorti, Ajay Bhalla, and Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi in the Harvard Business Review. Read their article for a closer look at four core metrics of trust across 42 global economies.

To build our own legitimacy, we can learn from what other organizations are doing. In proactive response to civic space restrictions, Solidarity Action Network has compiled a repository of case studies that showcase best practices, challenges, and lessons learned from resilience practices of international civil society organizations.

 Learn more about the Legitimacy factor in the Resiliency+ Framework here.

Engaging the Narrative  

Understanding and practicing narrative competency is key to organizational resiliency, but where do you start? Take a look at this mini masterclass series convened by Future Advocacy and FrameWorks Institute UK on how to reframe the issues we care about to affect change. 

Read the Center for Media and Social Impact’s Storytelling and Social Justice in Action: Leveraging Documentary Films to Strengthen Local Movement Building report for insights around the role nonprofits play on a local level as “civic network builders” and the art of storytelling and film as vehicles for empowering communities and strengthening social justice movements.

The Other Story is a podcast dedicated to uncovering dominant narratives in our society to ask how they came to be, how they might be changed, and the role of the entertainment industry in reinforcing or deconstructing them. Tune into their first episode as they discuss “What is Narrative Change?” with Jee Kim and Romain Vakilitabar.

Learn more about the Engaging Narratives factor in the Resiliency+ Framework here.

Situational Awareness

Understanding the role of power dynamics is a key component of organizational resiliency. Hear from Anna Birney on the issue of power as it relates to systemic sustainability challenges and systems change in this article.

For more on systems thinking you can watch this video presentation from the University of Hull’s Centre for Systems Studies on “An Introduction to Systems Thinking for Tackling Wicked Problems.”

Learn more about the Situational Awareness factor in the Resiliency+ Framework here.

Business Acumen

Innovative business models are critically important to the life and health of civil society organizations. In The Hard Truth About Business Model Innovation, authors postulate that because many attempts at business model innovations fall flat, leaders need to take a proactive approach.

Change is hard for everyone and navigating it intentionally can be especially important for organizations. Check out The Social Age Guidebook Series: Free Action Focused Resources from Julian Stodd for resources and carefully guided reflections around the implementation of learning, leadership, and cultural and organizational change.

Image from The Social Age Guidebook Series: Free Action Focused Resources by Julian Stodd

Learn more about the Business Acumen factor in the Resiliency+ Framework here.

Adaptive Capacity

How do you actually build up adaptive capacity? Going International works to support organizations engaging internationally to create a better world. They have assembled an expansive list of toolkits and manuals on everything from a diversity and inclusion organizational assessment to tools for social innovation. These are great resources for organizations undergoing change.

Boundless Roots recently released an article called Roots of Transformation: Lessons and Leverage Points for Sustainable Living. Explore it for insights around how practices like multi-stakeholder engagement can bring about sustainable behavioral change that transform our society and lifestyles.

 Learn more about the Adaptive Capacity factor in the Resiliency+ Framework here.

Resiliency Ethos

Does your organization value the usefulness of creativity and play in staying resilient in an ever-changing world? Read this piece from Disrupt Development, How Our Most Disruptive Thoughts Can Happen Through Play.

The more we are self-motivated to contribute our best ideas, explore new perspectives, and consider creative thinking strategies, the more likely we are to consistently come up with ideas and solutions that are unique and innovative.

– Disrupt Development’s, How Our Most Disruptive Thoughts Can Happen Through Play.

Experimentation is a sign of a healthy and resilient organization. Interested in learning more? Check outThe Experimentation Field Guide from Same Ryeas he draws on a range of topics and disciplines including systemic design, complexity science, social sciences, impact evaluation, and agile and lean startup.

Learn more about the Resiliency Ethos factor in the Resiliency+ Framework here.

Connectedness

Strengthening connections with our constituencies and our peer organizations is an important piece of resiliency, but we won’t always share the same stance on issues.In her Ted Talk, How to have constructive conversations, speaker Julia Dhar discusses how to have “productive disagreements grounded in curiosity and purpose.” She says that this type of disagreement can actually help to strengthen relationships.

In We Know We Need Civil Resistance Training. Now Where Do We Start? Hardy Merriman offers readers a three-part framework for embracing civil resistance as a response to civic space challenges and rising authoritarian practices. Merriman posits that many of the questions relate to “knowledge management” and shares strategic tips for successful movements.

In this time of increased virtual collaboration, the right tools can be paramount to our collective effectiveness and productivity. The Peeragogy Handbook is a framework for peer learning and peer knowledge with resources for any group of people who want to co-learn any subject together. 

Learn more about the Connectedness factor in the Resiliency+ Framework here.

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