Services

 

Capacity Building:
Toolkit Development & Scaling, Technical Assistance System Development & Coaching, Organizational Training & Workshops

Cost-effective capacity building for nonprofits is a common leadership challenge. The complexity of adapting to a constantly changing landscape requires ongoing review of product development and support systems. Additionally, organizations must continue to grow the foundation of new concepts and skills among staff.

Civitas Strategies supports nonprofit capacity building in three ways:

Toolkit Development & Scaling

Civitas Strategies assists organizations with creating products that efficiently and effectively meet their clients’ needs including accessible guides, user-friendly toolkits, and navigators for complex systems.

  • Accessible guides: Civitas Strategies creates accessible guides to enhance the level of support provided by your organization. The guide development process begins with review of organizational feedback, current best practices, and critical information to better understand their audience. Using this information, we craft a detailed guide to walk users from start to finish, highlighting key points along the way. Our guides are often used by organizations seeking to maximize impact and increase the populations served.

    Home Grown Childcare needed to provide support with navigating the impacts of stimulus funding on child care providers’ tax returns. As such, Civitas Strategies developed the Home Grown: Preparing for the 2020 Tax Season guide for distribution among child care providers. The guide contains advice useful for the specific tax situations presented by stimulus funding as well as information relevant beyond 2020.

  • User-friendly toolkits: Using your existing programmatic model, Civitas Strategies can create toolkits for scaling impact within or beyond your organization. Our toolkit development process starts with a review of current programmatic documentation as well as feedback from your staff and if appropriate, your clients. We then convert the information into an actionable, step-by-step kit designed to replicate your model. Finally, we work with your team to revise the toolkit in accordance with user feedback and develop a plan for distribution. Our toolkits are used by organizations seeking to capture and document internal knowledge to facilitate faster growth, as well as those looking to generate unrestricted funds by marketing their model to others. User-friendly toolkits are useful not only for scaling and dissemination of best practices, but also for revenue generation.

    To meet the need for scalable strategies and approaches, Civitas Strategies supported Take Stock in Children’s statewide effort for college readiness and success in Florida with the development of the Take Stock in Children Mentor Toolkit, now commercially sold to enable easy scaling and generate a new revenue stream.

  • Navigators for complex systems: Civitas Strategies can design a simple, easy-to-use guide to help with the navigation of complex systems. The navigators serve to simplify processes and increase accessibility of critical programming. The development of navigators begins with identifying any barriers to program access and working collaboratively to create streamlined, step-by-step pathways. Our navigators are used by organizations seeking to maximize system accessibility as well as organizational impact. Navigators are designed to be easily disseminated and shared.

    In a collaborative effort to connect child care providers with critical stimulus funding, Civitas Strategies worked with Grow NJ Kids Northern TA Center, 4CS, Child Care Connection, and Programs for Parents. Through the generosity of the Maher Charitable Foundation, Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation, Turrell Fund, Nicholson Foundation, and New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund, the team developed and disseminated the Stimulus Navigator throughout the network of child care providers in New Jersey. For increased accessibility, the navigator was distributed in both English and Spanish . 

Technical Assistance System Development & Coaching

As part of our Capacity Building work, Civitas Strategies assists in the design and initial implementation of technical assistance systems. Technical assistance (TA) is comprised of sharing information and expertise, instruction, skills training, transmission of working knowledge, and consulting services, which can be offered one-on-one or in groups and via a variety of communication methods. Typically a highly goal driven process, Civitas Strategies takes a coaching approach to technical assistance in which we begin by modeling these systems and providing training during the initial stages of implementation. We then build the framework to transition to long-term entities in situations when organizations intend to continue the TA into the future. Organizations typically turn to TA system development and coaching support to help affect significant individual and organizational change.

As part of our extensive work to support child care providers in the state of New Jersey during the COVID-19 pandemic, Civitas Strategies provided critical support for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan application and forgiveness process, pandemic business assistance to build resiliency among providers, and stimulus support to connect providers with stimulus funding. This expansive support project included one-on-one TA, group TA, and direct email support to affect change. Combined, the TA projects spanned a year and a half and connected hundreds of child care providers with critically needed support to weather the COVID-19 pandemic.

Organizational Training & Workshops

Civitas Strategies supports organizational learning in two ways.

First, we provide pre-developed, research-based trainings and workshops offering the latest information on a variety of topics including:

  • How to cost-effectively recruit top talent.

  • Developing your organization’s next strategic plan.

  • Assessing talent acquisition and retention trends.

  • Developing key management skills such as delegation, effective supervision, and time management.

  • Setting senior leadership priorities.

  • Coaching underperforming employees.

  • Executing annual reviews and development plans.

All training and workshops can be adapted to your organizational needs and are offered both remotely online and in-person.

Second, we create customized training for your organization’s specific needs. Past engagements have included everything from developing an online employee onboarding training to creating a multi-class certificate process for aspiring and current organizational leaders. These systems are usually created on digital video to provide an ongoing return on your one-time investment.