Section 07: Making a plan

You’ve now explored the capacities of the organisation and have mapped the strengths and areas which your partner might want to develop their capacity (see Sections 4 and 5).

You’ve also thought about which kinds of capacity strengthening methods would work well (Section 6), starting with what the organisation could do themselves.

So now it’s time to put a plan together. Why make a capacity strengthening plan?

• The staff and volunteers have now been enthused by the process so far and have started to see the possibilities of change – those expectations need to be followed though.

• A plan allows you to be realistic about what’s possible, where a ‘to do’ list can easily be over-ambitious

• A plan sets out clearly what resources (people, time, money) will be needed

• A plan can be reviewed regularly to see progress and can be changed in line with changing context or opportunities

• A plan brings together different areas of change: individual, systems, ways of working and materials which will all contribute to building capacity.

7.1: Prioritising

Prioritising is essential to ensure that the capacity strengthening plan does not become an overwhelming burden. You can’t do everything at once. Some changes will have a greater impact than others. Cost may also be a factor. Staff and volunteer time will definitely be limited.

The first priorities should be:

• Capacities critical to the success of the organisation’s aims

• Addressing relevant serious capacity deficits

• Then you can also look at other areas, such as improvements that can have a knock-on effect, or are easy to achieve and can boost confidence (easy wins).

Simple participatory prioritisation exercise

Give each participant a number of peanuts (or beans/soda lids/stones) to vote on which areas they feel are most important to focus on.

The process of discussion in prioritizing different capacities for strengthening is as important as the scores themselves.

Especially if there are big differences in the way people score – this is an opportunity to hear different point of view. It’s an important part of building consensus and commitment to the plan.

Another example of prioritisation exercise is offered as part of the Strategic Planning toolkit. If used for a CS plan, you would need to list all the CS activities youa re considering, rather than all of your organisations' activities.

7.2: Elements of a plan

There’s no blueprint for a capacity strengthening plan. It should take the form that best suits the organisation’s purpose – it can be a stand-alone document, or form part of an overall organisational strategy or business plan. It can also be fed into work plans. However, whichever format is chosen, it will be helpful if it contains the following elements:

• For each capacity area to be addressed in the plan, a reference to current level and a description of the ‘goal’ level that is to be achieved within the timeframe of the plan.

• An indication of how the capacity strengthening intervention will be implemented – by the organisation itself, with others /peers or with external help

• A brief description of the proposed capacity building intervention or activity

• Who is responsible for each activity

• Timescales

• Resource requirements (time, finances, tools, specialists)

• How progress will be monitored, when, and by whom (see section 8).

Once the plan is done, it is still a living document. It needs to be reviewed periodically, and updated according to what happens. Opportunities may come along, or unplanned changes (good or bad) may happen. The plan can be updated whenever it needs to be.

Here’s a CS plan template that you can adapt or take inspiration from