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Intermediary Profile Report |
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Organization:
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BEST Project
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Program
ID Number:
I-25
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Date
Profile Created:
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November 9, 2005
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Date Profile
Last Updated: September 13, 2010
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Program Summary:
The BEST (Building Excellence, Sustainability and Trust) Project grew out of conversations between three Flint Funders Collaborative member institutions - the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Community Foundation of Greater Flint, and Ruth Mott Foundation - regarding the quality of grant proposals. This led to a broader conversation about sustainable and effective organizations, with United Way of Genesee County joining the discussion. Following a year of research and continued facilitated conversations, the Flint Funders Collaborative formed the BEST Project, a comprehensive capacity-building program in Genesee County, Michigan. FFC members serve as an advisory board to BEST staff, and are involved with staff management, program development and community outreach. United Way serves as the host agency and grantor to agencies for BEST.
BEST provides capacity-building awards of up to $50,000 annually for up to two years following a comprehensive organizational assessment facilitated by BEST consultants and technical assistance experts (financial management, legal, evaluation and technology). BEST works with eight to twelve groups in each three-year cycle; they are involved in peer-group activities as well, forming a cohort that may continue even after their BEST work. Work with the consultant and funders network also continues beyond each cohort. As a result of early evaluation findings, BEST added a full-time Program Associate who is responsible for implementing a full workshop calendar of approximately 25 workshops or Genesee County nonprofits. A special session for consultants and funders looked at challenges faced by area residents and current responses underway to address the specific needs in Flint for job creation and housing.
One BEST component began with the Building Nonprofit Board Leadership Initiative, offered in partnership with BoardSource. This 18-month project had four major goals: (1) increasing the effectiveness of nonprofit boards of directors; (2) improving and systematizing analysis of board governance practices; (3) providing governance services to agencies in Flint and Genesee County that are appropriate to their life-cycle stage and organizational development; and (4) providing tools, skills, and knowledge to current and potential board members that increase leadership capacity and agency effectiveness. Activities included: (a) a nonprofit governance summit for all Genesee County nonprofit board and staff; (b) free self-assessment for up to 50 nonprofit boards using a BoardSource tool; (c) a fully facilitated governance retreat for 15 of those carrying out the assessment; and (d) additional training opportunities, available based on aggregate information from the 50 assessments. Each training is specific to a particular area of need identified by many of the nonprofits. BEST continues to partner with BoardSource on governance-related work; another joint initiative, focusing on the board's role in fundraising, is planned to begin in 2011.
BEST was also involved with the Michigan NOW! and Recover Michigan partnerships, a collaboration of the Michigan Nonprofit Association (MNA) and statewide MSO partners. The goal of the program was to increase the effectiveness and sustainability of nonprofits, including their ability to provide quality service, expand their organizations, diversify funding and create collaborations. Funding began in 2007 via a Compassionate Capital Fund grant of $499,999 to MNA. This program provided the following services for community and faith-based nonprofit organizations with budgets of up to $500,000: (1) organizational assessments; (2) technical assistance for up to 30 hours to work on a specific area of need; (3) Opportunity Mini-Grants of up to $4,000 for technology, and up to $6,000 for other areas of assistance; and (4) as a capacity-building activity itself, it enabled seven MSOs across the state to get to know each other and work together, with MNA as the umbrella group. MichiganNOW! ended in September 2010.
In May 2010, BEST launched the ArtsConnection program, a capacity-building initiative for arts and cultural organizations funded by the Kresge Foundation. ArtsConnection aims to provide peer learning, education, technical assistance, convening and capacity building services to more than 20 Genesee County organizations. The program will take place through December 2011.
BEST launched BoardConnect® Genesee (BCG) in July 2010. BCG is a board recruitment, training and connecting program. Participants attend workshops such as Serving on Nonprofit Boards (for individuals) and Building Your Board (for agencies). Workshop participants use the BoardnetUSA database to search for board volunteer opportunities. The BCG Program Assistant assists individuals with making a connection with an agency. BCG is offered in partnership with Resource Genesee, the local volunteer center. The BCG curriculum and program was developed by Nonprofit Enterprise at Work (NEW), BEST is a Licensed Service Provider for Genesee County.
TCC Group and the Center for Nonprofit Management (CNM) have been involved with evaluation of BEST. TCC does meta-evaluation looking at the initiative as a whole and its cumulative effects, involving nonprofits, the consultants who work with them, the Flint Funders' Collaborative, project administrators, and the greater community. CNM has worked on a survey-based formative evaluation with each nonprofit agency, using data from pre- and post-capacity-building surveys, in order to enable both the nonprofits and the organizers of BEST to learn from their experiences. The CNM data provides a perspective on the effects BEST is having within each cohort of nonprofits.
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Address:
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P.O. Box 3128
Flint, MI 48502
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Date
Program Began:
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2003
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Total
Funds Awarded for Most Recent Fiscal Year:
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$450,000
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Date
Program Scheduled to End:
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None
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Total
Capacity-Building Operating Expenses for Most Recent
Fiscal Year:
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$210,000
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How
Program is Operated:
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Run
internally by the intermediary
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Number
Staff/Consultants:
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3.25/5
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Background
Materials Available:
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Yes
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Geographic
Areas Served:
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National:
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No
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International:
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No
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Selected States:
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Michigan
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Geographic Details:
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Genesee County (Flint, MI and surrounding area)
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Types
of Capacity-Building Assistance Offered to Nonprofits:
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1.
Grants:
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2.
Direct
Service:
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3.
Direct
Financial Support:
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Categorical
Part of Larger Grant
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Assessment
of Service Needs
Coaching/Training for Individual Nonprofits
Convening
Information and Referral
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Facilities/Equipment Support
General Operating Support
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Grants
Offered to Capacity-Building Service
Providers and Intermediaries:
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Support
for Services to Nonprofits:
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Yes
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General
Support:
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No
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Grants
Offered to Support Overall Capacity-Building Infrastructure:
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N/A
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Areas
of Nonprofit Operations Supported:
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How
Funding/Service Decisions Are Made:
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Administration + Finance
Communication (Internal/External)
Evaluation
Fund Development
Governance (Board/Executive)
Human Resources
Information/Technology Support
Legal/Risk Management
Planning
Staff Development/Training
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Application
by Potential Recipient – Intermediary Selection
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Collaborating Organizations: N/A
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Capacity-Building
Work Evaluated:
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Yes
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Evaluation
Results Available:
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Yes
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Frequency
of Evaluation:
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Ongoing
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Type
of Evaluation:
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Both Internal and External, Surveys, Interviews, Document Reviews, Site Visits, Grantee Self-Reports, Participatory Evaluation
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Summary of Evaluation Lessons Learned:
The following lessons learned were among those reported by this program:
- The need for intentional capacity building with nonprofit agencies in the context of local realities has been verified.
- BEST is highly customized, expensive, and time-consuming, and it relies on careful attention to detail. The project has been more resource intensive than anticipated, both in terms of funds and time; e.g. leaders appear to be underestimating the intensity/time commitment associated with a capacity-building consultant.
- Data confirms the success of the BEST approach including increased management, technical, adaptive and leadership capacity in participating agencies.
- There is a need to encourage more partnerships and alliances across organizations, and to provide more information to consultants about the social and political environment in which Flint and Genesee County nonprofits work.
- The assessment process is a critical component of BEST, as it forces nonprofits to look at their organizations holistically and provides a test to assumptions about what is and is not working. Broad internal participation during the assessment process is important. Recent changes to the assessment process including the addition of a financial and legal review, have resulted in agency-led changes before the capacity building phase even begins.
- The assessment process, followed by the planning process, help organizations think about change in a structured and long-term fashion. Creation of a capacity-building plan is an important step to integrate into the process because it moves the capacity-building work from theory to practice.
- Board involvement is crucial to buy-in and change, and the assessment process did an excellent job of integrating boards.
- TCC Group identified resource development/fundraising as the highest perceived need, followed by operational management, evaluation and leadership development. CNM data revealed development/fundraising and governance items as top organization-reported needs, followed by marketing plans. Evaluation was rated low, and operational management and leadership development were not part of the CNM survey.
- Sustainability is a concern. There is evidence that organizations are integrating capacity building into the way they do business, but it is not clear if that is sustainable over the long-term, and there is some concern that they are not engaging in new bigger projects, due to lack of resources. More data related to this topic are being collected in the fall of 2010.
- The use of the cohort model can be maximized by:
- Continuing facilitation of interaction.
- Using convenings for organizations to exchange information.
- Providing other incentives for interaction, like small planning grants.
- Using life-cycle to help organizations self-identify with cohorts.
- Encouraging various types of peer interaction and mentoring is important - this strategy has been one of the most effective for leadership development in the field of capacity building.
- Workshops alone do not ensure learning or application. The addition of follow-up, one-on-one consults after workshops was an early enhancement of the peer learning process.
- Participants valued the workshops mostly because they bring the BEST group together. Significant additional opportunities exist for participants to share information and experiences, and that may be as beneficial as professional workshops.
- Allowing organizations to access capacity-building funding on an ongoing basis may be important, so that needed changes are not put aside and momentum can be sustained.
- Deliberate focus on consultant development is important, e.g., through specific workshops targeted directly at them. For example, good training and buy-in by consultants on the assessment tool is important. In 2010, BEST provided a two-day Succession Planning train-the-trainer for consultants.
In addition, evaluation results indicated the following as some of the significant impacts from this program:
- By 2005 approximately two-thirds of BEST nonprofits reported increased communication and improved knowledge of capacity building throughout their organizations as a result of the assessment phase and capacity-building opportunities.
- By 2005 over half the executives in BEST nonprofits reported improvement in their ability to make organizational decisions and solve problems as a result of BEST.
- The funders feel they are learning more about the sector and their grantees.
- Boards are being greatly strengthened, as they become more involved, trained and committed to the organization. For example, one executive director reported that his board went from being 40% engaged to 75-80% engaged after BEST.
- Several organizations showed improvements in areas of mission, vision and strategic direction. Organizations are much more focused on their overall mission and as a result of that focus are viewing programs through the mission lens.
- The process of going through the assessment phase itself is having a positive impact on organizations' adaptive capacity.
- Entire organizations, from boards to staff members, are becoming more vested in the capacity-building process and strategic change. In one case it was noted by a consultant that the staff's "whole attitude has changed."
- Organizations are improving the way they use technology.
- There is some evidence that resource development is becoming more effective.
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Copyright © 2010 Human Interaction Research Institute www.humaninteract.org
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