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Robusteciendo la Justicia Social
RJS: OMT Facilitators
The Robusteciendo la Justicia Social project is one of the ways in which Filantropía Puerto Rico leads the philanthropic ecosystem into innovative and participative communities of practice. At the start of the project, we had the participants use the Organizational Mapping Tool (OMT), an open-source, organizational assessment tool that is designed to help nonprofits identify and prioritize their organizational strengthening needs.
How does it work?
Unlike other assessment tools that are taken online by individuals, the OMT is designed to be a face-to-face, organization-wide process. This usually means that their whole staff participates in the exercise. If your organization has a staff larger than 30 people, you can also choose a representative group to take it.
The recommendation is that you work with an external consultant to facilitate the OMT for your organization. OMT sessions vary in length, depending on your preferences, but generally range anywhere from six hours to two days.
Where can I find a trained OMT Facilitator?
Locally, FiPR has trained two resources that can facilitate an OMT in both English or Spanish. Kenia Colón and Maia Sherwood received training on facilitation of the OMT. Communicating with multiple facilitators may help you find the one that best suits your goals and expectations.
The OMT provides clear qualitative markers of organizational development, which make the results very usable. There are no numbers involved; each question identifies a particular aspect of nonprofit functioning, like financial systems or staff development, and asks you to rate your organization as basic, minimal, moderate, or strong, each of which has a concrete description of what that state looks like. This provides a roadmap for improvement as well as an assessment of the organization’s current state.
Experience has shown that the OMT can open up very enriching conversations internally. These are not always easy conversations, but can lead to productive directions for the organization if they’re taken in a spirit of openness, improvement and collaboration. That’s why it’s important to have a facilitator lead the exercise – to have a skilled neutral party manage the discussion and ensure that all voices are heard.
If you are a nonprofit that wishes to better understand your organizational needs, do not hesitate to contact them and start the OMT process.
To learn more about the importance and impact of the OMT, click here. To see other tools provided by FiPR to improve your organization, click here.
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