Development of the civil society sector

From organizational support to capacity building
 

For the past few years of development of the civil society sector in Macedonia, a lot has been discussed and invested in organizations’ capacity building, and the first synonym – what has mainly been practiced – have been training courses for the organizations’ members and activists. More rarely has the approach of organizational support been practiced.

 

Organizational support – one of the forms of capacity building

According to the UNDP definition, capacity building is a process through which individuals, groups, organizations and institutions improve their conditions for:

Performing core functions, problem solving, defining and meeting objectives and
Understanding and meeting their development needs in wider surroundings, in direction of their sustainability.
Capacity building can be carried out on a few different levels: individual, organizational (micro level), on a sector level (mezzo level) and on a state level (macro level).


Macro level              Capacity of analyzing, evaluation and well                  On a state 
                                setting of the organization in its surroundings                  level

Mezzo level             Capacity of increasing sector’s efficiency and              On a sector 
                               effectiveness in whole                                                        level  
 
Micro level              Capacity of increasing organization’s efficiency            On an organi- 
                               and effectiveness                                                            zation level
 
Individual level       Capacity of increasing and improving human                On an indivi- 
                               resources’ performances in the organization                    dual level


In its programs MCIC defines organizational support as:
“Strengthening the organizational and institutional capacity of the organization in direction of its self-sustainability”.

Strengthening the organizational capacity of organizations means strengthening the systems (including institutional memory) and procedures, structure, strategy, human capacities, human resources management and organization’s management at all.

Institutional capacity is well knowing and understanding general surroundings, relations between specific actors and factors, as well as the capability for the organization to be established and maintained in the surroundings.

Sustainability mainly refers to the organization’s capability to develop and improve its performances after the organizational support by the donor has ended.

It is important to mention that organizational support differs from project or program supports, which are short-term (as long as projects and programs’ implementation lasts), and depend exclusively on accessibility of donor’s funds and are directed towards realization of project/program objectives and tasks.

 

Choice of instruments and methodology for organizational support

The so far practice of MCIC in the organizational support has mainly been a combination of financial and technical support.

The financial support is aimed at:

-          enabling offices’ functioning (office costs, local transport costs, office material and technical equipment);
-          salary/fee for performing tasks which are not direct implementing activities of a project/program, but have aims to develop the organization;
-          transparency (publishing annual reports, financial revisions);
-          information (bulletins, leaflets, web-sites, publications and other information materials, researches, press-conferences).

The technical support refers to: training, consulting services for introduction, reform and development of systems, procedures, a reform of the organizational structure and other organizational reforms.
 

“Tailored” support versus same approach towards everyone

Organizations in Macedonia are of different level of development and professionalism, so it is difficult to make a combination of instruments and to choose an equal (once fit all) methodology for organizational support. The most appropriate solution is a package designed according to individual needs of each organization. However, in spite of the fact that it is clear that the tailored approach for organizational support has its advantages in terms of application of a general approach for all organizations, it is very important when defining the package for organizational support as the basis to take evaluation of the organizations’ capacities by competent and independent evaluators, so that organizational support is not reduced to organizations’ “list of wishes”, that in spite of the tailored approach, would not achieve the desired effect.

 

(Extract from MCIC Evaluation of Organizational Support Methodologies, MDF 2003)