Civil Society, Collective Mind and Dynamics of Continuous Improvement: ROTA: Organizational Capacity Self-Assessment Tool and Coaching Programme

Like every individual, entity and every organization, we, as CSOs, appear in a swift movement and in a fast-changing world. From Aristoteles' Politike Koinonia and Cicero's Societas Civilis to our portrayal in the 1990’s as a kind of "Swiss Army Knife" for solving many problems in developing countries and subsequently, to more flexible forms of organizations with globalization in the 21st century… It seems that the motion will not be slowing down.

For this reason, it is important that we draw conclusions through a collective mind, to focus on continuous improvement by developing our stakeholders and our organizations. This process leads to converting ourselves to “learning organizations” by internalizing developments in the light of our own mission, vision and values.

Organizational capacity is one of the most precious treasures that enables us to be getting stronger in the way of becoming a learning organization. It constantly supports our organizational existences and to facilitate us creating impact for achieving our goals in the view of organizational values as well as letting us to make our mission and vision real. In order to enrich our treasure for both furthering and making our organization as a “living organization”, the manner of “OURS” not as “MINE” approach plays a critical role. Just as our raison d'être is transforming the results, namely our future that we wish.…

In this context, we, as STGM, developed an organizational capacity self-assessment tool, called ROTA as a part of our capacity building model by synthesizing our experience with universal knowledge in the field of civil society.

By ROTA, CSOs will be able to take a selfie and to discover themselves in specific fields. They will also be able to see their strengths, weaknesses or areas needed for improvement to understand their current organizational status. Besides, via “recipes" that we have prepared in the tool, CSOs will be able to identify their institutional position and what they can do for organizational continuous improvement.

We trust that ROTA and this approach will support CSOs for conducting a range of organizational development activities by trigger the inner thinking and learning processes regarding the organization.

ROTA: Organizational Capacity Self-Assessment Tool, currently consists of 17 sub-headings under 4 main topics with a total of 23 questions. Based on the answers to the questions, we also propose recipes that contain our advices for assisting to organizations.

In order to increase benefits of the tool, actors with different roles in an organization (e.g. employees, managers, board members, president, volunteers, members, etc.) are advised to use it, and then, to examine the results "ALL TOGETHER" in a participatory manner.

Moreover, we offer to CSOs our organizational coaching programme along with ROTA. We encourage CSOs to make their own assessment first by using ROTA during applying to the STGM’s organizational coaching programme.

Organizational coaching programme consists of mentorship activities, specifically designed for a CSO. This organization-specific programme aims to strengthen medium term improvement processes of CSOs.

Organizations to be supported within the context of the programme assess compliance of their needs with the help of the ROTA and in cooperation with expert(s) of the Information Centre. We define content, format and the schedule of organizational coaching activities together with the beneficiary of the programme in a participatory manner. Then, face-to-face or online works at certain periods of time, based on a decided working method is carried out.

Yes, it's all a journey, but we, civil society, always love journeys, right! If you would like us to accompany you on this journey, you can start using our organizational capacity self-assessment tool, ROTA and if you wish, you can also apply for our coaching programme.