Building Strong Organizations to Save Our Planet
Building Strong Organizations to Save Our Planet
It’s earth day and we have some great news... We know a key solution to saving our planet → strong, effective, and more impactful local conservation organizations.
And even better news... At Maliasili we have a formula for how to build better organizations:
Strategy + People + Action = Impact
Today, we’re sharing inspiration and advice for strengthening each of these different organizational areas. Pick a piece of the organizational strengthening puzzle, and take a further step in doing your part to help save our planet.
Strategy
Strategy is about understanding what needs to get done, what a particular organization is uniquely positioned to accomplish, and designing the right path to do it. It involves big thinking yet practical solutions.
Want to be more strategic? Start with this question:
What’s the absolute most critical thing MY organization must accomplish in the next 12 months for us to be successful in advancing our mission?
As you answer this question consider the following:
What your organization is truly great at - this must guide you
What opportunities currently exist that will help you maximize success
What no else is doing but should be
“Our strategic plan has really helped us focus as a team, communicate to all stakeholders exactly what we do, and ultimately enabled us to direct our energy to achieve the results on the ground.”
–Damian Bell, Executive Director, Honeyguide, Tanzania
Useful Link: Strategic planning webinar, workbook, and other great materials
People
An organization’s most important resource is its people. They bring the ideas, skills, and energy to drive change. Whether visionaries, technicians, or work-horses, we help organizations get the most out of their teams, relationships, and networks to achieve optimal performance.
Want to have a great and thriving team? Start by reflecting on your values to ensure they are clear, well-understood, unifying, and guiding your team’s behaviors and actions. Try this exercise:
Identify a story about your work that you think best represents the qualities of your organization. What was it about the interactions that stands out to you and that were meaningful? Are those qualities reflected in your organizational values? Does everyone on your team know and share these values?
When an organization is clear on their values, then decisions are easier to make. When values are vague or generic – something we see often with organizations – they lose meaning and influence and can become quickly forgotten.
“Picture a house with a well-built foundation. It will stand against anything. That is exactly the same with organisations that set up clear values. Values have helped us at MMWCA define the purpose that we seek to attain – dictating how we embrace and showcase our culture as well as supporting decision making to successfully achieve our overall vision."
–Rosebell Abwonji, Operations Manager, Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association
Action
Action is how a team brings a strategy to life, through a range of organizational systems and processes that enable strong execution. It’s how it raises money to make things happen, plans its activities to stay focused, measures its progress, or lets others know what it is doing and why it matters.
‘Action’ is broad and includes many core elements of an organization. Here we’re focusing on fundraising because having money matters for organizational success - and that matters for our planet.
Fundraising at its core is about relationships, after all, individual donors and foundation staff are ultimately just people giving money and support to other people. Thus developing and maintaining relationships lies at the heart of all fundraising.
How are you maintaining your relationships with current or potential donors? Are you doing enough?
“[Fundraising] is about increasing communication in a strategic way...that best fits your organization and your personability...connect at that personal, human level.”
–Dr. Leela Hazzah, Co-Founder and Director of Lion Guardians
Useful Link: Six tips on fundraising from top conservation donors and fundraisers