Organisational development support for members

Organisational development is about improving organisational dynamics and their impacts on organisational performance.


NAVCA supports its members to improve their own organisational capacity and performance to deliver high quality services to support local voluntary and community action, and to helping them demonstrate their effectiveness to their stakeholders, funders and statutory bodies.


Our organisational development support services aims to provide the tools, information, support and expertise that members need to improve and develop their organisations.


In addition to this, we have a number of specialist teams on hand to help with specific work areas.


Something missing? Let us know by contacting Vivienne Brown, NAVCA's Members' Support and Development Manager.


Research

Building effective local VCS infrastructure (BELVI) report, June 2007, this report discusses the findings from a nine-month research project examining the development, effectiveness and sustainability of local infrastructure organisations. The study sought to identify the characteristics of successful local infrastructure organisations and the conditions required to replicate these characteristics.


Planning

NAVCA and some of our members have shared their own strategic, business and work plans.


Governance

NAVCA's pages on chair and trustee support provide information about support with LIO governance.


Leadership and management

For advice on insurance issues, contact Tennyson Insurance.


NAVCA's pages on chief officer and senior management support provide further information about support with LIO leadership and management.


Managing people

NAVCA members wanting advice on Human Resources issues should consider subscribing their organisation to the Peninsula advice service. For more information contact Julie Patterson.


Learning and development

SKiLD (Skills and Knowledge for Local Development) is NAVCA's flagship project to support the learning and development of Development Workers and people who provide external support to other organisations.


The Empowering the Voluntary Sector (EVS) project
provides advice in managing disputes and training in using the principles of public law and Compact to both prevent and manage disputes with public bodies.


NAVCA also offers learning and development opportunities for chief officers and senior managers, and for chairs and trustees of member organisations.


Managing money

This guidance, "Reserves policies made simple" by Sayer Vincent, was used by NAVCA when producing its own reserves policy.


NAVCA has produced guidance on challenging a funding cut.


Working with others

Download our collaboration support postcard (pdf, 960KB).

Many LIOs are looking into how they can work better with one another in order to achieve their mission more effectively and efficiently. Collaboration may involve structural change (e.g. a merger), operational change, or simply consolidating your current ways of working in reference to others.


NAVCA helps members to identify the best approach for them and provides the information and hands-on support they might need - from sharing good practice to facilitation of joint meetings.

To discuss how we might be able to support your organisation with collaborative work or a merger, contact Vivienne Brown.

For those LIOs considering a merger, we have compiled a list of relevant sources of information. Click here for the merger resources.


On request, we will visit member organisations who are working on collaborating with each other in new ways or merging together.


Monitoring and Evaluation

Measuring Effectiveness is a self-evaluation toolkit created by NACVS and CES to help LIOs improve their monitoring and evaluation activities and to share the information in a comparable and consistent way.


NAVCA's performance standards and the NAVCA Quality Award assessment process help member LIOs review and improve the effectiveness of their core activity.


The Performance Hub produced a range of reports and resources to support monitoring and evaluation and performance improvement, which are still available through NCVO's Strategy and Impact website, or the Strategy and Impact pages on NCVO's website.


The Charities Evaluation Service (CES) offer a range of programme focused on performance improvement, including information, support and training on monitoring and evaluation and outcomes.


Facilitation service

Good facilitation can support people at key points of an organsiation's development to express their opinions, hopes and fears, and to reach collective and sustainable agreements. NAVCA staff can sometimes offer a facilitation service to LIOs, which will normally be charged at our standard daily rate.


Support in a crisis

NAVCA is committed to supporting our members through periods of particular difficulty or crisis when requested by the chief officers or a trustee of a member organisation.


Talk to NAVCA

Contact Vivienne Brown, NAVCA's Members' Support and Development Manager, to discuss any of the organisational development support mentioned above, unless otherwise stated.