Supporting and Sustaining Grassroots Youth Organizations: The Case of New Detroit

Abstract

Grassroots organizations have a central place in service provision within many urban communities, particularly as they work with young people. Enhancing the potential of youth serving organizations is vital as many of these small groups lack infrastructure and resources. One organization has gone beyond grant making to organizations to include providing technical assistance, then moving to a model of capacity building to improve their ability to fulfill their mission. This paper describes the efforts of New Detroit to improve the infrastructure of youth serving grassroots organizations through a multi-faceted model and the outcomes evidenced from the first cohort. In addition we explore the contradictions inherent in working with small groups. How do you improve effectiveness without destroying the ''homegrown'' character these groups possess? The model presented here shows the value of empowering small grassroots groups to build capacity.Résumé Les organisations populaires tiennent une place centrale dans la prestation de services dans de nombreuses collectivités urbaines, particulièrement car elles travaillent avec de jeunes personnes. L'amélioration du potentiel des organisations s'adressant aux jeunes est vitale car ces petits groupes manquent d'infrastructures et de ressources. Une organisation a été au-delà du subventionnement leur étant accordé en fournissant une assistance technique, puis en construisant un modèle de capacité d'élaboration en vue d'améliorer leur capacité àremplir leur mission. Cette étude décrit les efforts de New Detroit pour améliorer l'infrastructure des organisations populaires s'adressant aux jeunes par le biais d'un modèle àplusieurs facettes et de résultats attestés par la première cohorte. De plus, nous explorons les contradictions inhérentes au travail par petits groupes. Comment pouvons-nous améliorer l'efficacité sans détruire le caractère propre de ces groupes ? Le modèle présenté dans cette étude montre la valeur de l'initiative de petits groupes populaires en ce qui concerne la capacité d'élaboration.Resumen Las organizaciones comunitarias ocupan un lugar esencial prestando servicios en muchas comunidades urbanas, sobre todo cuando trabajan con los jóvenes. Promover el desarrollo de las organizaciones juveniles es crucial ya que, en la mayoría de los casos, se trata de grupos reducidos que carecen de infraestructura y recursos. Una de estas organizaciones ha pasado de dedicarse solamente a gestionar becas para las organizaciones a incluir asistencia técnica, adoptando un modelo de creación de capacidades para poder cumplir mejor con su misión. Este trabajo describe los esfuerzos de New Detroit para mejorar la infraestructura de las organizaciones comunitarias de apoyo a los jóvenes a través de un modelo múltiple y del resultado obtenido por el primer grupo. Asimismo, analizamos las contradicciones inevitables que aparecen al trabajar con pequeños grupos. >Es posible mejorar la efectividad de estos pequeños grupos sin destruir la naturaleza local que poseen? El modelo que aq...

Survey Instruments Used to Evaluate Foundation-Funded Nonprofit Capacity- Building Programs: Considerations for Organized Philanthropy

“…While not all foundations evaluate these programs, more than 46 percent of those that do report using surveys, making them the most common among methods that also include interviews, document reviews, focus groups, grantee self-reports, participatory evaluation, site visits, and some combination of methods (Backer, Bleeg, & Groves, 2010). Case studies that illustrate how various foundations have evaluated their capacity-building programs corroborate the fairly frequent use of surveys as part of an evaluation strategy (e.g., Leviton, Herrera, Pepper, Fishman, & Racine, 2006;Sobeck, Agius, & Mayers, 2007).…”

The Individual, Group, Organizational, and Community Outcomes of Capacity-Building Programs in Human Service Nonprofit Organizations: Implications for Theory and Practice

“…Such activities include training seminars and other professional development programs for staff and volunteers (Kearns, 2004); leadership development (Kibbe, 2004); and coaching, peer networking, and information and education sessions (Sobeck, 2008). While most evaluations tend to focus on organizational-level change rather than individual-level change, one exception is a study by Sobeck, Agius, and Mayers (2007) in an evaluation of a Detroit-area-nonprofit capacity-building program targeting smaller, grassroots organizations. They find that executive directors felt that both their management knowledge and management skills had improved.…”

“…Additionally, cohort designs may also share some similarities with group training, though the extent to which this is the case is unclear, given that much of the literature on group training focuses on groups within an organization (Aguinis & Kraiger, 2009;Alderfer, 1987;Hackman, 1987). The literature does contain some examples of evaluations of nonprofit capacity-building programs that use a cohort model (e.g., Sobeck et al, 2007;TCC Group, 2011). However, these studies focus on the outcomes of these programs in a general sense, as opposed to the outcomes that may be directly linked to the cohort-type design of the program.…”

“…More specifically, evaluations tend to measure and report changes in organizations' attributes such as the presence or absence Downloaded by [Central Michigan University] at 22:21 18 September 2015 of a paid executive director before and after participation in the program or change in budget size (Abt, 2010a;Abt, 2010b;Brown, 2012;Kapucu et al, 2011;Leake et al, 2007;Minzner, Klerman, Markovitz, & Fink, 2013; [for some exceptions, see Leviton, Herrera, Pepper, Fishman, & Racine, 2006;Sobeck et al, 2007]). The Abt impact study (Abt, 2010a;Minzner et al, 2013), which is the strongest of these in terms of its evaluation design, finds using a pre-and posttest research design with a control group that the nonprofits that participated in the nationwide Compassion Capital Fund Demonstration Program over a 15-month period experienced significant improvements in capacity in each critical area of organizational capacity, Overall, the evidence from these evaluations is that aggregated groups of organizations do, in fact, report changes as a result of participation in such programs.…”

Stages and Pathways of Development of Nonprofit Organizations: An Integrative Model

“…Professionalization is seen as a necessary condition for NPOs to carry on with their development (Mintzberg 1983). -Orientation 2, the ''grassroots community revival orientation,'' proposes to, somehow, preserve or even go back to this original stage (e.g., Batliwala 2002;Graddy and Wang 2009;Sobeck et al 2007). Articles regularly debate the essence of NPOs: philanthropy (e.g., Sulek 2010), democracy (Rothschild and Stephenson 2009), and civil society (Muukkonen 2009).…”