How can you grow and maintain program capacity?

1 Assess your current situation

Before you can plan for growth, you need to understand your current strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and gaps and challenges. Conduct a SWOT analysis of your program, involving your team, partners, and beneficiaries. Identify what is working well and what needs improvement, what are the external factors that can help or hinder your program, and what are the areas that require more attention or investment.

2 Set realistic and measurable goals

Based on your assessment, define your program goals and objectives, and align them with your vision and mission. Make sure that your goals are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Use a logic model or a theory of change to map out how your program activities will lead to your desired outcomes and impacts. Establish indicators and targets to track and evaluate your progress and performance.

3 Mobilize and allocate resources

To grow your program capacity, you need to secure and manage the resources that are essential for your program success. These include human, financial, material, and technical resources. Develop a resource mobilization strategy that outlines how you will identify, solicit, and secure funding and support from various sources, such as donors, sponsors, grants, or in-kind contributions. Create a budget and a resource allocation plan that shows how you will distribute and use your resources efficiently and effectively.

4 Build and nurture relationships

Your program capacity also depends on the quality and quantity of your relationships with your stakeholders, such as your team, partners, beneficiaries, donors, and others. You need to build and nurture trust, communication, collaboration, and feedback among them. Develop a stakeholder engagement plan that defines who are your key stakeholders, what are their roles and interests, how will you communicate and involve them in your program, and how will you address their concerns and expectations.

5 Learn and adapt

Growing and maintaining program capacity is not a one-time event, but a continuous process of learning and adapting. You need to monitor and evaluate your program activities, outputs, outcomes, and impacts regularly and systematically. Collect and analyze data and feedback from various sources and methods, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, or observations. Use the findings and lessons learned to improve your program design, delivery, quality, and sustainability.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?