Our Practices That Support Learning

By IF Learning Team & Jewlya Lynn , Policy Solve

The world and the ecosystems in which we work continuously evolve. We know there is tremendous institutional value in writing down and saying out loud what our learning practice is all about.

It helps us protect, sustain and grow a culture of meaningful learning that can advance our work forward; and makes our practice intentional and relational. Last year, we shared our approach and the multiple models of learning that we have experimented with; and how we create space for our learning practice to unfold in different local contexts. In this blog, we share what learning has looked like as we begin to formalize this practice.

1. Set the stage at the beginning. We set learning and adaptation as a goal at the beginning of a team member’s journey. During onboarding, we share our commitment to this practice, including its context within our emergent strategy and systems change work.
2. Support team learning facilitators. We incorporate one learning facilitator per team who volunteers to dedicate time to build these new skills as well as lead and facilitate learning dialogues. Part of this new skill set includes helping to connect learning across teams.
3. Protect space and time for learning and adaptation. Learning takes time! We are intentional in setting adequate time for staff, team leads and our learning facilitators to be successful. We create space to learn within existing organizational practices and processes, such as annual goal-setting, quarterly or biannual team offsite meetings, and periodic reviews of our work, as well as any new spaces that might emerge, such as convenings and meetings with partners and peers.
4. Make visible and document learning and adaptation. We document our learnings in “learning logs” or using other tools which not only tracks our institutional knowledge, but makes it easier to build on our collective learning with one another over time. We plan to build out a more complete knowledge management system and develop a learning calendar to make it even easier to learn from and with each other.
5. Live into our values of Grateful Celebrators. Our leadership and staff take time to celebrate learning moments. During our team wide meetings, we take time to celebrate our wins, acknowledge challenges and discuss what we learned.

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On our blog, learn how our practice has informed and shifted our work, from adopting a gender responsive lens in Africa, to expanding our advisory board to be more inclusive and diverse in Brazil and more.