Organizational Capacity Assessment & Facilitator’s Guides

The Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA) is a structured tool for a facilitated self-assessment of an organization’s capacity followed by action planning for capacity improvements. The self-assessment approach increases ownership of the action plan.

The OCA format helps the organization reflect on its processes and functions, and score itself against benchmarks. Based on the discussions and the scoring, the organization shapes and sets priorities for actions it can take to strengthen its capacity.

The organization’s participants (management, staff, and sometimes, board members) discuss institutional abilities, systems, procedures, and policies in various capacity areas. Then, they reach agreement on a set of scores based on statements that reflect different capacity levels. The scoring is guided by the participants’ understanding of how their organizational processes work. The scores are supported by justifications, explanations and supporting documentation for each item. However, since the OCA is not an audit, external review, or evaluation the scores are not “corrected” by the external facilitators.

Last modified: July 23, 2021

Language: English