CapMap®
CapMap® is a unique tool designed by LISC’s Organizational Development
Initiative and the members of the LISC Operating Support Collaboratives that
allows LISC to “map” a partner CDC’s capacity along a spectrum of progressive
measurements. This tool is one part of the entire capacity mapping approach,
which focuses not on simply identifying an organization’s current capacity
stage, but on using that information to help create growth and move an
organization to verifiably higher stages of achievement. As such, the capacity
mapping approach has six steps:
- Define Overall Capacity Mapping Strategy: Identifying why your
site is doing capacity mapping, what you want to get out of the process, and who
needs to be involved (funders, stakeholders, CDCs) at the outset will help you
structure the process to meet your goals – whether you’re aiming to work with
one CDC or to launch a new capacity building program for your entire site.
- Establish the Baseline Map: Using CapMap®, determine what
stage an organization would ultimately like to achieve and the organization’s
current stage of capacity. It may help to think of this baseline as a “starting
point.”
- Create the Growth Plan: Comparing the baseline with where the
CDC ultimately wants to be, LISC staff collaborate with the CDC to identify
guiding strategies as well as next steps for growth.
- Choreograph Resources and Implementation: LISC and the CDC
work together to identify and secure the resources needed to implement the
growth plan. In some cases, CDCs have successfully used their mapping results
and growth plans in proposals to secure funding from non-LISC sources, and LISC
sites have raised close to $3 million with proposals based on the capacity
mapping approach!
- Remap and Evaluate Results: After a defined period of time,
use CapMap® to re-map the CDC’s current stage of capacity and compare it to your
baseline results from step 2. This is your chance to discover what the results
of the growth strategies and implementation actually were.
- Refine Growth Strategies: Based on the actual growth results, what might you want to tweak or do differently next time around? Work with the CDC to create a revised growth plan and take another spin around the capacity mapping wheel.
Learn more about CapMap® and other Organizational Development Initiatives here.