The Testing Change Project: Learnings for Civil Society Organisations

By Bonnie Koenig, Testing Change Project

A summary of the Testing Change Project which developed and tested new ways of operating for civil society organizations.

Contents

Introduction

The Civil Society and Testing Change project (later shortened to Testing Change project) started in 2014 with a small group of colleagues from around the world. We were looking to fill a missing gap in our approaches to significant change and be one piece of the puzzle (hence the puzzle logo) working with as many others as possible in our ‘shared space’ and sharing our learning freely. The need for ‘change’ was being talked about but was not yet part of the agenda for many organizations. It was the multi-year testing period, crucial to significant change, that was a missing piece and became our focus. The project was designed to:

develop and test new ways of operating that could be used by any civil society organization looking at how to adapt their organizational operations to address these significant changes; and
evaluate and share the learning as widely as possible in the global civil society community.

We wanted to look at the range of issues that civil society leaders need to navigate to re-orient their approaches in order to increase the impact from their efforts. Over the course of the project we had three working groups on youth integration, impact assessment and leadership.

Participants in the project noted the importance of shared learning, space to reflect, and having peers and partners outside of their traditional networks all to have been important to strengthening their own work as change leaders. – Anabel Cruz, Founder Director of the Instituto de Comunicación y Desarrollo (ICD)

Reflective spaces and sharing with others going through similar challenges is rare but yet so key. When there is more clarity around our work and systems are improved, new opportunities open up. – Janet Mawiyoo, Former CEO of the Kenya Community Development Foundation

Some of What Was Learned

Paradigm change, like other types of changes, needs practice to change our mind-sets and behavior patterns. This may call for strong and creative facilitation to encourage people to not fall into accustomed tracks but continually step off of them.

Effective organizational and systemwide change needs to be supported by high level commitment (that is sustained through leadership changes), accountability to multiple stakeholders, and resources to make the time for change initiatives.

In multi-year projects people may change positions and you need to have ways to bring people in and out of the process. Even when here is continuity, participants may need to miss meetings. A practice of regularly sharing notes and having them in an easily accessible place can help with continuity.

More resources for collaborative efforts are certainly needed to help make these types of efforts a priority. In collaborative initiatives someone needs to have as their focus keeping the momentum and priority level, and practitioners need to have the time they spend on these efforts valued.