Tell people about it.

Let your colleagues, managers, staff and board members know about the self-assessment before you begin. Let them know what you are doing and why. Let them know what to expect, and how they can be involved.

      Why?

Any organizational change process requires the engagement of the people it will involve and affect. Engage them early on, and you may minimize surprise and nervousness, address concerns, and build early buy-in -- helpful for when you ask people to act on the results later on.

Involve others in the process

Ask your managers, staff, and board members to help complete the self-assessment. Choose a few key people to work with you perhaps, or cast your net wider – we know of one small organization that involved the whole team to complete the assessment by consensus.

There are many ways you can do this – sit together as a group and work through the categories, or divide the work based on areas of expertise, for example. Share the effort in a way that makes sense for you.

       Why?

Quality responses mean more useful reports. There are likely people in your organization who have more insight into some sections of the self-assessment than you do. Use that – involving key people in responding to the indicators will improve the quality of your answers, and thus the quality of the picture OrgWise gives you of how your organization is doing.

Education and team building. Other users have found that they learned a lot from sharing opinions, and from hearing other peoples’ perspectives. You may find new insight into your organization. You may also find opportunities for educating people – board members, for example – about your organization, its strengths, and the issues you face.

Improving communication. Involving people in the self-assessment process can also be good for communication within your organization. Using the process as a time to talk and weigh in about organizational issues together can be a starting point for open dialogue about your organizational capacity strengths and challenges.

Building investment in change. This is about buy-in again – people are often quicker to mobilize to participate in change when they’ve identified the needs themselves. Everyone likes to feel that their input is valued and spurs action.

• Go to "My Homepage" - the link to this page is on the top of every screen.
• Go to the "IndicatorsEvidence or measures that show that a certain condition exists or certain results have or have not been achieved.... Click on the term to read the rest of this entry" link listed below "My Homepage" 
• Choose either to print "all" the standardsDesired and achievable levels of performance against which actual performance can be compared.... Click on the term to read the rest of this entry and indicators, only those that are still "unanswered", or those that have been "answered", .
• Click on the printer icon.

• Go to "My Homepage" - the link to this page is on the top of every screen.
• Go to the "Results" link listed below "My Homepage" 
• Scroll through a the list of all the standardsDesired and achievable levels of performance against which actual performance can be compared.... Click on the term to read the rest of this entry and indicator and look under the "Incomplete" column.
• Click on the standard text in instances where something is shown to be incomplete. You will be taken back into the assessment. Find the indicator statement box that has not yet been completed. All completed answers will be in bright yellow.
• Return back to "My Homepage" - "Results" to find any other incomplete sections.

To make the font bigger on your internet browser, do the following:

On your keyboard, hold down the 'control' tab and press the "+" key at the same time. Each time you do this the font will get larger.

1. You can start by clicking on the “A Community Based Approach” tab at the top.Alternatively you can click on one of the other 3 category tabs - "Governance & Strategic Leadership", "Operations", and "Human Resources".

2. You will be taken to a listing of all the standardsDesired and achievable levels of performance against which actual performance can be compared.... Click on the term to read the rest of this entry in the category you choose. The standards are organized into sections within the category. For example, In "A Community Based Approach", the first section is “Strengthening Communities”.

3. Click on any of the standards. You will be taken to the standard page, where a number of indicator statements are listed below the standard statement. These statements are concrete and specific measures of that standard.

4. Use the rating scale listed below the indicator statement to determine how your organization is doing - choose No, In Progress, Yes, Innovative, or Not Applicable.

5. You can click on the “?” to the right of the rating scale to get a description of what each of the elements in the rating scale mean. Or, you can click on the "Indicator Rating Scale Legend" in the Help section.

6. You can also click on “Helpful Hints” – below the indicator statement and rating scale – to get more details on the indicator.

7. Also, at the bottom of each page, you have the option to add private notes or files for yourself. You may want to make a note to talk to a board or staff person before you respond to a particular indicator statement, or attach a file that shows evidence that you have a system, policy, practice or approach in place.

8. When you are done with the current page, click on the green “Next” button to go to the next standard within that category.

9. Once you have completed a category you will be able to see results for that category, and when you go back to the standard you will see resources, tools, and sample policies for that standard.

10. PLEASE NOTE: everything gets saved automatically so you don’t have to worry about losing your work.

If you experience a problem on this site, please use the Feedback link (at the top of the right sidebar). We're interested in hearing from you about all aspects of the site.

If you've already logged in, you can view and change these on your "Account" page, accessible from the "My Homepage" link at the top of your screen.

Whenever you login, you can use either your email address or your "login name". Your "login name" may initially be set to your email, but you can change it to whatever you want (within reason...).

If you forget your password, you can go to the login page and click on "Forgot my password" to have it mailed to you, as long as you have access to the email address that you had when signed up. All you need to know is your email address.

If you don't even know if you have an account, hopefully you're not reading this yet, but try asking someone else.

For most pages on this site, there is no "submit" button because all your work is saved as you go. Most of the time, you should see some form of feedback (e.g. turning yellow) to indicate that the site has recognized and saved your input.

The only exception to this is your "Account" page, where you can modify your username, email, password and/or language of choice. On this page, you do need to click the submit button at the bottom of the form for your changes to take effect.