Organisational Development

  • Has your organisation grown from strength to strength, and found new challenges or barriers to change?

  • Have you had a surge in your membership, and found that your old ways of working are no longer working for you?

  • Do you feel that your organisation is meeting its responsibilities in all that you do?

  • Have you decided to re-focus your activities and you need to get everyone on board for the change?

  • Have you found that you have gaps in your policies that stop you from operating effectively?

  • Do you need to develop more effective ways of recruiting and keeping staff, volunteers or supporters?

Our members have been involved in and worked with voluntary groups, statutory bodies, international NGOs, charities, community organisations, campaign groups and organisations, trade unions, co-ops, housing projects and other mutual aid groups. 

We can support you to build capacity, strengthen or redefine your vision or goals, refresh your strategy and how you seek to achieve change, or to help you work more effectively when there are significant risks or obstacles in your way.  Any organisation, group or network needs effective and appropriate relationships, processes and structures – we can help you put them in place.

This work might include:

  • Undertaking or facilitating a review and developing strategy;

  • Organisational support – reviewing board or steering group roles and responsibilities, and planning organisational change; or policy development;

  • Undertaking a participation audit to assess how you currently involve your activists, members or volunteers;

  • Creating dialogue with and within your volunteer networks;

  • Delivering training in all aspects of being a sustainable organisation or network – group dynamics, communication and working with conflict, advanced meeting facilitation, burn-out and resilience, community organising, attracting volunteers and staff, and more;

  • Evaluating existing support systems;

  • Supporting you to set up and maintain effective support systems to build resilience for staff or volunteer networks;

  • Training the Trainers workshops and courses;

  • Delivering training in campaigning skills to support your work – from using the media to planning an effective strategy, from non-violent direct action to public speaking.

We can provide help, advice and training on:

  • Organisational culture

  • Partnership working

  • Governance

  • Structures and processes

  • Core policies

  • Managing change

The case studies below give a flavour of the kind of work we do:

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38 Degrees

38 Degrees approached Rhizome to build on their success as an online campaigning organisation. Rhizome used its wide range of experience to generate a series of proposals and helped 38 Degrees to work out which best fitted with their values. The result was staff training and a package of training and support to develop healthy local campaigning groups. Rhizome facilitated the development of this innovative model to involve and train campaigners already active on-line. The training covered their campaign tools and strategies on the ground. Rhizome has delivered a series of community-building regional events across the UK. This enabled novice and experienced campaigners to connect and has created a whole new relationship between 38 Degrees and its members.

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Fairtrade Foundation

The Fairtrade Foundation wanted to recognise the key role of campaigners in furthering the Foundation’s aims. Rhizome facilitated five regional events, to achieve a consensus decision on this. The outcome was adopted by the Foundation, due to recognition of the solidity of the process by which it had been arrived at.

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Plantlife

Rhizome designed and delivered staff away-days for national conservation charity Plantlife, as a means of supporting them to demonstrate the quality of their work. We worked with them in advance to ensure the two days of creative facilitation and dynamic visioning successfully laid the foundations to secure major core funding.