How Ready is Your Organization to Build and Sustain Youth-Adult Partnership? Use my new Initial Self-Evaluation and Organizational Audit to find out.

I’ve experienced on many occasions that the most impactful part of supporting a systems change process was when I asked new questions of an organization and facilitated dedicated discussions when everyone answered those questions. All of our organizations are moving all day, every day toward our goals, focused on doing all the things that make the organization a success. It’s incredibly challenging in the midst of that rush to lead deep systems change for ourselves, and deep systems change is exactly what’s required to embed authentic youth-adult partnership into your organization’s governance and operations. 

My Organizational Audit of Readiness to Build and Sustain Youth-Adult Partnership will ask your organization new questions about its connections to young people impacted by your decisions, will reveal alignment between your talk and your walk, and will recommend immediate actions to build on your strengths and turn around weaknesses.

Early Self-Evaluation

I recommend every organization, even ones not interested in a full audit, conduct a self-evaluation of readiness and interest in youth-adult partnership. Is your organization at the starting line of youth-adult partnership? Are you just getting started on a Couch to 5K? Or are you ready to run the marathon of systems change? This self-evaluation forms the first step of the audit process. 

What does an Organizational Audit include?

When you commit to an audit, your organization and I will partner on several steps following the self-evaluation. 

First, we will conduct listening sessions with your organization’s staff and leadership, the governing body if you have one (i.e. a Board of Directors), community or system partners, and youth impacted by your organization’s decisions. We will combine what we hear from all of these stakeholders to form a 360 degree view of your organization’s current readiness to embark on youth-adult partnership.

Second, we will interview a few key members of each stakeholder group. Our goal for these interviews will be additional clarity and a deeper understanding of what we learned in the surveys and listening sessions.  

Third, we will review your organization’s governing and operations documents. These documents reflect both your organization’s origin story and how you carry out your day-to-day work. Do the documents you use every day support your goals? Do they build mutual respect and trust among stakeholders?

I will then provide a written audit report to you, which will outline how ready your organization truly is to embark on youth-adult partnership and how to build on what you have, provide helpful comparisons to peer organizations, and recommend next steps. And we will work together to share the report with everyone who contributed to our learning and with the public. This sharing step is crucial to all future work since it creates accountability within and outside the organization.

I welcome introductory conversations with any organization considering an audit, and I’m happy to review and provide feedback on results of self-evaluations even if you are not considering a full audit. Let’s talk about it!