I am completing some organizational assessment work with Southwest Youth & Family Services in preparation for strategic planning. I provided the list below of organizational documents that I would like to see as part of the assessment process. Steve Daschle commented that it was very useful to him as well, as he would also use the list to gather important documents and copy them onto a thumb drive for emergency preparedness and backup purposes. This is a great and inexpensive way to increase your agency resiliency.
Of course, having key documents well organized is also a crucial step in leadership succession planning, so make sure the documents are also easy to find on your office computer. So, here’s the list–pick the documents you think are most important, group them, and go make a backup!
Checklist of Written Materials for Organizational Assessment
- Factsheet on the agency
- Agency history and list of accomplishments
- Outreach materials, newsletters and/or event flyers
- Press coverage of your work
- Recent grant proposals, if available
- Budget for this year and prior two years
- Year-end actuals for prior fiscal year
- Year-to-date financial report
- Organizational chart
- Board roster
- Staff roster
- Board composition analysis grid
- By-laws & Articles of Incorporation
- Board meeting minutes for the past 6 meetings, including attendance information
- Personnel policies
- Partnership agreements – past and current
- List of funders and current commitments, organized using the template provided
- Any available demographic info about the community and/or survey or needs assessment results
- Program evaluation info and logic model if in use
- Emergency response/business continuity plan
- Any other info you feel would be useful background for us