Author: Steven LaFrance, CEO, Head + Heart Advisory; Founder and Board Member, LFA

Overview: This post explores the approach to PropelNext, a robust cohort-based capacity-building model designed to strengthen organizations and their internal capacity for learning. Steven LaFrance describes how LFA, along with our coaching team and partners, evolved this approach over a decade to reflect principles of equity in practice.

Systematic reflection and learning are at the heart of an organization’s ability to evolve intentionally in ways that deepen its effectiveness in achieving more equitable outcomes in service of its mission and on the way to its vision. Thus, for decades Learning for Action (LFA) has been leading programs with cohorts of nonprofits working in a broad array of issue areas all with the shared aim of strengthening internal organizational capacity for systematic learning that can continuously improve outcomes, including strengthening culture, practice, systems, and processes.

 Over the course of more than 20 years of providing this kind of training and coaching to nonprofits in organizational strengthening around internal learning and improvement practices, at LFA we have been on our own journey to evolve our training and coaching practices to activate and better align with principles of equity. This post describes how LFA, along with our coaching team and partners, evolved the approach to PropelNext, a robust cohort-based capacity-building model designed to strengthen organizations and their internal capacity for learning. Over the course of a decade, we continuously refined our approach to more deeply reflect principles of equity in practice.

Background. From 2012 to 2021, LFA had the privilege of partnering on the implementation of the PropelNext initiative, running the program three times with 12-15 organizations in each cohort, providing a three-year journey during which participating organizations received coaching and training, engaged in peer learning, and accessed support related to technology and data systems. All organizations participating in PropelNext serve young people who experience systemic and structural barriers to opportunity, along with their families and communities. The premise of PropelNext was that by strengthening promising organizations’ ability to engage in systematic internal learning and evaluation, they will have the insights needed to strengthen programming in ways that lead to better and more equitable outcomes for youth.

Over the last decade the PropelNext initiative established an effective, equity-grounded model for transforming dozens of youth-serving nonprofits. An external evaluation conducted by Engage R+D surfaced key design elements that catalyzed impact among participating youth-serving organizations. Funders and nonprofit leaders can learn how the PropelNext initiative’s cohort-based model and justice-centered approach led to better, more equitable outcomes in this short explainer video.

What We Learned. Among the 40 youth-serving organizations participating in PropelNext, 80% reported improved outcomes. The high-level tenets of PropelNext that drove these outcomes included:

1.    flexible funding;

2.    peer learning;

3.    engaging multiple perspectives;

4.    trust-based coaching;

5.    customizable templates and tools; and

6.    embedding justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) in practice.

Embedding JEDI in Practice. Through feedback and learning, we more deeply over time implemented justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) principles in planning and practice:

 7.    participating organizations were selected with a lens accounting for historic and systemic oppression;

8.    a wide range of staff engaged – not just folks in roles of formal authority – in training and learning opportunities; and

9.    diverse coaching teams centered JEDI throughout their engagement with participants.

In turn, participating organizations activated JEDI principles in their program designs and approach to service delivery as well as in their data analytics model and reflection practices. For example, one program redesigned the timing and location of the components of the program model through which parents and families were engaged in the growth and development of their child to better accommodate work schedules, transportation needs, and child care needs. Many organizations included in their learning agenda a series of equity-focused analyses conducted on young people’s receipt of services, experiences with services and staff, and progress towards outcomes. Through these analyses, organizations would explore any differences young people might experience in MFP based on aspects of their personal identities, including age, race/ethnicity, gender, and LGBTQIA community membership. The results of these analyses activate principles of equitable practice: to know how staff can deliver to each individual young person what they need to succeed.

How do these findings resonate with you? How have you provided, or experienced, nonprofit organizational strengthening experiences that activated principles of equity?