Purpose

To help social enterprises strengthen their capacity to achieve their mission, REDF has developed GOAL (adapted from McKinsey’s Capacity Assessment Tool) to help you measure your organization’s capacity in 6 areas:

• Agency planning and performance
• Agency leadership (CEO/ED and management team)
• Agency management capacity
• Agency financial sustainability
• Agency network reach
• Social enterprise

Select members from your organization should each individually fill out GOAL. The compiled results should be reviewed by the group and used to set goals for the year. Additionally, the results will be a useful baseline against which future GOAL results can be compared.

In order to set the right goals, it is important to be open and honest when filling out GOAL. While your responses are not anonymous within your organization, the compiled results should not attribute a particular person to a particular answer.

Your answers on GOAL should not affect anyone’s status or performance within an organization. Rather, it is meant for you to learn more about your organization, and to spark a productive discussion on where to focus your efforts.

 

Instructions

Use the tool to fill out GOAL, leaving 2 to 3 hours to complete.

For each of the 32 elements listed, decide on the capacity level (1 through 4) that you think best describes your organization’s capacity, and either type or select your answer from the pull-down menu in the yellow box to the right. If you don’t know or don’t want to answer, type or select “N/A”.

Should you need it, the second tab on the spreadsheet contains a glossary of terms.

For each element, we have also suggested (on the far right column) several types of documents that may help you, but please do not spend excessive time on any one element.

 

Keep in mind…

It’s okay not to be a 4! No organization will be at Level 4 in all areas. In fact, for some elements, Level 1 or 2 may be the most appropriate for that organization at that point in time.

GOAL is not meant to be a comprehensive assessment of all areas of organizational capacity, so it shouldn’t be used as such.

Do not collaborate with others when filling out GOAL. The intent is to get your own individual perspective. Understanding differences in perceived capacity levels among different individuals can lead to a greater learning experience overall.

While it may be helpful to refer to a document or two to refresh your memory, do not spend excessive time doing research in order to answer a question. If you don’t know the answer, or don’t feel confident enough to answer, simply select or write “N/A”.

It may be helpful for you to keep your own notes on why you selected a particular answer. These notes may come in handy during the results debriefing meeting.