Activating an organization’s strategy in its program design and evaluation is not an easy task. Our team was working with WELCOMMON, a social cooperative in Greece, to improve WELCOMMON’s programs design and implementation strategies.
The Problem
Our team was supporting WELCOMMON’s Social Programs team which consists of 2 staff members alongside 30+ volunteers that work with WELCOMMON over different periods of times. The volunteers intake fluctuates over the year which created inefficient utilization of both the staff and volunteers’ efforts.
The Process
To help WELCOMMON in achieving their vision, our team started by gaining a better understanding of the refugee crisis in Greece, and analyzing the organizational performance using tools like the Business Model Canvas, Theories of Change and Logic Modeling. Theories of Change were popularized in the 90s as means to capture complex initiatives. Theories of Change were essential in articulating underlaying factors that lead to long-term consequences. Meanwhile, Logic Models enabled us to illustrate WELCOMMON programs’ components graphically, and identify outcomes, inputs and activities.
The Solution
In our initial meetings with WELCOMMON, we developed an overarching journey map and timeline to communicate the desired change management strategy to bring the social programs’ transformation to life. We broke down the profiles of stakeholders who interact with refugees into 3 segmentations, proposed an improved organizational structure, and designed a training program with compelling messaging and key stakeholder communications.
More about our experience with WELCOMMON
Project Team: Ben Burkeen, Shatakshi Gupta, Tiffany Vazquez, and Zahraa Dagher
