[OKC] Standards in Focus: Building Organizational Capacity with the Standards for Excellence Framework

You know the Standards for Excellence. Now let's get specific.

Standards in Focus is a new series of focused, three-hour trainings built directly from the Standards for Excellence educational resource packets, the same nationally recognized framework your organization may already be working toward, examined one topic at a time. Where the two-day Standards for Excellence course gives you the full picture, these sessions are designed to zero in on particular areas of nonprofit ethics, governance, and operations so you can walk away with actionable tools and clarity on the issues your organization is actively navigating.

Each training is its own complete learning experience. You don't need to have completed the two-day course to participate, these trainings stand on their own and are open to nonprofit staff, board members, and leaders at any stage of their standards journey. 

Course Description

Without a structured framework, capacity building efforts can feel scattered and hard to measure. Built from the Standards for Excellence educational packet on Structured Capacity Building, this training introduces the full Standards for Excellence framework as a practical roadmap for strengthening your nonprofit’s governance and management. Participants tour all six guiding principles of the Standards, complete an organizational self-assessment, and leave with a concrete starting point for intentional improvement. New to the Standards or ready to take stock, this is the right place to begin.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

1. Define organizational capacity building and explain how the Standards for Excellence framework provides a structured approach to nonprofit governance and management.
2. Identify the six guiding principles of the Standards for Excellence code and describe how they apply across operations, leadership, ethics, finance, and resource development.
3. Conduct a basic organizational self-assessment to identify current strengths and priority areas for improvement.
4. Develop an initial action plan identifying specific standards the organization can begin working toward with realistic next steps.
5. Describe the resources available through the Standards for Excellence Institute and how to access them.