The First Step

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An organizational assessment (OA) can be defined as a systematic process for obtaining valid information about the performance of an organization and the factors that affect performance.  It is conducted in order to demonstrate areas of competence, areas for improvement, and possible risks, help support investment and restructuring decisions.

An OA differs from other types of evaluations (such as policy, program, and project evaluations) because the assessment aims to understand performance of a different unit of analysis, i.e. the performance of an organization, not the performance of a project, a program, or a policy.

Many organizations pose the question, "How are we doing?" OA serves as a tool that responds to this question - telling you how you are doing, what you are doing well and why you are perhaps not achieving what you would like.

In sum, an organizational assessment can be compared to a physical exam - in this case it is your organization undergoing a "physical" to identify strengths and weaknesses. We support the idea that organizational assessments should be a normal internal feedback process. Thus, we encourage organizations to build internal organizational assessment capabilities. In addition, we recognize that from time to time, external funders and\or Boards of Directors require external reviewers to assess organizations. In such cases, it is important to know how to manage these external processes.