With Community Organizations (COs) and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) our focus is to build agency and resilience through institutional system-process strengthening and leadership development. Our core thesis is that strong community enabling organizations and leaders are key to ensuring sustained community action and impact.
We have provided institution building support to over 100 organizations, working with them individually or as cohorts of CSOs / COs. These organizations have ranged from small 5-10 member teams to large organizations managing portfolios exceeding 10 million USD, spanning agriculture, livelihoods, health, education, human rights, nano entrepreneurship and environment / climate.
The starting point in such work is always to do a 'current state' map of where the organization is on 5 Ps - Plan, People, Paisa (Financial Resources), Processes and Partnerships, leveraging the Phicus Institution Resilience Mapping tool. We then work closely with the organization to help them create a growth plan that is aligned to their core vision and purpose. We support the execution of the institution building plan through coaching, design of key systems and processes in the 5 Ps and by enabling relevant connections with ecosystem players.
Organizations and donors alike are recognizing the power of collaboratives to take ideas to scale quickly and effect widespread change. However, this calls for a shift at multiple inflection points including - aligning the organizations who form the collective around a common purpose while retaining their own essence, ensuring processes for synergised work, driving collaboration at various touchpoints across the organizations and nurturing knowledge sharing and engagement to build trust and optimise leverage.
Phicus plays the role of catalyzing such groups. For instance, we have worked with groups of farmer producer collectives and sex worker collectives. Through structured processes, we helped each of these networks come together, define their common purpose and explore complementarities. We also support these collectives through the design of key systems and processes that aid monitoring and tracking, engagement, knowledge sharing and trust building.
Leaders are the centerpoint of social change. They are driven by passion and purpose, like we are, to make the world a better place. They are the conduits through which communities are empowered, institutions become sustainable and policy changes are effected. We have worked with over 1000 leaders in the social impact space, across levels, to augment their knowledge, skills and abilities.
Our flagship leadership program, Aritra, which we run along with the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) is aimed at creating a senior leader pipeline for the social sector. From helping grassroot community organization leaders build capabilities, perspectives and networks in our Shilp cohort to equipping mid level leaders at Haq Darshak to support ambitious organization growth plans to coaching Senior leaders in various organizations, Phicus has provided critical capacity enhancing support.
We have leveraged various methodologies including online and offline workshops, assessments, psychometry, 360 feedback, one on one and team coaching, peer learning, expert and panel sessions and curated and created learning content to help leaders manage their ecosystem, institutions, programs and teams more effectively.
While our primary focus is institutional and leadership capacity building, we are enthused by the positive foundation that has been laid by resilience building messages through ‘Sahuri’, an agency building solution created by Phicus.
Sahuri ‘readies’ its audience for empowered participation in development initiatives.
Through Sahuri, we have touched the lives of over 1.5 million rural and peri-urban Indians.