Integrated Technical Organizational Capacity Assessment (ITOCA) and Action Planning: Facilitator’s Guide

The guide is tailored for the Strengthening the Capacity of Indigenous Organizations in the Amazon (SCIOA) Program, implemented by Pact with USAID funding. The ITOCA process is a comprehensive, participatory, and strengths-based approach for achieving organizational change, learning, and development. The ITOCA methodology consists of a series of key activities, including participatory OCA tool design, guided self-assessment, data-guided action planning, and reassessment for continual learning. Participatory OCA tool design empowers organizations to define critical success factors and identify relevant indicators for evaluating their skills, abilities, and knowledge. The guided self-assessment uses the ITOCA tool designed during the two-day workshop, leading staff and, in some instances, board members and volunteers through structured discussion activities followed by individual scoring on a series of rigorous capacity indicators. The ITOCA process has six phases: Phase 1, ITOCA Cohort and Process Solidified; Phase 2, Facilitated Tool Design; Phase 3, Guided Self-Assessment; Phase 4, Results Analyzed; Phase 5, Institutional Strengthening Plan Created; and Phase 6, ISP Implementation and Monitoring. Phase 1 has three steps: Identify the Cohort, Engage Participating Organizations, and Plan the ITOCA Process and Timeline. The ITOCA tool is designed to support organizations to measure their capacity, prioritize organizational challenges, and implement improvement strategies. In some cases, an organization may want to include clients or community members in the ITOCA process. This may be particularly important for areas such as service delivery, community engagement, or communication. The ITOCA process allows for flexibility in terms of the number of capacity areas to be assessed, with a recommended range of seven to ten areas. The capacity areas and statements of excellence should be reviewed carefully by team members to determine which areas to maintain, delete, or reduce in size based on their knowledge of the organization. The ITOCA tool is designed to be adaptable to the work of the particular Indigenous People's Organization (IPO) and should be tailored to the organization's specific needs and context. The guide provides facilitators with activity-based discussion techniques and general directions on scoring, report preparation, analysis, and the development of the Institutional Strengthening Plan (ISP). The ITOCA process is designed to support organizations to achieve organizational change, learning, and development, and to track progress over time using the Organizational Performance Index (OPI).