RePlan – a board game for NGO diagnosis and strategic development

The Young Initiative Association from Romania has designed a board game called RePlan, which helps NGOs to train employees/volunteers, as well as to identify strategic options for development. An interview with Adela Fenichiu,  General Secretary of Young Initiative, reveals more insights into how to use the board game.

  • What is RePlan and how did this idea emerge? 

RePlan is the first board game created for NGOs to guide them through the complex process of strategic planning. The idea emerged as part of a wider project, called the NGO Management Centre (CMON), funded by the EEA Grants 2009-2014 and with the financial support of the NGO Fund in Romania. At the NGO Management Centre, part of AYI, we focus on empowering non-profit organizations from Romania through education. We support hundreds of NGOs in increasing their organizational capacity through better management methods and channeling their passion for a cause into tangible results and lives changed in the community.

Throughout the project, there was a point when we had some savings in the budget, on one hand, and on the other hand, we had to come up with a really creative way to keep the project sustainable after the funding period. So, since we had been thinking about creating such a game for a while but haven’t had financial and human resources at hand, we ceased the opportunity and created the game, afterward distributing it to 150 Romanian NGOs in. Since the waiting list was almost triple, we decided to further produce the game and sell it, also making it the first social entrepreneurship initiative of AYI. By now, we sold over 100 games and RePlan is also available in English and Norwegian.

  • Please, describe briefly the concept of the game. How could NGOs use it? Is it designed specifically for certain types of organizations?  

In brief, the game has 4 phases (“Where are we now?” / “Where do we want to go?” / “How do we get there?” / “Is our strategy sustainable?”), that can be played together or separately, like 4 mini-games, according to your needs. The main rationale behind the game is the need of many organizations to have an easy-to-use, non-formal, yet very practical tool that can help you through the process of thinking and planning the strategy, while also proving a good self-diagnostic tool as well. Very importantly, RePlan is not a fictional game, it is a tool that you can apply directly to your organization or that you can use for a case study in a training context.

NGOs can use it in almost any way they wish: for the whole organizations, for board planning meetings, in just one department or even for a mixed team of volunteers/employees. The most common uses are: developing a strategy, getting to know each other better inside the organization (especially with new members or volunteers), teambuilding, risk assessment, resource planning, even teaching 🙂

RePlan is not designed for NGOs in a certain area of activity, it can be used by any type of non-profit or non-governmental organizations, but the number of persons that can play at once is between 3-10.  As the game is quite flexible, we had orders coming from multinationals or universities.

  • Would you recommend the game to be used for training new volunteers and employees of NGOs? 

Yes, absolutely. New volunteers can get acquainted to the values and rules of the NGO, they can get a better clue of how things work in a department or in the whole organizations and they can also get to know their colleagues in a funny way. The same goes for the employees. Even more, teambuilding can be easily guided with RePlan more than one in every NGO. 🙂

For more information, you can also check our English page for RePlan: https://www.management-ong.ro/replan-en/

NGO Skills Matrix

The development of training programs is based on the identification of knowledge and abilities which are to be transmitted. These are at the base of the educational objectives. Therefore, a very important stage in the development of the ATSIV training platforms was the identification of the skills needed by the representatives of the NGOs in Bulgaria, Greece, Poland, and Romania.

The relevant skills matrix bellow bundles and classifies a significant part of the skills, identified as needed and important by the participants in the questionnaire, considered together with the discussions, which were held during the focus groups in all partner countries.

Best practices in the field of training in the NGO sector

ATSIV team is developing a research on the best practices in the field of training for the benefit of the nonprofit sector. This study allows understanding the most modern and effective tools, utilized by professionals in the field of adult learning in the case of workers – including volunteers – of NGOs in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe.

The preliminary audit  has revealed the following key aspects leading to effective results:

  • Interactive engagement;
  • Variation;
  • Informal learning;
  • Group dynamics;
  • Logistics & organizations;
  • Intercultural training;
  • Evaluation and reflection.

© Monika Wisniewska ID 2235135 | Dreamstime Stock Photos

 

The list of programs selected is extensive and is updated continuously. We present here only some of them:

  • Summer school for NGOs developed by the Bulgarian Center for Non-for-profit Law;
  • Empowering women: “I’m not afraid of storms for I’m learning to sail my ship” developed by Salto Euromed;
  • TCP 2016 Forum on Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship developed by the Italian Erasmus+ National Agency and the SALTO-YOUTH Participation Resource Centre, in collaboration with the Bulgarian, Danish, Hungarian, Maltese, Spanish and UK Erasmus+ National Agencies;
  • Give Power and Help – Self Identity in Youth Work and Projects developed by Akademickie Centrum Informacji i Edukacji Europejskiej;
  • Usage of competences development measuring for training contents improvement by Social Participation Department Municipality of Wrocław;
  • Usage of innovative technologies for NGOs’ workers in sharing their good practices with others by Fundacja Rozwoju Społeczeństwa Informacyjnego;
  • ERSTE Foundation NGO Academy – regional program;
  • Building digital skills capacities for NGOs in Romania and Moldovia, program developed by TechSoup Association Romania.

All the previous examples prove the necessity  of joining forces from various sectors – business, public, nonprofit, and academic. A complex approach of the members of the Quadriple Helix consortiumQuadruplecilitate the effectiveness of training programs for NGOs.