| 1 December 2004
NGO Sutyajnik lends volunteer
experts to Union of Human Rights Defenders organization
NGO Sutyajnik (Yekaterinburg, Russia) gave a
prime example of its mission as a resource center for Human Rights NGOs in the
Sverdlovsk region when it loaned its volunteers, Judith Ahrens and Douglas
Kramer, from the International Senior Lawyers Project, based in New York, to the
Union of Human Rights Defenders organizations, Ekaterinburg, for a two-day,
eight-hour workshop on Strategic Planning, on November 22 and 23, 2004. The
audience included the head of the Union, plus graduate students, volunteers, and
representatives of such organizations as: Amnesty International, For Human
Rights, Rehabilitation of Prisoners, the Urals Association of Refugees, a human
rights lawyers, and Archive. There were 17 participants in all.
The participants performed the strategic
planning for the Union of Human Rights Defenders; however, they were encouraged
to use the same process in their individual organizations. First, the
participants derived a mission statement, a concise sentence or two answering
the question: why does the organization exist, what is its purpose? Then, the
participants analyzed their current situation in a process called “SWOT”, in
which the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the organization
are identified, prioritized, and then used to formulate goals (broad statements
of what the organization wants to achieve) and objectives (statements of how the
organization will achieve the goals).
Strategic Planning is particularly important
for Russian NGOs which face two sources of volatility: the political situation
and the external funding situation. Without a careful assessment of its
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, a Russian NGO can become
reactive and opportunistic rather than proactive and goal-oriented. The
strategic planning sessions focus on both internal and external factors, and
thus allow all members of the organization to express their views of changes
that could improve the working environment, making the organization more
productive and effective. Strategic planning should be used at least once a
year, or when unanticipated shocks occur in the environment that significantly
affect its future prospects. The strategic planning materials were all
translated into Russian so that Sutyajnik and the other NGOs can continue the
process independently in the future.
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News Agency Sutyajnik-Press
+7-343-355-36-51
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