Organizational mapping tool

The Organizational Mapping Tool (OMT) is an open-source, organizational assessment tool that is designed to help nonprofits identify and prioritize their organizational strengthening needs. BUILD grantees use the tool at the beginning of their grant period to help them better understand and prioritize their needs in key areas like strategy, leadership, finances, and systems. The OMT also yields data that the foundation’s BUILD team uses to improve its own responsiveness and performance.

Why we chose this tool

The OMT is designed to provide clear qualitative markers of organizational development, creating an assessment of an organization’s current state as well as a roadmap for its improvement.

To meet the needs of coalitions, alliances and networks—which face unique challenges when it comes to strengthening their institutions and their partnerships with other groups—we have also created a version of the OMT to better serve them. While we know definitions vary and these terms are used in many ways, this version is intended to be used by a variety of coalitions, alliances and networks in all parts of the world to help them assess their priorities in key areas like composition and structure, joint action, and network resources.

Administering the OMT, whether within an organization or a coalition, leads to rich, productive, and participatory conversations and insights. We believe the process itself is a form of institutional strengthening.

How it works

Unlike many other assessment tools, the OMT is designed to be a face-to-face, organization-wide process. With expenses covered by the foundation, BUILD grantees choose a trained facilitator to conduct a session where their entire staff completes the OMT together. The sessions vary in length, and depend on an organization’s preferences.

While Ford program officers do not see the individual results unless an organization chooses to share them, the OMT serves as an essential source of learning for our BUILD program, and the foundation as a whole. An external vendor provides us with anonymized, aggregate data from completed OMTs, so that we can identify patterns across the BUILD cohort to help us better meet their needs.

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Still have questions?

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The OMT is a key part of all our BUILD grants, but as an open-source tool, it is available for anyone to use. It is currently available in seven languages, which you can access below.

Arabic, 1.5MB

English, 2.3MB

Indonesian, 1.3MB

Kiswahili, 1.9MB

Mandarin, 1.9MB

Portuguese, 1.5MB

Spanish, 2.4MB

English, 6.5MB

Spanish, 1.2MB