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Chapter 9. Developing an Organizational Structure for the In... >
Section 1. Organizational Structure: An Overview >
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| Contributed by Jenette Nagy Edited by Jerry Schultz and Bill Berkowitz |
Elements of this section have been adapted from The Spirit of Coalition Building by Tom Wolff and Bill Berkowitz
What is organizational structure?
Why should you develop a structure for your organization?
When should you develop a structure for your organization?
Elements of Structure
Common Roles
Examples of Structure
Choosing a Structure
When your organization has first formed, when members are lined up, when things are beginning to move, when you start to smell success, then (and no later) it's time to think seriously about organizational structure.
"Structure? Do you mean organizational charts, and rules, and by-laws, and (perish the thought) committees? Why should we be thinking about that stuff? Things are going well. We're starting to make something happen in the community, for the first time I can remember. We haven't got time to deal with structure right now. And we're on a roll. Thanks, anyway. Later, maybe."
It's great that things are moving forward, and that you're on a roll. But the reason to think about structure very early on is that you probably won't be on a roll forever, at least not rolling at the same rate. The pace of accomplishment is uneven, a poignant fact of both human and organizational life. The lives of community groups, in particular, have peaks and troughs. Structure prevents the troughs from becoming too deep.
Since every group is different, this section can't be a definitive statement on the right structure for your particular organization. But we can describe some structures that different organizations have adopted, so that you can hold them up for inspection, and understand more clearly which may be right for you.
In this opening section, our game plan is to do just that. We'll begin by discussing what we mean by structure, why it's important, and when you should be thinking about it. Then, we'll explain more thoroughly some of the basic elements of structure. This includes some of the roles and groups that are common to many community organizations, such as a board of directors, staff members, and action committees.
| Some of these roles are more complex, and will be further discussed in following sections of this chapter. In Section 2, we will discuss an organization's steering committee; Section 3 will discuss task forces and action committees; and Sections 4-6, the role of the board of directors. |
Later in this section, we will give examples of structures in large, mid-sized, and small community-based organizations; we'll show how some organizations have taken a few of the jigsaw pieces listed above and formed productive organizations. Finally, we will offer you help in choosing your own organization's structure.
What is organizational structure?
By structure, we mean the framework around which the group is organized, or to pick other construction metaphors: the underpinnings, the wiring, the girders which keep the coalition standing up. It's the operating manual that tells members how the organization is put together and how it works. More specifically, structure describes how members are accepted, how leadership is chosen, and how decisions are made. And it does so without apology.
Why should you develop a structure for your organization?
Because at some point, the bloom is going to fall off the rose. After the initial rush of energy, members may become less excited than they used to be. They may stop always agreeing with each other, and start to think about other things they could do with their days. At those times, which is much of the time in most organizations, structure is desirable and necessary.
Why desirable and necessary? There are at least three reasons.
- First, because structure gives members clear guidelines for how to proceed. Soon enough, uncertainty will arise, and so will disagreements. Uncertainty and disagreement, in repeated doses, are unpleasant and block accomplishment. And when there is too much uncertainty or disagreement, that's when people imagine how nice it would be to be someplace else and disinvest, or flat out leave. A clearly-established structure gives the group a means to cut through the uncertainty, resolve the disagreements, and maintain the investment.
- Second, structure binds members together. It gives meaning and identity to the people who join the group, as well as to the group itself. It satisfies the basic human needs for form, regularity, and order. These are no less important in our organizational lives than in our personal lives.
- And third, because some kind of structure in any organization is inevitable, an organization, by definition, implies a structure. Your group is going to have some structure whether it chooses to or not. It might as well be the structure which best matches up with what kind of organization you have, what kind of people are in it, and what you see yourself doing.
When should you develop a structure for your organization?
All of these advantages speak to the need to deal with structure early in the organization's history. It's best to do so not in a way that impedes development, but that enhances it. How? Well, structural development can occur in proportion to other work the organization is doing, so that it does not crowd out that work. And it can occur in parallel with, at the same time as, your organization's growing accomplishments, so they take place in tandem, side by side. This means that you should think about structure from the beginning of your organization's life. As your group grows and changes, so should your thinking on the group's structure.
Elements of Structure
While the need for structure is clear, the best structure for a particular coalition is harder to determine. This is because organizational structure is not one-size-fits all. Some structures are tight, others are loose. Some are simple, others glitter. Some are worn casually, others are all business, others still are trotted out only for formal occasions. The best structure for any organization, including your own, will depend upon its size and shape, specifically, who its members are, what the setting is, and how far the organization has come in its development.
In other words, the best structure depends upon who you are, where you've been, and where you see yourself going. And it can change. The best structure will change according to different stages in an organization's life. The task for any organization is to find that structure best suited to its own character, members, time, and place.
Regardless of what type of structure your organization decides upon, three elements will always be there. They are inherent in the very idea of an organizational structure. They are:
- Some kind of governance,
- Rules by which the organization operates, and
- A distribution of work.
Let's look at these one by one.
Governance
A first element of structure is governance. Some person or group has to make the decisions within the organization. This, of course, relates to the distribution of work mentioned above, but is important enough to be mentioned here separately.
Rules by which the organization operates
Another important part of structure is having rules by which the organization operates. Many of these rules may be explicitly stated ("The committees will use Robert's Rules of Order" or "The chairperson sets the agenda"). Others are implicit and unstated, though not necessarily any less powerful ("People usually show up for meetings ten minutes late" or "I might call you at home, but I'll have a good reason"). Even the least formal of groups will have norms by which it operates. Both explicit and implicit "norms" (a.k.a. "house rules") are part of the organization's structure. We also sometimes say they are part of the organization's culture.
Distribution of work
Inherent in any organizational structure also is a distribution of work. The distribution can be formal or informal, temporary or enduring, voluntary or coerced, with many, few, or no intermediate layers. But part of the definition of an organization is some type of division of labor.
This begs the question, "What labor?" It's worth taking a moment here to look at the tasks common to most community groups. For while "who does what" will change from organization to organization, the "what" will remain much the same.
You may think that the work done by environmental activists has little in common with that done by the local symphony, for example. However, there's quite a bit more overlap than might be immediately obvious. In fact, four tasks are key to any group. Somebody or somebodies will be doing each of the following, if any type of community organization is to flourish. These tasks are:
- Envisioning desired changes. The group needs a Gandhi, a Martin Luther, or a Martin Luther King, to look at the world in a slightly different way. Such a visionary also needs to believe he or she can make others look at things from the same point of view, or the group never would have been formed.
- Transforming the community. The group needs people who will go out and do the work that has been envisioned. For example, organizations need people to teach the children, distribute the brochures, or pour the mortar for the new community center.
- Planning for integration. Between the vision and the reality, the recipe and the souffle, someone needs to take the vision and figure out how to accomplish it by breaking it up into "bite-sized," doable chunks. These "chunks" generally take the form of broad strategies and goals. An organization or initiative will need to have people who can make its vision possible -- people to develop a blueprint that others can work from. That is to say, people who can integrate the vision into the reality of everyday community life.
| For example, if a group is working to improve child health, one of its broad goals might be to increase the immunization rate of school-age children by 25% in the next four years. Its broad strategies might be to increase awareness of the vaccination schedule, and to improve access for busy parents. |
- Supporting the efforts of those working to promote change. Every group will run into problems, be it a lack of money, an excess of opposition, or simple apathy. That's when support for the organization and its goals is especially important. This support can come from many corners. These include board members who raise money for the organization, a local politician who champions the initiative in the state legislature, and staff members who are hired to support people trying to transform their community.
So who do organizations typically have to fill these tasks? Generally speaking, they use some combination of the roles and groups discussed below.
Common Roles
Every group is different, and so each will have slightly different terms for the roles individuals play in their organization. But as with children playing with building blocks, groups often use the same pieces to create their individual masterpieces. We list some of these "building blocks" below, along with definitions and their typical functions.
1. An initial steering committee is the group of people who get things started. It is generally made up of leaders from all sectors of the community. Often, this group will create plans for funding, and organizational and board development. It may also generate by-laws, and then dissolve. Different writers define "steering committees" differently, but we define it throughout the Tool Box as a "starter organization " with a short life span. Members ignite the fire, fan the flames, and then leave the scene. If they continue to meet after approximately the first six months, we might say they have metamorphosed into a coordinating council.
2. A coordinating council is a group that has many aliases, including coordinating committee, executive committee, and executive council. Whatever such a group chooses to call itself, however, its purposes are very similar. Council members, who are often staff members and co-chairs of task forces or action committees, modify broad, organization-wide objectives and strategies in response to input from individuals or committees. They may also recruit board members (see below ), and help keep communication clear among all organization members.
| If you think of an organization as a wheel, the coordinating council is the hub holding everything together. The hub collects and directs the energy from the spokes - and without it, the wheel would fall apart. |
3. Often, one person will take the place of the coordinating council, or may serve as its head. Such a person may be known as the Executive Director, Project Coordinator, Program Director, President, top dog, or a variety of other appellations. He or she sometimes has a paid position, and may coordinate, manage, inspire, supervise, and support the work of other members of the organization.
4. Task forces are made up of members who work together around broad objectives, such as increasing child immunization or reducing toxic waste. Task forces integrate the ideas set forward with the community work being done.
| For example, from the director of a coalition to reduce violence in a medium-sized city: "Currently, we have three operational task forces. Members of each have an ongoing dialogue with members of the coordinating council, and also with their action committees. The oldest was formed with the goal of eliminating domestic violence about fifteen years ago, when a local woman was killed by her husband. Then, after several outbreaks of violence in the schools a few years back, our group offered to help, and a second task force sprung up around reducing youth violence. We've just started a third, with the goal of increasing gun safety. "All of it is interrelated, and all of it applies to our mission of increasing the safety of residents of South Haven, as well as that of our visitors. But each task force is contributing to that mission in vastly different ways, with different objectives, and using different strategies. 'Cause, you know, the strategies you use to stop a ninth grader from bringing a gun to school just aren't the same as the ones you use to stop a 40-year-old man on unemployment from beating his wife." |
5. Action committees are committees formed by larger organizations to bring about the changes sought by the organization. They are at the heart of many partnerships, and are often created by sector. Some of these sectors, or areas, that are often used are:
- health
- schools
- business
- family/caregivers
- government/law enforcement
- social services
- media
- faith community
- military
The aim of action committees is to bring about specific changes in programs, policies, and practices in the sectors in which they work. Members of action committees are the ones who roll up their sleeves, dig in, and reach the group's objectives by carrying out the steps that will make them real, and not just "real nice ideas." They are the ones who transform the community. They listen to community members, and bring what they have learned back to the larger group.
| For example, the task force on domestic violence mentioned above has the following action committees: - A government and law enforcement committee. Members include police officers, lawyers, a judge, and a state representative. Currently, they are trying to pass laws with stronger penalties for those convicted of domestic violence, especially repeat offenders. They are also training officers to be better able to spot an abusive relationship, and better able to inform a victim of his or her options.
- A social services committee. Members (who include representatives from most of the service agencies in town) work to assure that staff of all local services know where to send someone for the resources he or she needs, anywhere from a safe house for the night to job training. They are also trying to increase the number of trained volunteer counselors who work at the battered women's shelter.
- A media committee. Members include local journalists, writers, and graphic designers. They keep the project and the issue in the public's minds as much as possible with editorials, articles and news clips of events, as well as advertisements and public service announcements. They were also responsible for a weekly column spotlighting area volunteers, who are often from the shelter.
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In short, action committees are the different parts of task forces in larger organizations, where the number of people involved in a task force becomes too large to be manageable. In groups with fewer members or with a more specific mission, the work of task forces and action committees is often combined.
6. Support committees are groups that pave the way for you, and help ensure that action committees or other individuals will have the resources and opportunities necessary to realize their vision. For example, an organization may have the ambitious goal of matching every student in the area primary schools with an adult mentor, but doesn't have nearly enough people to do it. To find these potential mentors, a volunteer recruitment committee can be formed. Financial and media committees are other examples of committees formed to help support or facilitate your work.
7. Community trustees, also known as the board of trustees and (perhaps more commonly) as the board of directors, provide overall support, advice, and resources to members of the action groups. They are often either people who are directly affected by the issue or have stature in the community. That way, they are able to make contacts, network with other community leaders, and generally remove or weaken barriers to meeting organizational objectives. More information can be found in Chapter 9, Section 4: Developing an Ongoing Board of Directors.
8. Grantmakers are another part of the picture. Sometimes, support from these organizations or individuals is essential to the many community organizations with whom they collaborate, as those groups know all too well. It is important to see them as partners in a common cause, and to understand what your organization offers them. Grantmakers exist on an international, national, state, and local level. They may be private companies and foundations, or local, county, state, or federal government organizations (for example, block grants given by the city would fall into this category).
Information can be found in Chapter 42, Section 4: Applying for a Grant: The General Approach, and in Chapter 36, Section 3: Understanding Community Leadership, Evaluators, and Grantmakers: What Are their Interests?
9. Support organizations (not to be confused with the support committees listed above) are groups that can give your organization the technical assistance it needs. University research groups often fill this need, as can private groups.
10. Partner organizations are other groups working on some of the same issues as your organization. They can usually be found on a local level, even in the smallest of communities. For example, an anti-litter group might collaborate with a wildlife preservation initiative in an effort to clean up a local river. As the world gets smaller with greater technological possibilities, however, these partnerships also take place with increasing frequency with groups around the country and the world.
We realize that the above list is pretty extensive, and it isn't meant to put you off. Your organization may only use two or three of the above mentioned roles, especially at the beginning. It's not uncommon for a group to start with a steering committee, ask some other folks to serve as board members, and then recruit volunteers who will serve as members of action committees. Other pieces may come later, or not at all. What we've tried to do here is show you the broad spectrum of possibilities. Where does your organization fit in? Where do you want to be?
Examples of Structure
So how can all of these pieces be put together? There are many possibilities. In the next few pages, we will give examples for structures of a large, a medium-sized, and a smaller organization. These structures are only three possibilities; they will not be a perfect fit for every community group. Again, the form a community group takes should be based on what it does, and not the other way around. The structures given are simply meant to serve as examples that have been found to be effective for some community-based organizations; they can and should be adapted and modified for your own group's purposes.
I. A relatively complex structure
Let's get started with a real example of what we're talking about.
| The Ste. Genevieve's Children's Coalition is a relatively large community-based group. They have a coordinating council, a media committee, and three task forces, dealing with adolescent pregnancy, immunization, and child hunger. Each of the task forces has action committees as well. For example, the adolescent pregnancy reduction task force has a schools committee that focuses on keeping teen parents in school and modifying the human sexuality curriculum. A health organizations committee focuses on increasing access and use of the youth clinic. The media committee works to keep children's issues in the news, and includes professionals from the local television stations, radio stations, newspaper, and a marketing professional. The coordinating council is composed of the executive director, her assistant, the media committee chair, and the chairs of each of the three task forces. A board of directors has been invaluable in helping keep the coalition financially viable. |
In diagram form, a complex organization might look like this:
As you can see, a complex organizational structure, such as the structure for the Ste. Genevieve's Children Coalition, may have many layers. The coordinating committee is at the center of the project. Its members develop a vision and broad goals based on comments from the action committees or other members of the community.
Task forces develop broad strategic approaches to solve the problem. Usually, several task forces are created from priorities set through a community assessment process. Task force members are chosen for their interest in a particular issue. They are actively involved in supporting and participating in the action committees.
The action committees, which are organized around community sectors such as those listed above, develop specific steps to carry out broad strategic approaches. Each action committee focuses on specific actions in its sector.
The community trustees serve as a shield, helping make sure the members don't come up against barriers such as a lack of money. The organization might collaborate with others doing the same work, and may receive support from foundations or technical assistance groups. An organization of this size will usually have paid staff. This generally means they'll have an executive director and possibly project directors, community mobilizers, and administrative assistants.
The biggest advantage to this type of structure is that it allows active participation by all members, and in fact, it relies on that participation to function. However, this advantage can turn into a real drawback for smaller organizations. Organizations with fewer members will want to concentrate their resources, and may find one of the next structures more helpful.
II. A mid-size structure
Again, let's start here with an example.
| The coordinating council of Safe House, an organization for the homeless, is made up of six people, including one couple who were once homeless themselves. Membership on the coordinating council is open to anyone willing to accept its leadership responsibilities. People with less time are encouraged to be part of the larger group. The group has no task forces: its mission (reducing the city's homeless population) is targeted enough that they were deemed unnecessary, and the work usually done by task forces is carried out by the coordinating council. It does have three action committees: a social services committee, a business committee which deals primarily with job training, and a government/law enforcement committee. With advice it receives from members of the group's action committees and other community members, the coordinating council discusses and debates every decision. It then acts as a united front, and takes the decisions back to the action committees to be carried out. If group members have any questions or problems with the decisions made, they can bring their concerns to an individual member, or to the council as a whole. |
And in diagram form: 
A mid-range organization might have a structure similar to the one above, but two or more of the roles might be collapsed together. For example, the roles taken on by the task forces might be subsumed by action committees or by the coordinating committee. Also, the work of support committees (such as recruitment or finance) might be shouldered equally by all members of the organization. A mid-sized organization may or may not have paid staff members, and generally will have a more targeted mission, leading to fewer task forces.
III. Small action groups that are not part of a larger organization
Here's a case of a smaller group:
| A group of neighbors got together because they were worried about the possibility of traffic accidents in their area. After a lot of discussion over some beer and soda after lunch one afternoon, they decided that the worst problem in the neighborhood was an unmarked intersection at Fourth Street and Sunset. They decided to ask the city to put up four-way stop signs there, a request to which the city readily acquiesced. Pleased with its success, the group started meeting on a monthly basis over dinner, to keep in touch and deal with problems as they arose. The group's structure remained very loose. A retired gentleman did become the unofficial leader, because he had more free time to arrange things, but decisions continued to be carried out by general consensus. |
A diagram of such a small, consensual group might look something like this, with each of the circles representing an individual member:
As smaller size means fewer people, these groups are usually less complex, as they have less need for a formal hierarchy. They usually have a more focused interest. For example, the group might be constrained by its geography (a neighborhood organization), resources (a brand new parents' group whose members are worried about gang violence), or their interests (a one-time beautification project at a local park).
These groups may have governance that is consensus-based in nature, as in the example and diagram above. This is true even though small neighborhood groups often have officers. In fact, all aspects of small group structure tend to be rather casual. Such a group rarely, if ever, will have paid staff members.
As small groups grow, however, and the more issues they take on, the more hierarchical they may need to become. This doesn't mean everyone can't have input; it just has to be voiced differently than in a consensual group.
Choosing Your Organization's Structure
Our objective is to help you choose or refine a structure that best supports you and your work. Ultimately, despite its importance, the structure is there to serve the organization and its members, and not vice versa.
Sometimes, part of your organization's structure will be decided for you (e.g., a funder will insist upon such-and-such structural feature as a condition of its funding).
But just as often, the structure an organization will take on is entirely determined by its members. When that's the case, what type of structure should you choose?
First, decide upon the formality your organization will have. Is yours a group which should have very specific rules, an organizational chart with everyone's precise job description and a very rigid format overall? Maybe, but then again, maybe not. The following table, adapted from The Spirit of Coalition Building (see Resources) can help you make this first decision.
| Conditions favoring more or less formality in organizational structures |
| Condition | A looser, less formal, less rule bound structure would be favored when... | A tighter, more formal, more rule-bound structure would be favored when... |
| Stage of organization development | The organization is just starting | The organization is in later stages of development |
| Prior relationships among members | Many such relationships already exist | Few such relationships already exist |
| Prior member experience in working together | Many such experiences have occurred | Few such experiences have occurred |
| Member motivation to be part of the organization | Motivation is high | Motivation is low |
| Number of organization tasks or issues (broadness of purpose) | There is a single task or issue | There are multiple tasks or issues |
| Organization size | The organization is small | The organization is large |
| Organization leadership | The leadership is experienced | The leadership is inexperienced |
| Urgency for action | There is no particular urgency to take action now | There is strong urgency to take action now |
Deciding upon a certain level of formality is one thing; deciding on the actual form you will have is quite another. In this section, we have offered structures that have been shown effective for community groups. However, other structures are certainly possible. How do you decide what is right for your organization?
Organizational structure is something that is best decided upon internally, through a process of critical thinking and discussion by members of the group. We suggest convening a group of the people most interested in the issue or organization and deciding together what specific form your group will take. And although we haven 't discussed them much in this section, this will include rules and procedures for governance as well as distribution of work. General guidelines for helping you through this process can be found in Chapter 16: Group Facilitation and Problem-Solving.
In your discussions, your answers to the following list of questions may guide your decisions. Some general thoughts relating to each question have been given to help guide you.
- What is your common purpose? How broad is it? Groups with broader purposes often have more complicated structures, complete with many layers and parts, than do groups with more narrow purposes.
- Is your group advocacy oriented or service oriented? Service organizations use "top down," one-person-in-charge structure much more often than do advocacy based groups.
- Is your organization more centralized (e.g., through the work of a specific agency ) or decentralized (e.g., different neighborhoods working independently on the same problem)? A decentralized group might find a "top-down" structure inappropriate, as such a group often has several peers working together on an issue.
- How large is your organization? How large do you envision it becoming? A very small organization that does not envision becoming much larger may wish to remain relatively informal, while a community-wide group with several hundred members may want a structure similar to that of the Ste. Genevieve's Children's Coalition. A related question, with similar consequences, is:
- How large is the community in which you work?
- How old is your organization? How long do you envision it lasting? A group formed around a single issue with no plans to continue after that issue has been taken care of might not need a formal structure at all, while an organization that has been around for some time may want something more concrete, with clearer divisional responsibilities and authority.
- Is the organization entirely volunteer, or are there (or will there be) paid staff? How many? An organization with many paid staff members may find it more necessary to have people "in charge," as there are generally more rules and responsibilities for paid staff members, and thus, there must be more supervision in carrying out these roles.
- Should yours be a new organization, or part of an existing structure? This is a last, important question that shouldn't be neglected. Do you really need to form a new structure, or would it be better to work within existing structures? Sometimes, your goals may be better met if you are part of (or linked with) another organization. This might occur if someone else is already doing what you wish to do. Alternatively, if another related organization has a lot of community support, or if your group has been somewhat controversial, it can be much easier to work with or through that other group. Be sure to consider this as you are puzzling out which type of group to be, or not to be, in the words of one famous visionary. (Please see Chapter 46. Section 8: Incorporating Activities/Services in Organizations with Similar Missions.)
In Summary
If you think about it, building a structure for your organization is not all that different from building the physical structure of a house. In this case, you are building the organizational house you will be living in. It's going to be a comfortable place, cozy and warm, your refuge that will keep you safe from storms. If you build it carefully, it will serve you well.
We encourage the reproduction of this material, but ask that you credit
the Community Tool Box: http://ctb.ku.edu
Resources
Unterman, I. & Davis, R. H. (1984). Strategic management of not-for-profit organizations: From survival to success. New York, NY: Praeger.