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Adaptive Capacity in Israeli Social Change Nonprofits

Shatil Capacity Building Center, Haifa, Israel, Galilee College, Israel

W.E. Bickel

University of Pittsburgh

Fathi Marshood

Shatil Capacity Building Center, Haifa, Israel

Adaptive capacity, considered one of the essential organizational capacities for enabling nonprofits to achieve their missions, requires nonprofits to act as learning organizations and to use evaluation as a tool to enhance organizational learning and performance. Nonprofits at the start-up or growth phase face a particular set of challenges in maintaining their adaptive capacity. A theoretical framework for assessing a nonprofit's organizational readiness to improve its adaptive capacity was developed and applied to 10 emerging social change nonprofits in Israel. The results demonstrate the utility of the conceptual framework while providing insight into the day-to-day realities of organizational life that help to shape the adaptive capacity of the 10 nonprofits in the sample. Key issues relating to the adaptive capacity of the nonprofits and their particular stage of organizational development also are raised.

Key Words: learning organization • nonprofit • adaptive capacity • Israel • social change

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