This project originated in response to the Cariplo Foundation‘s Capacity Building Call, with which the Foundation wants to support and enhance the Third Sector ability to express economically sustainable social, cultural and environmental innovation, simultaneously acting on improving the quality of the human resources involved, on the strategic planning processes and on the organizational and management structure of the organizations themselves.
In this context, ICEI has decided to bet on the strengthening of its local dimension, according to the strategic choice made over the last decade or so to become a “glocal” entity, combining interventions in international cooperation with a growing commitment on the Italian and European territory to improve socio-economic inclusion of vulnerable subjects, intercultural citizenship and fight against discrimination.
This choice was determined by a need that we felt: to review the context where we operate and to respond to the new needs of the most vulnerable parts of the population. A context made of new urban poverties, increasing levels of internal poverty in Italy and an acceleration of the migratory drive with consequent new integration challenges – in a cultural and political framework increasingly discriminatory, of social and economic exclusion of new population groups, of increasing problems in the cities’ suburbs.
Therefore, emerged strongly the need to invest in equipping ourselves appropriately and growing in our intervention in Italy/Europe, to enhance the impact of our action. We have identified the main organizational development components that we wanted to strengthen, and, thanks to Cariplo Foundation’s support, we were able to begin this important and stimulating path of change.
The proposal aims to equip ICEI with a new organizational model, that of the learning organization, by integrating methodologies, skills and tools for positioning in Italy and Europe, to increase the impact of our action and to ensure the economic sustainability of the organization.
Thanks to the learning organization model, ICEI wants to facilitate everlasting learning for its members and the organization as a whole, to equip itself with renewed functions and mechanisms, to adapt and affect a reality characterized by rapid social, economic, environmental and political changes.
The primary beneficiary of the intervention is ICEI, its staff, the membership base and the management.
The target group that, through this project and the organizational strengthening of ICEI, we aim to support is that of young people, especially those in conditions of greater social disadvantage: NEETs, migrants (1st, 2nd or 3rd generation), women, with a keen look into the wider community where they live: school, family, neighbourhood.
Project activities
ICEI’s organizational strengthening intervention follows three main guidelines:
- The settlement of strategies, following a strategic planning path through the Theory of Change or TOC, which has allowed us to identify, for each of our sectors, the outcomes in terms of changes, and the necessary indicators to measure them, thus being able to quantify our impact. This will allow us, starting from 2021, to carry out the social reporting (mission report) of our intervention.
- The adoption of new management models to improve and increase our efficiency. Specifically, on the one hand, we have carried out an important intervention of digitization of management processes and, on the other hand, we are facing a corporate reorganization process aimed at improving the organizational structure (internal processes, roles and functions, procedures, coordination mechanisms, ownership, etc.).
- The strategic positioning and advocacy of ICEI as a development agent in Italy/Europe. The choice to commit ourselves as a local development agent and strengthen our presence in the area has resulted in an increase of contents with highly exploitable communication potential, also thanks to the direct testimonies of involved beneficiaries. It’s no longer just a matter of giving visibility to our work and the activities we promote, but of improving our ability to advocate on the issues of our intervention in Italy, assuming an authoritative dissemination role in a historical moment where narration is, to all intents and purposes, an instrument of social and political change. In this sense we have worked on the redefinition of ICEI’s visual identity, on the design of a digital communication strategy, on brand awareness, we have also created a new institutional website and given impetus to specific communication campaigns.