CSDF Training Services
 

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Forms of Training Services
Training Methods
Ethical Principles
Types of Training Services

Training Themes

The goal of our Training Program is to help NGOs in East and Central Europe strengthen their management capacities by conveying knowledge, building skills and helping develop new ways of thinking. Our trainings, all designed with the goal of helping NGOs function with maximum efficiency, focus on specific interrelated themes that are concrete, practical and relevant to their work.

Forms of Training Services

Our training services are available in different forms, according to the specific needs of different organizations.

Lectures on the understanding of the nonprofit sector and organizational management aim to provide up-to-date and relevant information and also to give an overview of the system of interrelated management areas and the advantages of their conscious application.

Workshops are more audience participatory 3-4 hour sessions, where, besides facilitating thorough discussions on a specific management area we also put emphasis on skill-building.

Consultations are short and dynamic sessions with representatives of a single organization, with the aim of mapping out specific problems in organizational management and set up a diagnosis and alternatives for possible solutions.

Skill building trainings are our primary focus. In these 6-7 hour highly participatory sessions the trainers strike a balance among information sharing, skill-building and conveying new attitudes to encourage systematic and conscious management practices.

Training Methods

The content and the format of our trainings are continuously developed, based on our regular needs assessments and feed-backs coming from the client organizations.

In the course of the trainings, executive and non-executive staff members are usually divided into two separate groups. The executive group works in areas related to overall management and strategic planning, while the non-executive group focuses on skills development and practical implementation. With this method we hope to help the organizations be more efficient and also more effective in the way they delegate work and responsibility to their employees.

In designing a training, we strive to build on existing knowledge and skills in accordance with the needs of the different target groups. We consider active participation in the trainings to be of utmost importance, therefore we include case-studies and role plays in the session that enhance individual and group learning. Participants also have the opportunity to learn from one another's observations and experiences. The number of participants in trainings ranges between 8 and 15. We use a number of visual aids and written materials to back up the trainer's presentation.

In our experience, NGOs will only benefit from any training if they manage to integrate and internalize learnings in their everyday operation. This highly depends on the characteristics of organizational culture that builds on the values and behavior of staff members. Constant and thorough analysis of the organizational culture is therefore essential for the integration of knowledge and skills learned in the trainings. We offer follow-up consultation services in order to help clients use the gained skills in the most effective ways in their everyday operation.

Ethical Principles

We believe that our trainers, like all others working in helping professions should follow several important ethical principles. For one, we do not discriminate against potential clients, except when their activity contradicts CSDF's basic values, such as equal opportunity, tolerance and respecting the rights of others.

CSDF trainers are required to continually update their knowledge and improve their skills to offer clients the most up-to-date information and practical methods in various areas of nonprofit management. Knowledge of group dynamics and facilitating skills are also required.

Every individual client is entitled to individual attention and support from the trainer. The trainer also has the right to enter into a contract with the group, and expect mutual respect of the ground rules for the duration of the training service.

The trainers are bound by ethical considerations to keep all information shared by trainees during the training in confidence.

Trainers give primary consideration to the client's needs in shaping the training to meet both the client's expectations and the trainer's professional principles.

Types of Training Services

There are two basic types of training in our programs: pro-active and reactive. Our pro-active trainings are pre-scheduled events on pre-announced themes, including our various Training Courses and our intensive week-long Nonprofit Institutes. Reactive trainings are designed at the request of our clients, tailored specifically to the needs and practices of individual organizations or groups of organizations working on the same field of activity.

Pro-Active Training Sessions

These trainings provide participants a comprehensive picture of nonprofit management as well as offer them help in evaluating how their organization operates and how to deal with potential problems and issues. Participants come from a number of organizations from different fields of activities, and therefore pro-active trainings offer an opportunity to interact, exchange experiences and observations and acquaint one another with different techniques, approaches and skills.

Twice a year we announce our few weeks long Training Courses, which take place both in the countryside and in Budapest. This intensive series consists of trainings on eight to twelve distinct but inter-related themes.

Our biggest event of the year is the Nonprofit Summer Institute, a week-long intensive residential training event in which nonprofit managers from all over the country come and work together in a remote and picturesque castle in the countryside. The Institute focuses on all areas of nonprofit work and attracts a wide variety of NGO workers from around Hungary. From 1998 on, we organize Winter Institutes, where we will be offering more focused training directed at specific regions or themes.

Reactive Training Services

We also offer specialized trainings upon request, tailored to the specific needs of individual NGOs or groups of organizations working in the same area. After an intensive training period follow-up consultancy is available for clients to ensure that learned knowledge and skills become an integrated part of the organizational culture and everyday management practices.

In the framework of the organizational development program, we give organizations in-depth management support in the form of tailored training and consultancy sessions. After a thorough interview period the trainers set up a diagnosis and facilitate a long-run planning and implementation process to help NGOs build new organizational structure and develop strategies necessary for their long-term sustainability. During this period the organization is exposed to an integrated learning and development process in various areas of NGO management.

Training Themes

We developed a selection of basic themes based on needs assessments conducted in the first year of our program. Since then we have been doing needs assessment on a continuous basis with the goal of refining and developing our topics, thus keeping them current and relevant to our client groups.

Our current themes target different NGO management areas in the framework of the following block of topics:

Organizational Planning and Management:

Project Planning and Management

Financial Management:

Fundraising:

Communications:

Human Resources:


csdf@mail.c3.hu.