Lake Organizational Capacity - Internal Functions for Lake Associations

Whether you are part of a lake association, lake district, or watershed group, you have a chance to contribute your time and skills to make an organization more effective. The Extension Lakes Program at UW-Stevens Point is working to make your path up the "capacity ladder" as easy as possible by sharing freely available tools, ideas, and resources for capacity development. We are developing a Certificate of Completion program that enables you to review content we've curated and check your knowledge as you progress through the content. There will be four courses for Lake Districts. As you complete each course, you will receive a Certificate of Completion. We're hoping this Certificate provides you with the knowledge you need to work effectively with your lake organization on lake issues. 

We have adopted a framework that includes four distinct facets of capacity: Membership, Internal Functions, External Relationships, and Programmatic (shown below in the triangle). The first course we're developing is focused on Internal Functions, which as you might guess, focuses primarily on the inner workings of a group. Before a group can get any real work done, there must be policies, defined roles, ways to manage conflict, effective communication, and access to other resources. 

The Goal of Course #1 (Internal Functions) will be to introduce individuals who are interested in becoming involved in their lake organization, or those already involved in their lake organization, to educational resources that will guide them through a pathway which will increase organizational capacity.