Methodologies

Outcome Framework

Encourage practitioners to think like investors. It encourages a shift from a focus on what you do (activities) to focusing on outcomes: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timebound results.

Foster has extensive experience developing, implementing, monitoring, and teaching outcome-based strategies.

Adult Learning Principles

A switch from a teacher/expert model of education to a participant-centered facilitation process. Workshops are intentionally designed to offer a safe, structured, and accountable experience that allows the participant to to learn a new concept, practice the concept and reflect on how to use this new knowledge.

Adult learning principles can be embedded in coaching sessions, agendas, and curriculum for meetings, retreats, planning sessions and training workshops.

Appreciative Inquiry

A theory of change that believes all systems/people do something right; and they generally have an untapped, rich and inspiring story to share. To manage or inspire change, leaders find the stories of strength through curiosity and questions. These powerful stories are used to move to a new place.

AI moves from an intervention model focused on the problem to an asset model of finding what is working and doing more of it.

Success is based on finding the opportunity in every situation.

Asset-Based Community Development

The underlying principles of Appreciative Inquiry is to find what is working in a community and build off of it. Instead of focusing community-building work in the worst area of the neighborhood, the practice of asset-based community development identifies the strengths of the neighborhood and provides resources to reinforce and grow more of it.

This practice struggles against a “needs-based approach” that uses a deficit understanding of the community including statistics to prove how awful a community is. This theory believes that change is easier and faster when people are motivated by past success verses when they are constantly reminded of all the bad things going on around them.