Strengths and Weaknesses Analysis using the building

blocks
Consider using the following building blocks to prompt and categorize the Strengths and Weaknesses for your Project.

Strengths Weaknesses
Building Blocks
What are you doing well already? What more could you do?

Where are improvements needed?

 Foundation Motivated Team: We have a very motivated team of girls Lower Strength: The current strength of IGF is low. We have few girls
o Mission who want to spread the holy name of Krishna and they have to do all the services.

No clear mission and vision: Current IGF doesn’t have a clear mission
or vision. So we need to work hard to propagate this to all
Educated Girls: We have educated girls as part of current
stakeholders.
IGF structure. These girls could be trained for the
o Vision preaching purposes

Alignment to the seven purposes of ISKCON: All our

activities to engage youth (camps, yatras, youth festivals,
college outreach programmes) are aligned to the seven
● Foundational purposes and executed under the direction of senior

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 elements devotees
Standing of ISKCON in society:
● Reputation/brand ISKCON is thought in a good way in society and people in
general are very acceptable towards ISKCON preaching.
●
Culture
● Shared values Strong connection to Srila Prabhupada: our shared values
are strongly rooted in the teachings of Srila Prabhupada
and our paramparic acharyas, and their writings. This
holds us together in our attempts to achieve our vision.
GBC deciding on the values: We have a central decision
making body in GBC which decides and propagates the
vision and mission for the organization in general.
Strong spiritual culture based on respect and humility:
Our communities are based on spiritual principles where
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Youth outreach branding is weak: although the ISKCON brand is
strong, most students and young people are not aware of our youth
outreach activities and services. We need a stronger, focused and
targeted marketing and branding programme to build awareness of
our youth outreach programme.
Understanding of Srila Prabhupada’s instructions: With the constant
movement of girls joining IGF and moving out of IGF due to marriage
or other reasons, it becomes difficult to make them understand Srila
Prabhupada’s instructions fully.
Propagation of GBC Decisions: The GBC decisions are not completely
propagated to the congregration, and thus it becomes difficult to
work on them
 it is easier to rise above differences based on bodily
platforms such as caste, religion or creed. Devotees learn
● Vaishnava Culture to observe spiritual codes of conduct where humility,
cooperation and respect form the cornerstone of most
training programmes

Leadership usually practice what they preach: Srila

Prabhupada’s emphasis on sadhana and the morning Lack of second rung in leadership: We don’t have an empowered
programme have given us many role-models where second rung of leaders which could be made responsible for some
preachers practice what they teach preaching activities

● Organization Culture
Lack of delegation and centralized decision-making: Due to low
strength in IGF and missing second rung of leadership, sometimes it
becomes difficult to delegate a task and decentralized decision
making.

Love and care as guiding organisational principles: most

devotees are trained to look after others or interact with
them by keeping Krishna in the centre, in a mood of loving

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 care. Many new-comers feel very attracted to such a
mood of personal care

Strategy Team and resources available for strategic planning

● Strategic Planning  We have team of youth leaders and Management commitment to strategic planning is low
several expert devotees who can participate in
 The temple management does not have a long-term
strategic planning
view of youth outreach, and does not perceive the importance of
 Bi-annual pan-India youth convention this activity
helps us to focus on our future road-map with the help
 Management does not think it is top-priority to
of experts from different parts of India
infuse young blood into the organisation, recruit young people,
 Immense potential to expand youth and empowered responsibilities
outreach in Gujarat with the help of strategic planning

● Organization Good scope for organisational development: since we

Development have top-class physical infrastructure in most big cities of
Planning Gujarat with financial support and backing from the Individual approach vs team approach - hindering organisational
temple management development

Since many leaders work in an isolated manner, and do not wish to

empower other devotees, the organisation has not succeeded in
forming successful teams that can take forward the agenda or
Organisational development. Many leaders wish to protect their own
small ‘kingdoms’ in a spirit of protectionism, and do not wish to
cooperate with other groups to grow the organisation.

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 Stuck in routine work: because most devotees are busy with the
daily grind and routine responsibilities, and often overworked, they
have very little time left to consider organisational development,
innovation and continuous improvement.

● Risk Management

Very little knowledge of risk management in team: there is hardly

any risk planning done in the teams in a structured manner, and no
provisions made in the budgets for contingencies

Structure

● Policy Structured policies and model from Pune available: No central policy-making body: there is no central authority or
policy-making body for youth outreach in Gujarat, and hence
Some of the youth programmes in certain parts of Gujarat
different sets of informal policies exist in different groups, often
follow the ‘Pune model’ since the leaders are trained in
unaligned to our and mission.
Pune. This offers ready templates for policies, principles
and procedures in areas such as outreach, courses, camps
and festivals for Engineering graduates.

For residential BACE programmes, we already have

established standards and policies for spiritual standards,
admission, diet, study, sadhana and engagement.

The bi-annual youth convention also helps us define and

design policies for youth outreach

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 Structure helps motivate field-workers:

● Organization The organisational structure helps motivate youth
Structure outreach workers in the field, who feel encouraged to
increase their services in this area
Ill-defined reporting and authority structures: Even in the same city,
there are many different youth outreach programmes aligned to
individual leaders or Gurus, where reporting structures are not
always defined properly. Sometimes, ego-clashes between groups,
and fear of one group ‘taking over’ the agendas of another leads to
friction, political situations and protectionism.

Loose governance often leads to conflicts and disturbances: Some

Spiritual basis for governance: since most devotees act
● Governance and interact on the basis of core-spiritual principles based
on the teachings of Srila Prabhupada there is a strong
degree of self-governance and self-discipline
conflicts on the field are compounded by the following factors:
 No conflict resolution mechanisms
 Lack of rewards and penalties for performance or deviations
 No common authority to lay down policies – hence every group
has its own set of policies often unaligned to the local temple

Easy and informal approval mechanism: approvals for

projects and resources are easier because authority is
localized at the temple management level, where youth  
leaders already have good relationships. Where youth
programmes run without connections to the local temple,
they manage their own resources under their own
authority

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Leadership

● Style Dispersed centralization: since there is no central youth
organisation in Gujarat, and even in single cities, there
exist several independent youth organisations, a few even
preaching without reference to the local temple
authorities, there exist several authority-centres for youth
preaching in Gujarat. Each group has its own centralized
leadership style, but they do not necessarily consult each
other or report to each other.
Some youth groups that work within the purview of the
local temple work with a decentralized leadership style for
routinely established services, but for major events
involving larger budgets, or for anything that is not
routine, decision making is centralized with the local
temple management.
Lack of single source of inspiration: since there are multiple groups
working independently, there is no single source of inspiration or
guidance in Gujarat
Youth leaders in temples feel discouraged at lack of empowerment:
Youth leaders working in temples often feel discouraged because
they have to approach the temple authorities for most decision-
making that does not pertain to established routine services. Since
even small decisions have to be taken by temple authorities, this lack
of empowerment slows down their work, lowers their morale and
does not inspire them to continue.

Pool of talented devotees available for succession: there

are many devotees in Gujarat who can be groomed as
future leaders. Many pf them are empowered to run No succession plan in place yet: we don’t have succession planning
● Succession Planning projects on their own – and can become candidates for formalized in Gujarat yet. If there is any emergency shift in
succession. leadership, the project could become directionless.

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 Model available for progression to leadership roles: we
have a structure that makes young people progress from
Reactive leadership grooming: we tend to wait until someone shows
participants to volunteers, and then to take up formal
active interest before training them to become leaders, instead of
● Leadership roles of responsibilities, and become leaders of youth
proactively identifying potential candidates and grooming them
Development outreach projects.

Leadership training modules: various training modules

are available for training young people to become leaders.

Lack of a structured leadership development programmes: even

though a few ad-hoc leadership training modules are available, these
are not structured into a formal leadership development programme,
and none of the available modules are specific to the requirements of
youth in Gujarat.

Systems

● Core Processes Well-defined core processes for residential programmes:
For our residential programmes (BACE), most of our core-
processes are already defined and work well, such as
processes like:
 Conduct weekly hostel programs
 Develop relationships with potential audience
 Admit candidates to BACE
 Run and maintain the BACE
Core processes are not aligned with mission and vision statement:
since our core processes exist only for our residential programmes
(BACE) and other processes are undefined or informal, we do not
have processes that cater to a large section of our audience and
potential audience, and are therefore not aligned properly to our
mission and vision statements.

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 Management directives derived from Srila Prabhupada:
since most managers and leaders refer to Srila
● Management Prabhupada as the basis for management of projects, No strategic planning: since we do not have a strategic plan in place,
Systems most of the planning is tactical, reactive and focused around events
there is a set of shared values that provided a common
or fire-fighting.
• planning, platform.
management
directives,
Management focus to recruit young people: the focus of
• systems for most directives from ISKCON leaders is to recruit good
accountability, students to become practicing devotees by giving a
communications practical taste of devotional service.

Good role-definition: most youth leaders engaging in

youth outreach programmes know their roles, and
perform it well.

Task-based operational planning in place: good task-

based accountability and reporting exists. Meetings are
● Operational Systems usually conducted in each youth project for specific
• accounting, events or projects. Social media integration not present: although our communications
uses some elements of social media such as WhatsApp, we do not
• marketing system, have a well-planned and well-orchestrated social media campaign
Good network of volunteers: availability of a strong that integrated different elements of social media such as WhatsApp,
• human resource,
volunteer network compliments resident youth leaders. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and websites.
• production, They work together for events, programmes and outreach
activities.

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 • “customer” service
Wide range of services offered: services to our
‘customers’ (youth) includes:
 Value based education and guidance:
helping them to solve material problems in their daily
lives
 Feeding wholesome and tasty prasadam,
which most young people appreciate
 Many other value-add services such as
yatras and camps
People/ Staff
● Capacity (number) Volunteers fill capacity-gaps: our strong network of
volunteers are usually available for hosting major events
and programmes, and we are reasonably covered for
capacity planning
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Not able to meet customer expectations: this is
because if a number of reasons:
 Since our plans are ‘imported’ from Pune, they may not
always suit the Gujarat audience.
 The level of customization and innovation in our engagement
is low.
 We need to develop different structures for different
localities, different economic backgrounds and different
segments of our market.
Not all services covered: many services demanded by our audience
cannot yet be provided. For instance, we do not have professional
motivational speakers, trainer who can provide courses in soft skills
and communications etc. We also lack training the trainer modules to
create a pool of trainers who can deliver such courses.
Not all audience covered: our services are skewed to cover science
or Engineering students in residential colleges. They do not cover
corporate youth, rural youth, schools, youth from small towns,
children, and local youth in large cities.
Not all volunteers are engaged: we do not have systems in place to
ensure that all our volunteers are cultivated by an assigned devotee,
and engaged in the most productive manner. Our current system is

Pool of educated and skilled devotees: most of the full-
time youth leaders, as well as leaders from the
● Skills & competence congregation are committed youth outreach devotees
with good skills in communication, devotee care, and have
● Recruiting
a strong base of Krishna conscious philosophy
Few training modules exist: we have some training
modules for front liners, facilitators training, and those
● Training & aspiring for initiation
Development
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more ad-hoc, even though it fulfills our
capacity requirements for events and programmes. Many potential
volunteers are not even visible in our current system, and are
disengaged...
Big skills-gap in critical areas: we may be skilled in philosophy,
communication of philosophical thought, cultivation of new youth
and care, but there are many skills we do not have, such as:
negotiation skills, sales skills, presentation skills, public speaking skills
and technical skills such as Adobe, Photoshop, editing of movies etc.
Over-dependence on volunteers: due to budget issues and attempts
to get many professional tasks completed pro-bono, we have a heavy
dependency on volunteers to complete tasks such as print layouts,
brochure distribution, manning of stalls etc. Often, this compromises
on timeliness and quality, as many volunteers may have other
commitments or may not yet be professionally skilled.
Lack of leadership training: we are not able to identify, groom and
train future leaders for succession planning. We do not have training
programmes in the skills-gap identified earlier.
Unplanned and ad-hoc training: we do not have a structured training
plan. Many trainers communicate different messages on the same
topics because we do not have training the trainer modules with
 trainer’s notes.
Sustainable funding Three reliable sources of funding:

● Finances (money)  Straight donations and contributions from
students, especially those in our residential
● Cash flow
programmes. BACE is self-sufficient
 Support from the local temple: for weekly
programmes and major events
 Collections from self-financing projects such as
yatras and camps
Funding is ad-hoc and unplanned: we do not make an annual plan or
budget with our funding requirements to identify sources of funding.
Other sources of funding not identified: we have not yet tried to
approach other sources of funding such as CSR pots, crowdfunding,
sale of souvenirs and goods etc.

Supporting resources

● Physical Resources Good physical infrastructure: our temples are mostly well Struggle to find weekend accommodation for students: most
established with good facilities including guest rooms, temples don’t have space or facilities for students to stay over for
• Facilities
temple room, lecture halls, break-out rooms, snack-stalls, weekend retreats and festivals. Especially during festivals,
● Technological good kitchen facilities and office infrastructure accommodation is booked for donors and benefactors, and young
Resources volunteers are relegated to the bottom of the priority list.

• Information & IT & Communications: Most youth leaders have laptops Lack of soft-IT resources: such as websites, knowledge sharing
portals, social media infrastructure and the budget to commission
Communication with good connectivity, and have access to projectors,
these. We do not have a common platform for interaction where
Technology audio-visual equipment and vehicles from the local
devotees can share practices, resources and ideas amongst different
temple
centres and projects.

Results and Formal feedback mechanism in place: we usually take Poor data collection and analysis: data collection is almost non-
Performance feedback from volunteers through review meetings, and existent and we have no historical date, hence cannot measure
from participants in all our events through feedback forms trends, growth or deviations. Even in those centers where we have
and other mechanisms, which are later analysed for some data, we have not analyzed it.

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 improving our services

Public perception ISKCON is a strong and respected brand: almost all young Scope of youth services unknown: very few people are aware of the
people have heard about ISKCON and respect us scope of services ISKCON offers to young people. Our branding and
marketing activities in youth outreach are rather weak, and need a
strong push.

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