The current times have witnessed a burgeoning number of online learning tools and platforms that aid every form of learning. The rapid growth of online content consumption, fuelled by convenience, flexible learning modules, cost-effectiveness, and affordable technologies, is driving the e-learning market at an 18.9% CAGR from 2022 to 2029. All the facts point to the extreme value that online learning tools and resources can offer to organisations that have traditionally been resource constrained with limited budgets for learning and development.
With access to affordable resources that are exhaustive, this is a huge opportunity for non-profit organisations to utilise these resources. With a few simple guidelines, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Typical considerations should take into account the topics, modules, tailored content for the industry, ease of completion, flexibility, and pricing. Capacity-strengthening tools, in the form of prepared materials like articles, toolkits, handbooks, and the like, have proven to be useful in ensuring that learning is gained, knowledge is gleaned, and skills have been upended and ploughed back into execution in the organisation.
With the degree of availability and accessibility coupled with an almost imperative need for capacity strengthening, the adoption level has been slow, especially in technology-mediated learning communities. While current times and practices reinforce the era of self-learning, the road to realisation is longer. Beyond modules that are practical and easy to understand, the biggest barriers include emerging technologies that need to be demystified for users, language barriers, and the higher degree of customised, contextualised content that is unique to the non-profit ecosystem. Blended learning modules that include theory and practice, embedding learning as a key performance indicator based on skills and competency assessment, is fundamental.
The importance of learning tools and resources cannot be overlooked. Providing non-profit employees with learning tools and resources is imperative to factoring learning time into the annual work plans of employees and not relegating it to be undertaken at one‘s own convenience. Leveraged and planned efficiently, learning resources and tools can reduce staff training costs, and leverage a more well-trained workforce to enhance organisational productivity and drive staff motivation, promoting an active culture of continuous learning.
Vijaya Balaji, CEO and Managing Director at toolbox INDIA Foundation, and Founding Partner at Social Lens Consulting is among the pioneers in Capacity strengthening initiatives. Social Lens Consulting is a mission-driven to facilitate initiatives aimed at strengthening the capacity of the organisations such as the GROW Fund at Edelgive Foundation, the Forbes Foundation Fellowship, and the Value Circle program at toolbox INDIA Foundation.
