As a 21st-century organisation, we have strived to build a networked organisational model that is interconnected, collaborative, diverse and where the impact of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This design is inspired by the idea of metamorphosis, represented by the butterfly at the centre for our organisational model. This stands for our spirit of being ready for growth and change, through evolving and adapting to the rapidly changing external and internal environments, and future trends. The two wings of the butterfly represent our two key functions of Strategy & Organisational Leadership (SOL) and Institutional Development (ID), manifesting our vision and values.

We spent significant time in the last year building alignment between the organisational, team and individual goals for a total of 10 teams and 170 individuals to come together and see the big picture. We reimagined our employee learning & development and recognition system that celebrates diversity and provides opportunities to grow through self-directed journeys. We actively nurture a self-learning culture at Quest to enable transparency and decentralised decision making and create a value-based approach to our work.

2019-20 at Quest Alliance saw a dedicated effort being made towards nurturing leadership at Quest and its civil society partner network. We identified 20 leaders as part of the Emerging Leaders Program to develop perspectives, skills and attitudes around leadership and self-learning; to have more leaders who are self-aware and can locate their organisations within the changing socio-economic environment.

Our hope is to develop a network of these leaders as self-learners that go on to build regenerative cultures within their own organisations that foster learning, collaboration in the school to work spectrum while keeping the interests of their key constituencies at the heart of their work.

As the year 19-20 drew to a close, COVID-19 made us re-imagine the way we worked - internally and externally. As an organisation, various measures were taken to continue the impact we have been making;

Organisational Resilience:
Scenario planning was carried out across the organisation, possible challenges/ risks were outlined and mitigation strategies were worked upon early in the year. All program budgets were re-forecasted in the light of reduced expenditure on physical events/workshops and re-purposed to areas of need like access to digital devices and internet. 

The financial health of the organisation was re-evaluated given the looming slow economy. Decisions were taken to curtail expenses on areas like rents and diverted to other initiatives like covid-insurance for employees, safety kits for staff etc. 

People policies were adapted for employees to not only work for home, but access to devices, internet and comfortable infrastructure was provided. We realised the mental distress that Covid-19 caused and a mental health helpline was started by Quest Alliance for all its employees. 

Pivoting our work on the ground:
We envisaged that formal spaces for learning - schools, colleges, ITI’s, polytechnics would continue to remain shut for some time to come. It was imperative to continue learning for children and young people, who otherwise would completely drop out of the education cycle.

Across our work, we pivoted models to deliver remote learning - be it through digital content on Quest App, bite-sized learning on WhatsApp or where connectivity was an issue - through Interactive Voice Response Systems. It brought to the fore the huge digital divide there in the country, which gets further aggravated with women having lesser access to the phone.

As an organisation, Quest Alliance has believed and invested in technology for close to a decade. This philosophy helped us move our models from classrooms to laptops and phones. Through the year we also worked on addressing the mental health concerns of our learners and bridging the digital divide - something we will continue to do as we foresee long term effects of the pandemic.