Responding to crises: constructing a response through organizational change

Abstract As the COVID-19 crisis exposed inequities in civic, funding, and programmatic policies – often grounded in systemic oppression and White Supremacy – community based, youth-focused organizations, such as Creative Youth Development (CYD) programs, were catapulted into unplanned changes in order to survive. In this tumultuous environment, organizations had to struggle, innovate, and revolutionize their practices, oftentimes without being able to properly reflect or predict consequences. This paper explores what the pandemic and its unspooling consequences are teaching us about what we need in a framework for thinking about organizational change and adaptation in times of crisis. Specifically, the author discusses how earlier frameworks need to expand to include: organizational development, distributed leadership, and growth mindset. The article concludes with a set of provocations derived from community-based conversations with organizational leaders as they innovated their practices in the difficult months of March and April 2020.