Strengthen leadership and teams in local humanitarian organisations

Field Team Impact Kit

A practical tool to empower technical field teams in humanitarian organisations

Humanitarian response is increasingly locally led — but many local organisations are new to operating at this scale and pace. Field teams need to quickly establish effective ways of working, produce sustainable solutions, and build the team practices that hold up under pressure and high staff turnover — all while needing to do more with less.

The Field Team Impact Kit (FieldTiK) has been called “a shortcut to 20 years’ team management experience” and tackles these very issues. It brings together practical tools, guidance developed with field practitioners, and links to existing quality resources — creating a framework that field team leaders and their teams can adapt to their unique context.

FieldTiK is demand-led: teams identify their own priority areas and access relevant guidance when they need it. It is not generic training delivered from outside. A practical tool your teams can own and build on.

Stronger teams = Better outcomes

Challenges facing your field teams

  • Devolved responsibility

    Field teams operate with devolved decision-making and limited training, balancing accountability to both donors and the people they serve — often far from central support structures.

  • Limited practical support for team leaders

    Field team leaders typically build their practice through personal experience rather than structured support. A key challenge is adapting and continually improving within and between emergencies.

  • Relevant resources hard to find

    Team members face gaps in technical and cross-cutting knowledge — including accountability, safeguarding and inclusion — and struggle to find practical guidance quickly.

  • Poor retention of knowledge

    Inadequate knowledge management at team level, often compounded by high staff turnover, means hard-won knowledge is lost between projects, emergencies, and staff changes — and teams find themselves starting from scratch.

FieldTiK: A participatory approach to target actual bottlenecks

A - Find your gaps
Field team leaders and their teams use a short diagnostic to select the top one to three areas to work on together.

B - Fill your gaps
Teams follow practical examples and access curated resources to develop approaches that fit their context — not off-the-shelf solutions, but practices they build themselves.

C - Review and improve
Every one to three months, teams review progress and tackle new priorities. Improvement becomes a habit, not a one-off exercise.

What sector experts are saying…

  • “This is the missing element in everything we’re doing. Ensuring we have a dynamic team of people really working together — that’s when we can really make great changes.”

    -Global technical specialist

  • "This is very, very useful", "very practical"

    -Field team leaders, Global South

  • “Local NGOs are probably one of the biggest customers — the training programmes in which local NGOs often invest are not specific and are theory-based. This is designed for the people implementing on the ground.”

    -Senior manager, Global South

  • “It addresses an enormous gap in the humanitarian sector — a gap we have previously been putting bandaids on rather than tackling the roots.”

    - WASH advisor, Global North

What makes FieldTiK different?

FieldTiK strengthens knowledge management, team leadership, and continuity within field teams — building the competence and awareness that improves outcomes and informs better organisational decision-making.

FieldTiK:

  • Is team-led: field team leaders and their teams adapt the approach to their context

  • Builds on existing resources: linking to quality global guidance rather than duplicating it

  • Supports teams to learn and adapt: structured around the Plan-Do-Check-Act continuous improvement cycle

  • Helps teams retain knowledge between projects and emergencies

  • Is low-cost and sustainable: designed to be owned by your organisation, without ongoing external dependency

Designed with local organisations in mind

Expert practitioners have consistently identified local and national organisations as among those who would benefit most from FieldTiK — because the guide is practical, evidence-based, and adaptable to your context, language, and resources.

Local organisations often find that available training is not specific and is theory-based, rather than grounded in the realities your teams navigate every day. FieldTiK was developed precisely to address this — bringing together practical guidance and relevant resources in one place, structured around the challenges that field teams actually face.

Introducing FieldTiK builds something that generic training cannot: a shared framework embedded in your organisation’s own practice, that grows stronger with each project and each team. As team members build familiarity with the approach — and carry those skills as they move into team leadership roles — your organisation develops a growing cadre of leaders who share a common, practical language for field team effectiveness.

That is not just team development. It is organisational development.

Ready to strengthen your field teams?

Request a sampler and let’s talk about what FieldTiK could look like in your organisation

Whether you are exploring options, considering how to get started, or simply want to discuss field team effectiveness in your context — we would be glad to share the FieldTiK sampler and have a conversation.