Capacity Building
Briefing Papers
Deeper Capacity Building for Greater Impact: Designing a Long-term Initiative to Strengthen a Set of Nonprofit Organizations
This paper, supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation, explains how to design a long-term capacity-building initiative. It is written for all sizes and types of funders including private foundations, corporate community involvement departments, and public agencies that want to pursue an initiative.
Building to Last: A Grantmaker’s Guide to Strengthening Nonprofit Organizations
Today, as society relies more and more on nonprofit organizations to provide critical services, grantmakers and their nonprofit grantees share common concerns: how to make better use of limited resources in the face of growing need, and how to stay the course and reach established goals in a volatile, changing environment. This paper provides insight for funders on how to enhance the organizational effectiveness of their grantees and provide capacity-building assistance.
Making Growth Work: Planning and Management Guidelines for Nonprofit Organizations
This report draws on TCC Group's experience to examine the benefits, dimensions, and challenges of organizational growth, and discuss techniques for managing growth in a way that maximizes a nonprofit’s impact.
Getting Back in Shape: Guidelines for Improving the Fitness of Established Nonprofit Organizations
This briefing paper offers TCC Group’s perspective on how nonprofit organizations can reverse and prevent stagnation and decline. It examines the characteristics of successful and troubled nonprofits and discusses ways to repair problems to maintain long-term vitality and effectiveness.
Books & Reports
Building the Capacity of Capacity Builders
In this report TCC Group provides an executive summary of a study of management support and field-building organizations in the nonprofit sector.
Strengthening Nonprofit Performance: A Funder’s Guide to Capacity Building
Paul Connolly co-authored this guide to capacity building with Carol Lukas. Click here for an order form.
Navigating the Organizational Lifecycle: A Capacity-Building Guide for Nonprofit Leaders
This book by Paul Connolly helps nonprofit leaders identify their organization’s stage of development and anticipate and navigate future passages for success. Using a practical roadmap, leaders learn how to become more knowledgeable and proactive about changes.
Articles
Capacity Building for Nonprofits:
A Hartford Example
Senior Consultant Anne Sherman authored this article.
Seeing the Future and Making It Work: How Funders Can Build Support Today for the Nonprofits of Tomorrow
This article, published in the NYRAG Times in their Spring/Summer 1999 edition, provides a forecast of the 21st century nonprofit world, compiled with the expertise and collective wisdom of staff and trustees of nonprofits, foundations, and management assistance providers.
Getting in Shape — Nonprofit Fitness Tips
Even mature organizations have growing pains. Is your organization at risk?
Good Growth, Bad Growth and How to Tell the Difference
When nonprofit executives talk about growth, it's usually in positive terms. In fact, growth typically is desirable, and the failure to grow or remain stable may lead to a decline in relevance and effectiveness. Yet, when growth isn't carefully planned and managed, bigger is not better and may turn out to be worse.
Mission Possible: Improving Your Organization's Mission Statement
This article, which appeared in the publication New York Nonprofits, outlines an informative workshop given by TCC Group’s Paul Connolly and Laura Colin Klein on effective mission statements. It provides insight on how to choose a mission statement that best describes and distinguishes your organization.
Nine Keys for Reinvigorating Board Leadership
More than a million nonprofit boards can be found across the United States. Many do not reach their potential because of poor leadership. Often warning signs indicate that a board is not functioning properly. This article, as appeared in Association Management Magazine, includes keys ways to reinvigorate your board and get back on track.
Planning for Growth
This article, published in The Grantsmanship Center Magazine in the Fall of 1998, was adapted from two briefing papers by TCC Group, Making Growth Work: Planning and Management Guidelines for Nonprofit Organizations and Getting Back in Shape: Guidelines for Improving the Fitness of Established Nonprofit Organizations.
Strengthening the Capacity of Cultural Organizations to Increase Participation
Most funders of arts and cultural organizations historically have focused primarily on supporting specific programs and projects geared toward artistic excellence. Yet over the years, a small but growing number of grantmakers have concentrated on enhancing organization effectiveness. This article describes how and why more funders are supporting capacity building and how arts and cultural organizations can enhance their effectiveness in this way.
