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Grantee Capacity-Building Practice at the Walton Family Foundation

Sector: Foundations

Grantee Capacity-Building Practice at the Walton Family Foundation

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Review and Recommendations for Accelerating Impact As part of the Walton Family Foundation’s 2025 Strategy, the intentional building of grantee partners’ capacity emerged as a common practice across all the foundation’s programs and departments. As grantmaking from the 2025 Strategy has grown and matured—including the foundation’s grants to build its grantee partners’ capacity—recognition has increased … Continued

Now is the Time to Radically Reimagine Readiness

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A focus on “readiness”—defined as the state of being fully prepared for something—has been ubiquitous in our sector since long before COVID-19 and the national movement for racial justice. Yet, as we take cautious steps to emerge from what feels like an endless suspension of normalcy, the concept of readiness has garnered renewed attention.   At TCC Group, we have been hearing an increasing number of readiness-related questions:    Are we ready to rebuild?   Are we ready for … Continued

Equity and Evaluation: Models of How Equity Can and Does Impact Evaluation

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The philanthropic and nonprofit fields, and organizations and individuals serving those fields, have shown an increasing focus on equity over the last few years [1]. Conversations have moved from murmurings to deeper engagement by institutions like Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Equitable Evaluation Initiative, which have explicitly published principles … Continued

(Re)thinking Funder Networks and Collaboratives

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The field of philanthropy encompasses tens of thousands of funding institutions as well as several hundred philanthropy-serving organizations (PSOs) and funder collaboratives. Funders created these PSOs and funder collaboratives—yet we have heard them question the value of their ongoing support for these entities. Surprisingly, our recent research revealed that funders quickly renewed their appreciation for … Continued

Thinking Strategically About Networks for Change

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Created in partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation, this guide helps program officers determine whether—and how—to establish or enhance a network to support their initiatives—featuring the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN).

Unprecedented: The First Year of a New Presidency Moves Philanthropy to Action

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This report documents how philanthropy has demonstrated flexibility, nimbleness, and a willingness to collaborate in the first year of the new presidential administration that can serve as a model of creative adaptation for the field going forward. It also emphasizes the critical role of philanthropy-serving organizations and funder collaboratives in supporting funder learning, facilitating networking … Continued

Partner-Centered Evaluation Capacity Building: Findings from a Corporate Social Impact Initiative

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Funders can play a proactive role in helping to fill the gap between funders’ expectations and nonprofits’ ability to evaluate grant results. Using a partner-centered design, Johnson & Johnson piloted an evaluation capacity-building initiative that supported eight grantees in strengthening their ability to measure and use findings concerning health-related outcomes by focusing on key evaluation … Continued

The Missing Link for Maximizing Impact: Foundations Assessing Their Capacity

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A rapidly changing, global socio-political environment requires foundations to be nimble in maximizing opportunities to advance their agendas. At the same time, grantmakers are establishing ever more ambitious goals that often require grantees to function at peak capacity. Why, then, have more foundations not assessed their own institutional capacity? This article discusses an assessment of … Continued

Foundations Need Capacity Too: Initial Findings from the Foundation Core Capacity Assessment Tool

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For many years, the social sector has paid substantial attention to the issue of nonprofit effectiveness. By contrast, comparatively little attention has been paid to the capacities that foundations themselves need to achieve impact. What capacities are essential to advancing a foundation’s own mission? How do these elements compare to the capacities their grantee partners … Continued

Effective Strategies to Support Advocacy Campaigns: Considerations for Funders and Advocates

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This briefing paper shares collected insights from funders and advocates across the country, in the hope that their observations will helpfully contribute to other funding and campaign efforts. These respondents noted that while considerable attention has been paid to factors informing the development of sound campaign strategy, comparatively less attention has been paid to the … Continued