Capacity Building Initiatives

Strengthening the foundation of nonprofits

Building the capacity of an organization or community usually requires a combination of approaches and tools over time. Fieldstone Alliance 's unique service mix provides a full range of capacity building resources. We have more than two decades of experience building capacity with individual leaders, organizations, joint efforts, neighborhoods and communities, systems, and industries. We help many funders and networks plan, implement, and evaluate their capacity building work.

Consultation and facilitation
We often help funders and networks design capacity building efforts. This includes scanning community and organizational needs and available resources, developing strategies, forming partnerships with other organizations, and designing specific tools and protocols for implementation.

We can serve a range of roles during implementation of capacity building initiatives, from managing all capacity building activities, to training local consultants, to providing intermittent assistance through our consulting, training, publications, and research.

We can also help evaluate the impact of capacity building work, whether for individual organizations or for a cluster of organizations.

Training and presentations
We have a broad range of training programs that can be customized to suit the particular needs of nonprofits in a given community. We also train consultants in consulting with nonprofits in general and in specific areas such as strategic planning or collaboration.

Research and evaluation
We can research nonprofit capacity needs individually or across a network of nonprofits, identifying trends and opportunities for enhanced performance. We also evaluate the results and impact of capacity building work.

Publications
We have a large bookshelf of practical, how-to guides on a variety of nonprofit management, collaboration, and community-building topics. These publications can be distributed alone as a very inexpensive capacity building resource, or paired with consulting or training approaches for added impact.

Related resources

Consultant Survey Results (197K PDF)
Professional Development Needs of Consultants Serving the Nonprofit Sector
La Piana Associates, Inc. and Fieldstone Alliance jointly conducted a survey of 322 consultants from around the U.S. The objective was to learn about the types of professional development opportunities available, how useful consultants considered them to be, and what opportunities consultants would like to have.

Six Components of Organizational Capacity
Six components of organizational capacity that are critical for high performance.

Five Nonprofit Trends and Their Implications for Capacity Builders
Bryan Barry identified trends that will affect how capacity building work is done in the future and the implications for capacity builders.

Strengthening Nonprofit Performance: A Funder's Guide to Capacity Building
By Paul Connolly and Carol Lukas. (St. Paul : Fieldstone Alliance, Inc., 2002).

For more information, please contact Sandy Jacobsen at 651.556.4510 or email her at sjacobsen@FieldstoneAlliance.org