What Is Capacity Building and Why Do We Do It?

If you’re familiar with Hope for New York at all, you know it’s our mission to support and strengthen non-profit organizations serving the poor and marginalized in NYC by mobilizing volunteers and providing financial resources.

What you may not know is that part of how we support our affiliates in their work is through providing capacity building—or, more simply put, training and consulting.

According to the National Council of Nonprofits, “capacity building is an investment in the effectiveness and future sustainability of a nonprofit.” Being able to provide capacity building support to organizations is essential to ensuring that people in need are receiving quality services and programs. Capacity building also allows nonprofit leaders to come out from the daily grind to gain a bird’s eye view of how they are achieving their mission and making the most impact.

There are two significant ways in which we provide capacity building to our affiliates: individual capacity building grants and trainings and workshops.

1. Capacity Building Grants

In addition to applying for a financial grant, our affiliates have the opportunity to apply for a capacity building grant, which funds work with a consultant to develop strategy on significant organizational challenges they may be facing.

For example, through one of these grants we connected an organization with a consultant to develop a fund development strategy, which included developing a fundraising plan and monthly calendar for engaging major, individual, and institutional donors, as well as training for staff on writing grant proposals. This project contributed to that organization meeting a $15,000 match challenge to increase the number of new donors and giving from current donors.

In addition to funding projects similar to the one of above, we have also funded projects for affiliate staff to receive training from subject matter experts, such as training on motivational interviewing and emotionally responsive practices in child development.

2. Leadership Trainings and Workshops

Throughout the year we offer a number of in-house trainings and convenings for our affiliates. This past year we conducted a bi-monthly training series called Bagels and Best Practices (now called Learning Labs) where we invited affiliate and prospective affiliate staff to attend trainings on various non-profit management topics such as financial management, supervisory relationships, and volunteer management. These trainings involved pooling expertise from external consultants, HFNY staff, and affiliate leaders.

We also started an initiative called the Non-Profit Accelerator to facilitate the development of startup non-profit organizations by providing them with essential tools and resources to operate an effective and sustainable organization. A cohort of five affiliate staff members participated in this program to receive leadership and professional development, non-profit management skills development, executive coaching, and community building with like-minded organizations. During the six months of the program, they focused on developing and refining the following:

• Three-year strategic plan
• Annual operating budget
• Board development strategy
• Fund development strategy
• Communications plan

In the future, we will be developing more opportunities for affiliates to receive peer-based learning in the hopes of not only developing staff as leaders, but of facilitating further collaboration amongst affiliates as well.

At Hope for New York, we believe deeply in serving our affiliates holistically and supporting them not merely as funders, but as partners in the work they do to foster the flourishing of poor and marginalized people across our city.