Nonprofits need to operate from a strong foundation to effectively address complex social issues. For many organizations, this has been challenging recently due to decreases in funding, staff transitions, increases in demand for services, and changes in the political landscape. When facing these challenges, nonprofit leaders might feel uncertain about how to lead their organizations and disconnected from peers and sources of support. By convening grantees for shared learning, collective action, and/or peer support, funders can help ensure their grantees have the capacity and connections they need to advance their missions.
If you are a funder considering ways to support grantees during these times, you might find inspiration from these stories of funders who invested in their grantees’ capacity to help them build resilience and deeper connection with peers. Through our work with these and other funders, we have learned ways to ensure investments in nonprofit connection and resilience will be relevant and impactful for grantees.
Supporting Nonprofit Resilience
Capacity support will be more effective when grantees have voice and choice in the services they are receiving. In addition, we’ve learned the importance of developing a strong network of technical assistance providers that understand grantees’ work and context and can partner with them to meet their needs.
Case Example: Kresge Foundation’s Fostering Equitable Urban Leadership Program
Recognizing that its grantees would benefit from support in advancing their leadership and racial equity capacity, we partnered with the Kresge Foundation to design and implement a capacity-building program. Grantees and service providers informed program design, goals, and theory of change. The resulting FUEL Program (Fostering Urban Equitable Leadership) reached a broad swath of grantees and met their diverse priorities by matching participants with service providers most suited to meet their needs. In addition to building grantee capacity, the FUEL Program also strengthened the collective work of service providers by deepening their awareness of one another’s work for referrals and building connections across their different services and initiatives. Read more about this work in this case study.
Case Example: Blue Cross North Carolina’s Strengthen NC Program
Blue Cross North Carolina’s Strengthen NC program worked to invest in the capacity of nonprofits serving underrepresented communities across the state. Grantees named need for fundraising and HR support, but even with funding, the grassroots nonprofits did not have the time or connections to hire a good-fit consultant. To help with this, as program manager, we took some of the burden off grantees by researching and vetting an initial list of consultants and supported grantees in making a final selection. Read more about the program here.
 Catalyzing Connection and Collaboration Among Nonprofits
Addressing complex, systemic social issues requires collaboration, yet default ways of working continue to reinforce siloed, fragmented approaches. Funders have an opportunity to support their grantees in coming together around a shared vision for change. By supporting cohorts or communities of practice, funders can help grantees build knowledge, relationships, and skills needed to address systemic barriers and make progress toward long-term outcomes.
Case Example: Healthy Food Community of Practice
The Healthy Food Community of Practice was created as a space for national and regional organizations to connect, learn, and take collective actions as they reimagined food systems to be equitable. The goal of the community was for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) communities to have equitable access and consume nutritious food – doing this will also address barriers faced by other marginalized communities. The community began its work in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic and a public racial reckoning caused massive upheaval for food access and distribution and laid bare inequities in healthy food access and consumption.
While these unexpected challenges could have led to decreased commitment to the community of practice, in fact, the opposite happened. Community members leaned on one another for new ideas and supported one another as they made pivots to their work. Through months of social distancing orders and changes to food distribution and benefits enrollment, the community of practice sustained high levels of engagement, and participants collaborated on projects that helped them work more effectively in a changing context.
Through four years together, the Healthy Food Community of practice yielded relationships that will endure beyond the community’s formal end, changes in learning and practice among participating organizations, and collaborations and contributions to the field. Read more about the community and see resources here.
Case Example: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Networks for Education Equity Cohort
Education networks (e.g., professional associations of education professionals) have long been a source of knowledge and support for education professionals, but for many networks, it has been difficult to keep up with the pace of change in the field and ensure their knowledge and resources are reaching those who need it most. To address this challenge, the Networks for Education Equity cohort was formed as a space for sharing and learning ways to adapt the work of education networks to ultimately support better outcomes for Black and Latino students and students experiencing poverty. The community of practice, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of its K-12 Education Strategy and facilitated by Community Wealth Partners, provided a space for networks to learn from peers, pilot new approaches, and inspire further learning and collective action. Community of practice members played a vocal role in designing the cadence and content of offerings. After two years working together, the experience led to changes in approach for participating organizations, stronger relationships that are likely to endure beyond the community of practice, and knowledge and insights that can benefit the broader field seeking to advance equity in education. Together these outcomes help education networks evolve how they share knowledge with practitioners so that they are better equipped to support education outcomes for Black and Latino students and students experiencing poverty. Read more about the cohort and see resources here.
See more of our insights on capacity building in our field guide, Making Capacity Building More Equitable. If you are a funder and would like support thinking through ways you can support your grantees, schedule a 30-minute thought partnership call with Lori Bartczak.
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