2008 Capacity Building Fund Guidelines Announced! Planning Grant Guidelines  Implementation Grant Guidelines Dates & Deadlines

The Capacity Building Fund (CBF) of Third Sector New England provides grants to self-defined nonprofit networks in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Grants are for groups of organizations that wish to learn and build capacity together in order to gain skills necessary to effect change on an issue of shared concern. The process of learning together will also be designed to build the capacity of the member organizations to further their respective missions.

The goal of the Capacity Building Fund comes from the TSNE mission of providing capacity to the nonprofit sector “to build the knowledge, power and effectiveness of nonprofit organizations that engage people in their community and public life.” A total of $250,000 was available for distribution in 2006.

Preference has been given to groups designing capacity building projects that lead to ongoing relationships resulting in work that makes change in communities or issues with which the groups are engaged.

Program Goals and Objectives

The CBF objectives are both simple and complex. The program has annually funded several self-defined groups of organizations, or networks, for the purpose of planning and implementing shared learning projects that build organizational capacity. Network projects enable each member organization to gain knowledge that will enhance its ability to meet its goals. The network must also define shared outcomes for learning derived from the people who directly benefit from them.

For example, in a funded project, executive directors would focus on defining the outcomes of a peer learning network for executive directors. Community members would define outcomes for a learning project that emphasizes building knowledge and/or skills to effect change at the community level. If a coalition applies to create a learning project among all or some of its coalition members, the member groups, not the coalition staff, would define what learning is important to them. Finally, all networks need to be able to answer the “so what” question: What is the ultimate shared purpose of the learning beyond creating better individual organizations?

Building capacity refers to institutionalizing individual and organizational learning and new skills development in such a way that an organization is better able to meet its goals. In this case, the capacity building goes a step further and also builds the capacity of the group of organizations to better meet their shared goals. The assumption is that by learning and skill building together, organizations will simultaneously learn how to work more effectively together.