What We Do

Third Sector New England’s staff of non-profit professionals help managers, staff and board members in the sector enrich programs, manage more effectively, strengthen their leadership skills, and adapt to and create change. Through this work, we promote wider recognition of the vital role of nonprofits in society. And the work of the non-profit sector has never been more critical than it is today, as we strive to support communties and people in need during these turbulent economic times.

TSNE’s capacity building programs and services strive to:

Build Non-profit Capacity

• Serve as a source of information about the sector and a catalyst for capacity building initiatives.
• Explore and help develop the skills and ideas with which non-profit practitioners work.

Facilitate Innovation

• Circulate the ideas to non-profit leaders broadly to promote cross learning in the third sector.
• Help seed challenging conversations on topics that affect the sector’s future.

Provide Support to Unincorporated Groups

• Provide management and administrative systems to unincorporated groups, so that they can focus on achieving their missions.
• Promote and model effective practices for the fiscal sponsorship of grassroots groups and coalitions.
• Develop knowledge about best practices and high-quality materials that will build the field of fiscal sponsorship.

Incubate Creative Capacity-Building Ideas and Strategies

• Incubate creative capacity-building ideas and strategies that have potential for significant impact sector wide and can directly contribute to internal learning and development.

Provide Financial Support to Advance Social Change

• Provide financial support for organizational development and capacity-building to social and economic justice organizations in order to directly and meaningfully involve constituents and governance.
• Model progressive grant-making principles and policies.

Create Best Practices

• Create best practices in the field.
• Educate the third sector about the value of a whole systems approach, which develops solutions to organizational problems and builds capacity by recognizing that all program and operations systems are interdependent.

Build a Learning Community

• Continue the national skills-building conference, a capacity building training series and other opportunities for learning for the non-profit community.