Capacity Building

Capacity Building is at the epicenter of organizational effectiveness. Yet historically in our sector, it hasn’t worked as well as it should. It’s expensive – each organization has to figure it out for themselves – and typical “white paper” offerings often don’t take into account the practical complexities of how nonprofits will implement in the real world.

Each year, in collaboration with our members, we create a series of cohort-based Capacity Building Program Tracks focused on leadership development, organizational evolution, and program innovation. By looking across our 150+ member orgs, we work to understand what the most urgent capacity building priorities are in our community, and then design deeply responsive, high impact programming.

Facilitated by Top Experts & Practitioners

Based on the belief that we design better solutions in partnership with field-leading experts and other organizations

Done in Cohorts

So that peer learning and accountability are built in, enabling leaders to understand all the ways these same needs and challenges show up across our sector

Designed with Real-World Implementation in Mind

Culminating in a fully designed deliverable or initiative ready for implementation within each participating member organization

Methodology

In our Alliance, Capacity Building Program Tracks are designed and led by field-leading experts over a period of 4-6 months, in cohorts of 10-20 leaders from various member organizations. Available for free to participating Alliance leaders, each Program Track culminates in a concrete, co-created deliverable ready for implementation.

125+

member organizations enrolled to -date

6+

offerings every year

99%

of members believe sector-wide knowledge sharing and capacity building is needed to strengthen the field

What We Offer

This program track will support leaders working to navigate the tension between continuing to run core programs and services (Engine 1) while simultaneously developing new innovations or methods for achieving impact at greater scale (Engine 2). By breaking each component of this large and complex change process down to tangible steps and deliverables, your organization will develop and implement an operating plan for advancing “Engine 2” innovations, while nurturing your core offerings.
Organizations diagnose and assess what’s working and what’s challenging about their Boards of Directors, sharing and spotlighting promising practices and challenges in order to develop a Board that meets their evolving organizational needs.
This program track enables nonprofit leaders to get candid feedback from former school superintendents and district leaders to strengthen their approach to partnering with education systems. Nonprofit-school partnerships are powerful levers for improving student outcomes and the sustainability of these partnerships are often dependent on financial models where schools pay for these services. Often, nonprofits do not feel like they have optimized their sales strategy, pitch, and pricing model, yet nonprofits rarely receive candid feedback from the buyers and decision makers within districts. This Program Track will help our members (1) better understand how schools make purchasing and partnership decisions, (2) refine your pitch and materials, and (3) refine a sales strategy for your organization, including pricing model, team structures, and processes.
This program track offers a supportive space for Alliance members to learn from one another as they test, learn and improve how to authentically engage youth leaders in their programs to inform changes and improvements to program models that ultimately drive improved outcomes. Over the course of several months, organizations are able to solicit comprehensive feedback from youth participants in order to make concrete improvements to their program model design and implementation based on feedback from youth stakeholders.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” may be a cliché, but it is increasingly important for senior executive leaders to pay attention to the impact of organizational culture on our people and our impact. This Program Track is designed to support leaders in (1) navigating an increasingly multigenerational workforce; (2) creating a culture of collective care and wellbeing at the individual and system level; and (3) managing with empathy and supporting staff morale and retention amidst the chaos of turbulent and uncertain times. This program track will include co-creation of operating guidelines for how organizations will navigate key dynamics and support a thriving workforce in a more sustainable way.

This Program Track is designed for entire executive teams to participate in simultaneously. Only one in four executive teams feel like they’re working effectively, according to Bridgespan. This series provides an opportunity for organizations to practice and apply strategies to work more efficiently, effectively, and inclusively – especially while leading through a time of significant change.
Artificial intelligence can be a powerful tool to drive impact, but most social sector organizations aren’t leveraging AI to its fullest potential. Participants in this Program Track develop a strong baseline of AI fundamentals and develop 1-2 new AI-enabled tools to drive impact within your organization. We explore different options for what to build, select the product idea that has the greatest chance for impact, and develop a prototype on the Playlab platform. After a participant’s prototype is complete, we help them develop a vision for how to advance the AI work in their organization – and co-create policies for responsible AI use within individual organizations and across the sector.
Nonprofits that want to exponentially grow their revenue and impact are guided in creating a customized Transformational Giving Playbook detailing every step in the process from qualifying, to cultivating, to closing six and seven-figure gifts.
National nonprofit leaders grapple with an array of challenges in leading networks of multiple regions or operating in federated models. This Program Track is designed for executive leaders working in national organizations who are responsible for driving excellence and accountability across multiple regions. This track will allow you to learn and share best practices around national-regional models from some of the best national nonprofits in the country. This will be an opportunity to reflect on how to strengthen your operating model and improve strategies to more effectively navigate decision-making rights, autonomy and authority, staffing and training, and to build a more effective national/regional structure that leads to improved outcomes, efficiency, and continuous improvement.

What Leaders Are Saying

“The Managing Engine 1 and Engine 2 Innovation program track is helping us think strategically and methodically about all that's needed to equip the organization to lead in a more expanded way. The ability to bring our team members to that space and think collectively has been extraordinary for us, and to have that level of resources poured into the organization will really set us up well for success in the future."

Ricardo Neal, CEO, We Will All Rise
“We have found tremendous value in participating in the Selling Your Value to Education Systems program track. To be able to hear from decision makers at the district, state, and federal levels in education has been invaluable. Additionally, we have taken part in the 1:1 coaching sessions and have received really practical feedback to support our efforts in pitching our value to school districts so we can expand our reach and deepen our impact on teens' mental health!”

Lauren Anderson, Executive Director, Our Minds Matter