I mentioned “Capacity Building” grants in my previous blog “Unlock-Grants: Cost vs. Value.” I said that they were grants to build the capacity of your nonprofit to fulfill its mission. All true. But let’s dive a little deeper into Capacity Building.
What could a “Capacity Building” grant mean for you and your organization?
If you examine your nonprofit from the non-program side — from the inner workings — if you step back and take a hard look at the functionality of your nonprofit and isolate what is standing in the way of it moving forward, THAT’s what a Capacity Building grant may help you afford. If you DO NOT get that item, or that role filled, or that workshop, or that initiative funded, your agency will not grow, it will just stay in the same shape it is now.
To get you thinking about what needs your agency might have that you perhaps didn’t equate to a possible grant, let’s spitball some examples of Capacity Building categories.
What can Capacity Building grants cover?
To get your juices flowing, here’s a partial list of what a Capacity Building grant could cover:
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Research & development
- Identifying and quantifying your agency’s place within its community
- Pinpointing and measuring a proposed program’s potential to move the needle and reach its goal
- The addition of a pivotal fundraising role, or a consultant to research more funding sources
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Program design
- The staff time to design and build a really breakout program for your agency, or collaborate with other organizations
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Equipment purchases & training
- High-ticket items such as:
- refrigeration or vehicles for a food pantry, for instance
- an upgraded staff-wide computer system
- Behind-the-Scenes costs
- Implementing a new bookkeeping system
- A new CRM and the work it takes to input all past info, and train staff on its use
- Board training, usually implemented by an outside expert or consultant, on topics such as:
- Their role in fundraising (including grants) for the organization
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion workshops
- Strategic planning work
- High-ticket items such as:
Does this ring any bells on what you’ve been dreaming of for your nonprofit? Do visions of “vans and trucks” and “Raiser’s Edge vs. Boomerang” dance through your head? If so, put that dream through the Capacity Building grant process and see if it can make those dreams come true. If not, keep these practical and purposeful grant ideas in your back pocket for when those “internal workings” needs crop up.
And when those needs do surface, you may be at a loss on next steps. Where do I turn for these so-called Capacity Building grants? Well, they are a category amongst themselves in the grantmaking world. Let’s look at where we can turn to find this kind of funding.
Who funds Capacity Building grants?
Capacity Building grant funders can come in the same categories as program funders (private, public, corporate, etc.), but Program and Capacity Building funders are not interchangeable. Funding Capacity Building is far less “popular” than funding programs, and a funder of Capacity Building initiatives will spell that out specifically. Their Capacity Building grant application will be different than their program app, and their reporting requirements will be distinct.
Do your research, since not every funding body supports Capacity Building initiatives. The funders you will find that include Capacity Building in their portfolio of funding strategies may also have very specific interpretations of what they consider to be “Capacity Building,” so make sure you look at their eligible and unallowable expenses to make sure they line up with what you are hoping to pay for with this grant. If you need help finding Capacity Building funders, read my blog “Beware of Myopia in Your Grant Requests,” or join my Unlock-Grants course!
Here’s a line-up of what some of the bigger buckets Capacity Building funders may fall in:
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Community foundations.
Community foundations are huge supporters of Capacity Building for their area’s nonprofits. My own community foundation, The Columbus Foundation, is one of the 10 largest community foundations in the nation. But whatever the size of your own community’s foundation, it likely puts the strength of its nonprofits pretty high on its list of priorities.
Many of you in more rural areas have your own
community foundation that covers more of a “region,”
or perhaps several counties in your state.
Check it out! They are a valuable resource/partner.
Community foundations typically exist as a centralized manager of individual donors’ funds. But they also have funds they themselves manage, and so between those funds and their donors’ interests is where the pool of Capacity Building funds would most likely come from.
NEXT STEPS: Start a conversation with your community foundation, make them aware of your organization, its mission, and your Capacity Building endeavor.
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Larger private foundations.
Think The Gates Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Conrad Hilton Foundation. These foundations have resources in the hundreds of millions, they have staff, and they have a broad view of where they want to see humanity go. Their missions are outsized — or they have multiple missions — and they see beyond just program grants.
Plus, the larger, better-resourced foundations understand that more and more program grants are only going to get us so far. Nonprofits need sustainability in the form of efficiency and responsible growth. And by “growth,” I mean growing deep, not just wide.
And so, they fund Capacity Building, to make what nonprofits they view as strong even stronger.
NEXT STEPS: Whittle down the vast list of uber-wealthy foundations that fund Capacity Building to a list that would make a better marriage with the size of your organization. Apply through their grants process (call, LOI, full app), and in any case, start a relationship!
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Public money in the federal realm is vast — billions — and if you fit the sometimes very narrow requirements of a federal grant you find, then:
- make sure you have your SAM registration and UEI ahead of time, since they take a while to get;
- make sure you can afford to submit a “proper” application; devote staff time to it or pay a consultant;
- make sure you can address the sometimes-minute details they ask of you; and,
- make sure you can wait for the grant to (possibly) come to fruition, since it can take many months.
Public money is available at lower levels of government (state, county, city) and can also include Capacity Building, but that’s less common.
NEXT STEPS: It’s harder (impossible at the higher levels) to establish relationships with this group, and I would not apply unless you can turn in a solid application that pushes all their buttons (outlined in their RFP). You only get one chance to make a first impression!
I hope that gives you a clearer sense of what a Capacity Building grant could mean for your agency. I speak with so many people working in nonprofits that aren’t aware of what Capacity Building grants can fund. They identify an insurmountable expense for something really key to their nonprofit moving forward, and shrug their shoulders because they think “well, we could never be able to buy that/afford that/get that/do that.”
Think again!
