What Capacity Building Means At Brooklyn Org
As a Program Officer, my role is not just to administer grants; we dedicate much of our time to building partnerships and connections with organizations to more deeply understand their work beyond what we can learn in a written application or numbers in a report.
The world of philanthropy is full of jargon – words that are used so often, they start to lose their meaning to most of us. “Capacity Building” is a prime example, of one of these terms that gets thrown around and begins to morph into something different to everyone who uses it. It’s been the subject of think pieces with themes like the “End of Capacity Building,” and “Rethinking Capacity Building Grants,” and at any given moment there are endless RFPs and grant applications open for “capacity building” and “technical assistance.” All the while, definitions seem to vary greatly from funder to funder.
When we talk about capacity building at Brooklyn Org, we mean providing support beyond our grantmaking dollars to build the skills, resilience, and connections of nonprofits in Brooklyn. That support comes in many forms: workshops and trainings, casual social gatherings, regional convenings, mentorship groups, and more.
In 2024, over 500 nonprofits participated in our capacity building programming, across 54 workshops, events, and convenings. We hosted our first annual nonprofit conference, kicked off our quarterly regional convening series, and held multiple leader salons for organizations to connect with each other, share resources, and build community.
As a Program Officer, my role is not just to administer grants; we dedicate much of our time to building partnerships and connections with organizations to more deeply understand their work beyond what we can learn in a written application or numbers in a report. In conversations with organizations working across multiple sectors, I listen for trends, common challenges, and places where organizations are spending precious time and resources where our Capacity Building support could make a difference.
When we underwent our latest strategic plan, we re-affirmed our commitment to racial justice and outlined two big goals: to grow the capacity of and power of Brooklyn nonprofits, and to activate and mobilize greater resources for community impact. The first goal includes expanding our grantmaking as well as building up a robust and cohesive Capacity Building program within our Programs Department. With racial justice at the core of all our work, it means that our Capacity Building is informed by the needs and feedback of nonprofit leaders – especially nonprofit leaders of color, new leaders, and leaders from the communities in which they are working.
Our capacity building program is a key part of our work for a few reasons:
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Grant dollars alone aren’t enough.
Last year, we received nearly 500 applications for 35 grants available. As Brooklyn’s community foundation, we know that there is an incredible need for support across the borough, and our grantmaking alone can only go so far. As we know, not enough philanthropic dollars flow into our borough; only 8% of philanthropic dollars in NYC go to Brooklyn. While we can’t fund every Brooklyn nonprofit, we can offer accessible capacity building programming to build the strength of organizations in the borough. Nearly all of our nonprofit programming is free and open to both our grantee partners (the organizations we fund) and non-grantees alike, so we can maximize our impact to support nonprofits whether or not they meet our funding requirements.
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Nonprofit challenges require holistic solutions and support.
We know that funding is vital – but it isn’t everything. On our support visits and in conversations with leaders across Brooklyn, we hear about the variety of challenges facing nonprofits that can’t be solved simply with more funding: operations and HR questions, growing pains of becoming a larger organization, figuring out how to communicate about their work. My role is to build relationships with organizations so that we can have open and honest conversations about what organizations need – and then communicate that back to our Capacity Building team to directly inform what programming we provide. Through our programming, we connect nonprofits with experts in fundraising, communications, operations, and more for high-quality trainings and hands-on support that they would otherwise have to pay for out of pocket.
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Nonprofit leadership can be lonely work.
Nonprofit leadership can be a demanding and lonely job. We hear over and over from nonprofit leaders – especially from leaders of small, community-based organizations who are playing every role from HR to fundraiser – that they want to connect with fellow leaders. These connections can spark partnerships, resource sharing, and information exchange, and they can also be informal spaces to build connection and solidarity. We hear repeatedly from nonprofit leaders who attend our programs about how helpful it is to have that chance to chat with others who know the particular challenges of running a nonprofit in Brooklyn.
Given the diverse and ever-evolving demands of nonprofit leadership and management, we work to ensure that our capacity building is created in direct response to the needs and asks of organizations in Brooklyn – not merely what we deem important. This information comes in part from support visits: annual meetings with grantees where we sit down for an in-depth conversation about their work in the past year. On support visits, we discuss successes, challenges, and hear about evolutions in their particular field that we as Program Officers wouldn’t otherwise know about.
At site visits in 2023, Program Officers heard from many organizations that they were lacking connection to other nonprofit leaders in their communities; in response, we launched regular leaders salons at our office. These casual convenings offer leaders a chance to connect face-to-face. We also began our quarterly regional convening series, which brings organizations in a particular part of the borough together to connect with each other. We also heard about the challenges that many grantees were having with getting paid for their city contracts on time, an issue that hits small nonprofits hardest. We used these stories to add our voice to calls for reform to the city contracts payment system.
A few weeks ago, we gathered at the Coney Island Aquarium with leaders from across South Brooklyn. They spent the morning in deep conversation, sharing about the unique needs of the region and connecting with organizations they did not previously know.
As a funder, we recognize that organizations may feel more cautious with what they share if a current or potential funder is listening, so we ensure that these gatherings are always centered on nonprofits connecting with each other, rather than about us gathering information. Instead, inspiration for our workshop topics comes from our observations in the field as Program Officers, direct conversations with nonprofits in support and site visits, and our listening tours, where we learn about emerging trends and concerns across Brooklyn neighborhoods.
Holistic Support
Our capacity building extends beyond trainings and workshops. As a community foundation, we believe it is our role to use our reach and visibility in multiple ways to support nonprofits in Brooklyn, including through:
- Our monthly Nonprofit Newsletter that collects and disseminates opportunities and events relevant to organizations in our borough, as well as sharing nonprofit job opportunities;
- Our community calendar of free events where nonprofits can share their programs to reach our audience;
- Our directory of grantee partners that shows who we back, the issues they address, and where they do their work in Brooklyn
- Our stories of impact, which are longer profiles of our grantee partners that tell about their history and our partnership; and
- Our annual GivingTuesday campaign, Brooklyn Gives, where we provide a sophisticated fundraising platform and support for nonprofits to use in the busiest giving season of the year— a gamechanger for many smaller nonprofits who would not be able to afford such a tool, which Brooklyn Org offers for free.
If you have not yet taken part in any of our capacity building programs, we encourage you to join us for an upcoming leader salon or other workshop, check out our resource library, and sign up for our newsletter to stay on top of upcoming events.
As a Program Officer, I love to see the direct link between conversations I have had with grantees and partner organizations manifest in our Capacity Building programming. Nonprofit work can be as challenging as it is important, and supporting the Brooklyn nonprofit ecosystem is one vital part of the work we are doing to make our borough more fair and just.