The Capacity Building Challenge: A Research Perspective & A Funder's Response - Executive Summary

Investments to enhance the organizational capacity and performance of nonprofits have increased dramatically in recent years. Yet, despite the popularity of the concept, relatively little research is available that clearly demonstrates the value of nonprofit capacity building or links it to improved program outcomes.What is needed are more comparable and comprehensive findings about the outcomes of capacity building, both to ensure the ongoing commitment of funders to support this work and to demonstrate what kinds of capacity building efforts have the greatest effects and when. This paper proposes a system for understanding the various approaches to capacity building and a strategy for measuring the outcomes of capacity building activitie