Implementing a Statewide Capacity Building Program

facilitated by Misty Avila from Aspiration

Background & Intro

Misty manages capacity building program at Aspiration; help small NPOs in CA. Refer people to resources or create them. Focus on rural areas.

"Anyone here for different reason?"

"No."

Needs assessment
Finding like minded people to network with
In depth interactions
Opportunity to trade tips: trust that sharing will be respected
Everyone has ownership, givers and takers; holistic approach to learning and sharing
Fundraising, development angle
OpenOakland example of forgetting to involve community.

Everyone has a different take on what capacity building means.
What are your needs right now? i.e., not about technology per se.
Need to listen to what the problems are, rather than deliver same package each time.
What is capacity building? (see flip chart)
Facilitating learning, not prescriptive.
Focus on goal, not technology.

Model - is it missionary or group therapy?
Circuit riders was based on missionary model, evangelizing technology.
Riders were part of community, trust and freely shared, but didn't scale.
Essentially community organizing, building relationships.
Not parachute in (eg with training).
Coaching and confidence building.
Sustainable skills.
Differences in design, long or short term, formal or informal.
Hearing from npos who have received capacity building from Aspiration: rather than "we need to be on social media", thinking about needs, goals and planning; developing a communications strategy.
Long process, investment.

Case study.
Web analytics.
Tracking network development, such as the toolkit that Greenlining created and shared with their npo network.
Example of evaluation strategies, developmental or formative.