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."

Process

• 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.

What is Capacity Building?

• 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.

Capacity Building Models

• 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.

What do you report to the funder?

• 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.