Get Systems-Ready: Build Your Foundation’s Capacity Building Infrastructure

Your foundation has strong relationships with its grantees and understands the critical importance of organizational development. Now you’re faced with understanding the challenges nonprofits face, but not having a streamlined approach to supporting them. 

• Program officers want to be responsive but are limited by bandwidth, expertise, and access to comprehensive resources across diverse organizational needs. 

• Grantees require deep support across multiple areas, making it difficult to always provide what's needed when it's needed.

• Building effective capacity support requires systems that meet grantees where they are with the right resources at the right time.

Understand How to Support Your Grantees

Start by being proactive in understanding where organizations need support. This helps to prioritize where to focus your efforts across your portfolio and where you can make the most impact in resourcing. 

Approaches to consider

• Organizational maturity - Understand organizational stages to determine whether nonprofits are just starting out or mature

• Organizational health - Assess the organizational health metrics that are impacting your grantees' success

• Consistent communication - Integrate organizational check-ins with existing program conversations to reduce reporting burden

• Portfolio trends - Track patterns across your portfolio to identify common challenges and successful approaches

Ensure Resources and Learning Opportunities Are Available

Provide grantees with continuous access to organizational development resources so they are empowered to address challenges and roadblocks as they arise, rather than waiting for scheduled interventions.

Approaches to consider

• Resource libraries that respond to your portfolio’s organizational health priorities, like board governance, fundraising, or strategic planning, that grantees can access when facing particular roadblocks

• Provide multiple formats (guides, videos, templates, checklists) to match different learning preferences

• Expert guidance for addressing specific organizational challenges that require a tailored approach

• Templates and tools that provide immediate implementation support

Facilitate Peer Networking

Leverage the collective wisdom within your grantee portfolio through intentional peer learning opportunities. Reducing the isolation many nonprofit leaders feel and building confidence through shared problem-solving.

Approaches to consider

• Common Missions - Identify grantees working on similar organizational development priorities

• Networking - Design low-pressure connection opportunities (informal meetings, shared resources)

• Peer Learning - Facilitate structured peer learning sessions focused on specific challenges

• Open Communication - Create ongoing communication channels for continued collaboration

• Inspire Through Success - Share success stories from grantees showcasing effective organizational solutions

Have Expert Partners Ready to Assist

Build your network of partnerships so you’re able to deploy capacity building that’s outside your foundation’s direct capabilities. Trusted partners with established capacity building methods extend your foundation's reach, helping you scale your support. 

Approaches to consider

• Local Experts - Consultants or organizations specializing in nonprofit organizational development for the areas you support

• Subject Matter Experts - Specialists across your portfolio’s top organizational health areas

• Technology Providers - Platforms offering comprehensive capacity building resources

• Membership Associations: Shared capacity building investments with other funders or philanthropy serving organizations

Foundations seeing the greatest success combine multiple approaches—technology platforms for breadth, expert guidance for depth, and peer networks for sustainability. These systems continue to strengthen your relationships with grantees by ensuring access to the organizational development support they need to maximize their impact.

The cavat is that implementing capacity building infrastructure can tax your organization and spread your resources thin, when they may be better utilized on strategy and relationships. That’s when you should consider partners like Resilia, who already have all of this structure already in place, ready to deploy to your grantees.

Resillia is the leading all-in-one capacity building platform for foundations. We provide 24/7 tools, coaching, and real-time progress tracking.