Organizational Capacity Building
Overview
This section provides resources and tools to grow organizations that can sustain racial equity work, with attention to their internal processes as well as their capacities to work on equity. Many organizational development practices and capacity building tools do not integrate structural racism analysis. This section includes resources that may have some helpful information or tools but may not have this analysis. Modifying a tool to have this analysis is about understanding how some processes privilege particular groups and people (often white people compared to people of color, middle class and wealthy people compared to working class and poor people, those with an extensive formal education compared to those without an extensive formal education, native English speakers over non-native English speakers, heterosexuals over those who identify as LGBTQ, etc.) and marginalize others. Please see the Reviewing Resources Tip Sheet when using some of these tools.
It is fundamental for organizations working on racial equity issues to assess and improve their own practices - governance, decision-making, resource allocation, hiring, and promotion and so on - on a regular basis. Why? To ensure that the organizations’ practices and policies reflect the just and inclusive system being created, rather than the unjust and discriminatory one being dismantled.
Tools
- Board Member Asset Map: Sustainability: Defining a Legacy, Creating Community Peace
- Building Organizational Capacity for Social Justice
- A Framework For Inclusive Governance: The Continuum From Exclusion To Inclusion
- Organizational Capacity Assessment Tool
- Reclaiming Our Social Justice Organizations
- What If? The Art of Scenario Thinking for Nonprofits
- Chronicles of Change: An Organization's Guide to Theory of Change
- Building Organizational Capacity for Social Justice: Framework, Approach & Tools
- Service and Social Change
- Defend Our Movements: Digital Self-Defense Knowledge Base
- The Iambrown Consensus Process Flow Chart
Research
- Catalyst For Change: How California Non-Profits can Deliver Direct Service and Transform Communities (Part One)
- Providing Technical Assistance to Build Organizational Capacity
- Vital Voices: Lessons Learned from Board Members of Color
Practices
- Engagement Governance for System-Wide Decision-Making
- From the Bottom Up: Strategies and Practices for Membership‐Based Organizations
- Organization Development for Social Change: An Integrated Approach to Community Transformation
- Social Justice Capacity Building
- New Roles, Few Rules: Planning for Purpose Beyond Position
- Tools for Transformation
- Stories Worth Telling: A Guide to Strategic and Sustainable Nonprofit Storytelling
- Weathering the Storms: Building Social Justice Resilience Against Opposition Attacks
- Nonprofits Integrating Community Engagement (NICE) Guide
- Seeking Everyday Opportunities To Be Network-Like
- A 70-Day Web Security Action Plan for Artists and Activists Under Siege
- Race to Lead: Confronting the Nonprofit Racial Leadership Gap
- 25 Things Awesome Board Members Do
- Hiring: Building the Team You Want
- Five Year Reflection: Aligning Board and Staff
- Building Capacity to Influence Public Policy: How the Annie E. Casey Foundation is Equipping Nonprofits to Advocate More Effectively
- The Roles of Foundation Board Trustees and Foundation Staff Must Radically Change
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Nonprofit Bylaws
- Building a Strategic Thinking Organization
