Are We All on the Same Page? Using Data and Dialogue to Understand Nonprofit Capacity Building

Abstract

Although scholarly measurement of nonprofit capacities has been a key element in the search for effective and sustainable capacity building efforts, practitioners recognize and struggle with definitions and perceptions that remain ambiguous. To date, few studies have embraced these important conceptual tensions, especially from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders in an effort to integrate and triangulate findings in a more applied context. Our study provides a lens on why both research and practice may be applying highly contextual definitions that our data show as not being broadly generalizable across nonprofit subsectors and important stakeholder groups. Our analyses demonstrate that capacity building may not be one-size- fits-all, with no easy, transferable pattern stemming from a survey-driven assessment of nonprofit capacities. Our qualitative analyses of focus groups and a day- long dialog of stakeholders including foundation funders, business funders, government funders, individual donors, nonprofits, and nonprofit capacity building consultants illuminate that there is a meaningful need for a deeper understanding of multiple perspectives of both capacity and capacity building across stakeholder groups.