Assessing the Effectiveness of Capacity-Building Initiatives: Seven Issues for the Field

Abstract

Two recent trends in philanthropy—increased focus on measurable outcomes and greater investment in capacity building or organizational effectiveness—lead to an important question: How should we go about measuring the effectiveness of capacity-building efforts? Consulting and evaluation perspectives offer two very different, sometimes conflicting approaches to it. Without sound and positive evaluation results, the foundations that have been behind the capacity-building trend are unlikely to continue to make these kinds of much needed resources available to nonprofits generally, whether they in truth work or not. Seven unresolved issues, that neither consultants nor evaluators can so far answer, put continued funding for capacity building at risk. The article lays out the seven issues and discusses their implications for the design, management, and evaluation of capacity-building initiatives. The article closes with next steps for moving forward.