Consultants in the Nonprofit Sector
There are debates underway within the capacity building, and to some extent, the nonprofit academic communities, concerning how best to enact nonprofit strategy and bring about nonprofit accountability and effectiveness. To us, what appears to be lacking within this debate is a clear and useful conceptual framework for what capacity building entails.
Our materials (tools, articles, and curriculum) work from what we see as a different mindset about capacity building…one that insists on paying attention to an organization’s stage of development and that embeds an organization in the knowledge of its field and the inter-agency system that serves its constituents. We are not so concerned with fundraising, as we believe that funding generally follows extraordinary work. As noted on our opening page, we are very concerned about how to create extraordinary work in community. So, we have focused our practice to promote, teach, and build skills in these areas: strategy management, sufficient internal systems infrastructure, client centered practice, best practice research, collaborative models, organizational learning and adequately prepared managers and supervisors.
Recent debates about the worth of capacity building call for a “new generation of tools” to support the growth and evolution of nonprofits. We want to contribute to the evolution of these new tools. In order to do that, we have realized that we must share what we have learned from 35 years of combined practice in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors; make available what we have created; and, through a community of practice, support other practitioners to use our tools and materials.
We invite our colleagues to download our articles and, if you like our perspective and our values, contact us about using our materials. We will support your efforts to integrate our tools into your practice and will welcome your participation in a community of practitioners who share our values and principles.
Current articles available:
- Systems Participation: A New Performance Criteria
- Client Centered Models: Implications for Management
- Our Model of Strategic Management for Nonprofit Organizations
- Funders of the Nonprofit Sector as Learning Organizations
- The Question of Sustainability: A Challenge for the Decision Makers who Make Investments in the Nonprofit Sector
- Norm setting: Key to shaping organizational culture