What Will Capacity Building Look Like In This Decade?
by mollypenn
I believe that capacity building will look different in the years ahead. I’m not sure in what ways yet, but like all periods of upheaval, this one will generate new ways of understanding and improving how nonprofits fulfill their missions.
The fiscal crisis of the 1970′s trimmed the nonprofit landscape, and what emerged was a renewed focus on individual giving as the best source of general operating support for organizations. The 1980′s easy credit decade saw many nonprofits taking on debt to leverage their assets for growth. Social entrepreneurship was also prominent in the 1980′s – all for the sake of growth, which became the holy grail in the nonprofit world as it did in the for profit world. The 1990′s stock market boom generated so much easy spending that ironically, there emerged a strong emphasis on accountability and assessment (which only now is hitting the for-profit markets!). So what will the next decade bring?
Rather than waiting to see what the new developments will be, I want to ask my colleauges, clients, and fellow third sector participants for their input. I am curious what is on your minds – what do you want to know right now? If you run a nonprofit, what kind of information about your organization would be helpful for you to know more about? Do you want an evaluation of your development function, an assessment of program viability, financial stability, board functioning, organizational culture? If you are a consultant, what are you seeing across the field as emerging areas of focus or ways in which we can be helpful to nonprofits? If you are a foundation, where do you see need emerging in the third sector? How can we think together proactively about these questions and begin to shape what the next decade will generate?
I invite you to check out my twitter page and respond to this feed so we can generate some useful dialogue around this issue and begin to shape the coming trends together through our collective thought leadership.
Please visit me at @3dSector on Twitter and give me your comments, or feel free to submit longer comments here!
