Capacity-Building Grants: Learn to Be a Self-Sustaining Nonprofit, Part 1

Here, Gagen and Holly Harper, director of community benefit for the Sutter Health Sacramento Sierra Region, describe some of the keys 3fold Communications assists nonprofits with to become self-sustaining:

• Establish strong leadership. "Strong leadership, a strong board of directors and a strong executive director are crucial to the success of this grant," Harper says. "Because if you give a capacity-building grant to someone who doesn't have the capacity already at a certain level to sustain it once 3fold steps out, it can fail."
• Learn how to market.
• Develop a philanthropic program.
• Diversify funding. "Determine how to get additional grants from a variety of foundations, and don't rely on one resource for the bulk of funding," Gagen says.
• Identify and track key metrics.
• Develop a strategic plan in concert with a fundraising plan.
• Understand your organization's objective and communicate it. "If we're going to give people money, we want to understand what their end objective is and what their metrics are so that we know whether they've met their objective or not," Gagen says. "We're not necessarily here to help set what their objective is, but we do want to make sure that they've used any money that we contribute wisely."

To date, the capacity-building program has been a success. Each of the first three recipients — Youth Development Network, River City Food Bank and Cottage Housing Inc. — has seen significant improvement in the short term and is better positioned for the long term.

"We want to treat these organizations like small businesses — not just small agencies that get handouts — because they are small businesses. So we're going to ask them for things," Gagen says. "Do you have a board of directors? Do you have a website? Do you have collateral materials? Do you embark on PR campaigns? Do you have or are you developing a philanthropic campaign? These are the types of things any fledgling business would want to do."