Sustaining Nonprofit Performance: The Case for Capacity Building and the Evidence to Support It

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“The current crisis is unlike anything the nonprofit sector has ever faced. . . . The past three years have created a ‘guilty-untilproven innocent’ climate that affects almost everything that matters to nonprofits; from raising money and managing volunteers to balancing the books and recruiting employees.” “Public confidence is essential to the nation’s 1.5 million nonprofits and the 11 million Americans they employ. Confidence clearly affects the public’s willingness to donate time and money, shapes the political and regulatory environment that governs nonprofits, and has at least some influence on morale within the nonprofit work force.” “No matter where the organization might be in time and place, capacity building is a potentially high-yield, low-cost investment that can improve program success dramatically.” “Capacity-building activities such as planning, reorganizing, training , and communicating lead to increased capacity measured by organizational outputs such as improved morale, focus, efficiency , and productivity.” “The cost of any given effort may not be a significant predictor of success, but adequate funding most certainly is. . . . Outside funding can increase the odds that total funding will cross the tipping point for success.” PAUL C. LIGHT is the Paulette Goddard Professor at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at New York University. He is also a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he founded the Center for Public Service. Light is the author of several books, among them The Four Pillars of High Performance, Government’s Greatest Achievements, Pathways to Nonprofit Excellence, and The Tides of Reform. Cover design / illustration: Claude Goodwin BROOKINGS INSTITUTION PRESS Washington, D.C. www.brookings.edu Highlights from Sustaining Nonprofit Performance Sustaining Nonprofit Performance ...