Reviving Capacity Building at the Meyer Foundation
Last summer, we asked our grantee partners to tell us about their capacity building needs. We’d already committed to reviving our capacity building programs in 2023 but before we put a word on our website about capacity building offerings we wanted to know: What would be most useful and relevant to grantee partners doing racial and economic justice work in our region?
What would be most useful and relevant to grantee partners doing racial and economic justice work in our region?
Through a series of focus groups and one-on-one video calls in June and July, we talked to 66 organizations — representing more than two thirds of our grantee partners currently funded under our core grantmaking. We are grateful for the time grantee partners devoted to these conversations and for the generosity they showed in sharing their insights with us.
Some of what we heard in these conversations confirmed what we at the Meyer Foundation have learned from our more than two decades of supporting capacity building. Grantee partners want flexibility with resources and the ability to customize projects to meet their organization’s own unique needs.
Many described time as their most precious resource and are eager for support that could free up more time for community work and guarantee themselves much-needed rest. Ideas include easy access to vetted, culturally responsive consultants and vendors they can reliably turn to when they need outside help, or connections to affordable, truly accessible space for both staff needs and community meetings. In one of the most expensive real estate markets in the county, it is no surprise that accessing space is one of the biggest challenges many organizations face.
Fundraising and communications are long-standing nonprofit organizational development needs, including for Meyer’s grantee partners. But new issues that emerged during the pandemic — support for healing and wellness activities, guidance in crafting equity-centered HR policies, and advice in navigating internal culture challenges — were just as frequently cited as pressing challenges.
There is enthusiasm for convenings that bring leaders and organizations together to build relationships and learn from each other, but lukewarm-at-best interest in organized cohorts for shared group learning. (Duly noted!)
Our first step back into capacity building begins in earnest on October 16, when we open our grantee portal for Organizational Development (OD) grants. You can read more about these grants and how to apply for them, here. You can also learn more about Field Building grants, through which we aim to strengthen the ecosystem in which grantee partners work, here.
Coming in 2024: making more consultants available to grantee partners free of charge, something that was at the top of grantee partners’ wish list and that we’ve begun on a small scale this year. Next year, we will also share details of the Restoration Fund, through which Meyer will provide resources to support the healing and wellness needs of grantee partners, including sabbaticals.
Meyer alone can’t address every issue our grantee partners named, but this rich feedback will continue to guide us. It will help ensure that we offer programs and resources that our grantee partners want and need and that will build on their strengths for long-term racial and economic justice work.
The focus groups and one-on-one video calls opened a conversation between Meyer and our grantee partners that I hope to continue. If you have an idea that you’d like to share with me, especially about projects that would strengthen the larger ecosystem in which you work, I hope you’ll sign up for a phone call with me.
