What is capacity
building?
According to the National Council of Nonprofits, “capacity building is not just about the capacity of a nonprofit
today -- it's about the nonprofit’s ability to deliver its mission effectively
now, and in the future. Capacity building is an investment in the
effectiveness and future sustainability of a nonprofit.”
While we’d all like to
envision a near future where food banks, food pantries, and soup kitchens are
no longer needed, our collective work of providing hunger relief is likely to
be a reality for some time to come. As long as there are food insecure people
with nowhere else to turn, we are committed to ensuring that our system of
providing assistance is strong and stable.
Good Shepherd Food Bank’s Capacity Building Program is a collection of actions we take to assist our
partner network in maintaining healthy programs of food support in communities
across Maine.
Capacity building work
can take on many different forms, from developing a strong communication and
outreach strategy, improving volunteer recruitment and retention, updating
equipment and technology, measuring and telling the story of program impact,
and ensuring there is a leadership succession plan. Our 2017 Partner Agency
Survey was a step in the direction of understanding what areas of capacity
building we can provide the most impactful support.
One of the first steps
we are taking is to better understand the equipment needs of our partners. We
understand that lack of cold storage or inadequate storage facilities can have
a big impact on your ability to serve your community. Equipment also happens to
be an item for which we regularly have donors happy to provide funding. Up until
this point, when we are offered a funding opportunity we’ve had to do some educated
guess work about how big the need is for a particular equipment item. For
instance, if a donor provides us funding to purchase twenty refrigerators, it
hasn’t been easy to figure out which programs in our network have a need for a
refrigerator in that moment. We occasionally have donors say they’ll donate a
certain amount of money and ask what the equipment or infrastructure needs are
in our network, and again, this has been hard to answer in real time.
For the reasons stated
above, we are asking all our partners to let us know your equipment needs now
so that we have a running list that we can reference when donations become
available. A list of known needs will also help us seek out support in a more
informed way. Please see the survey (here) in this issue where you can
enter your program’s equipment and technology needs. Keep this link and update
it regularly.
With this information on
hand, we will be able to connect available funding to known needs more quickly
and avoid lengthy and complicated grant application processes whenever
possible. Please take the time to complete the survey so that your program is
included when funding for your needs becomes available.