Capacity Building
We provide financial support for organisational development and capacity building. This support helps partners grow stronger to better attain their grant objectives and achieve their goals. We provide this support directly to partners by providing grants or connecting partners with consultants.
Partners can use the grant funds to support any capacity issue they consider a priority for their organisation. These include:
Foundational support: to help partners to comply with basic processes such as legal and financial or fiscal requirements, registration and taxation, or security and wellbeing.
Direct response: support which responds to specific challenges organisations face in their daily work, such as fundraising, strategic communications, leadership, or programme design.
Organisational development: support for organisational transformation for institutions undergoing significant change due to a shift in programme focus, expansion to new regions, a change in leadership, or the impact of external factors.
Field building: support for organisations that offer capacity development to other not-for-profit organisations or that develop resources, such as research or tools, which benefit civil society as a whole.
Illustrations created by Bill Crooks/INTRAC
Our videos
You can find all our capacity-building related videos here.
The importance of capacity support
Strengthening the work of our partners is a priority. To find out what capacity building at Oak is all about, watch this video to hear our colleagues explain the importance of capacity building in the creation of institutionally strong organisations.
Working with local partners for high-quality capacity-building support
If you are an Oak partner and would like to be considered for capacity-building support, please reach out to your programme officer who will put you in touch with Adriana Craciun, our senior adviser for organisational development and capacity building.
The three principles that guide our work
Collaboration & Partnership
We strive to foster collaboration and partnership with and among our partners, as well as with other funders providing capacity building support.
Ownership
We seek to ensure that our partners own their organisational development and capacity building efforts. We always consider the local constraints affecting them.
Ongoing processes
We view capacity building and organisational development as ongoing processes that require persistence, patience and flexibility.
Helping partners reach their planned outcomes
We provide financial support for organisational development and capacity building. This support helps partners grow stronger to better attain their grant objectives and achieve their goals. We provide this support directly to partners by providing grants or connecting partners with consultants.
- Effective organisational leaders, with the courage and humility to demonstrate difficult decision-making, which will in turn enable staff to perform and adapt to change.
- High-performing organisations delivering meaningful, measurable, and sustainable results, from the perspective of the people or the causes the organisation serves.
- Effective networks with compelling strategies that complement the work of their members.
- Intermediary grant-makers with the strategies, knowledge, skills, attitudes, and trust to support their own partners’ organisational development and capacity building effectively.
- In-country consultants and civil society support organisations that can offer a range of high-quality organisational development and capacity building services demanded and needed by Oak partners.
Our latest stories
Our latest publications
How to access organisational development and capacity building support
Oak partners and grantees interested in capacity building and organisational development support should contact their responsible programme officer directly. If you are not an Oak partners, please read this page to find out more about our grant-making.