Organisational Capacity Building: Understanding the Dilemmas for Foundations of Intervening in Small- and Medium-Size Charities

Abstract

There has been a growing trend for foundations to invest in capacity building to improve the effectiveness of third sector organisations (TSOs). However, understanding of what makes for effective capacity building is not well developed. This article contributes to the development of theory in this area through an in-depth examination of an innovative foundation, which has a longstanding history of capacity building with small- and medium-sized charities in the UK. The findings from this research are related to the developing literature in this field to extend an existing typology of approaches to capacity building and to develop and refine a number of factors that have previously been associated with successful capacity building initiatives by foundations. In particular, it argues that current prescriptions are too simple and that foundations face a number of tensions when pursuing capacity building programmes, which have to be managed and call for difficult judgements to be made.