Capacity Building Resources

The Women's Foundation of California believes in building the capacity and skills of community-based organizations in order to help California's communities identify their needs and potential solution, effectively communicate these issues to policymakers and opinion leaders and mobilize their members and leaders to action.

This section is intended to provide resources for nonprofit organizations to strengthen their capacity in order to effect change. 

The Women's Foundation of California has no formal association with the organizations listed within and does not endorse their services. This section is intended simply as a directory of organizations that we have identified because we know of their capacity-building and technical assistance work. We have tried to identify organizations that we think use a gender lens and have a commitment to social, racial, economic and environmental justice. If you think there are other organizations that should be added to this list, please contact Annabel Alvarez, program assistant, grantmaking and scholarships, annabela@womensfoundca.org. Thank you.
 

Creating Capacity and Connections: An Evaluation of the Foundation's Reproductive Justice Program

The Women’s Foundation of California recently partnered with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and BTW Informing Change to conduct an external evaluation of the reproductive justice and sexual rights work the Foundation has been doing since 2001, including grantmaking, capacity-building and policy advocacy trainings.

Through the evaluation, we sought to learn more from the organizations and leaders we support and about the impact of our work and the success of our current strategies. We are very pleased to report that the evaluation results were extremely positive.

Through their relationship with the Women’s Foundation of California, grant partners and Women’s Policy Institute Fellows reported that they had:

• Stronger knowledge and skills relating to reproductive health, rights and justice as well as policy advocacy and social justice movement building

“The Women’s Foundation of California is filling a much-needed niche in the reproductive rights movement. The Foundation gives community-based projects and leaders the skills, knowledge and information they need to be part of the movement. It builds bridges between community groups and connects them to the broader movement and policies.”

• More opportunities for networking resulting in deepened relationships with colleagues within the reproductive health, rights and justice fields as well as other social justice fields

“We have built invaluable relationships with Foundation staff and women around the state that have helped us further the effectiveness of our work and push ourselves in our broader social justice vision.”

• Enhanced visibility and credibility both in their field and in the community

“When we started, we did outreach and organizing for bills sponsored by other organizations. Now we can break out of the supportive role and take a leadership role in policy efforts. I don’t think we would have had the confidence to do the work of co-sponsoring a bill without this safety net of the Foundation’s support.”

• Greater financial stability

“It is invaluable to have a funder that truly feels like ‘one of you’ rather than an ivory tower entity that doesn’t get it. The Women’s Foundation of California feels like an allied organization.”

Lessons learned from this evaluation will inform and strengthen the Foundation’s reproductive justice and sexual rights work. Results are being disseminated to other organizations working in the fields of reproductive health, rights and justice as well as to other foundations and philanthropic colleagues.

Click here to read the full report.