Reimagining Capacity Building: Navigating Culture, Systems, & Power
Strengthening nonprofit organizations and supporting their sustainability is an essential part of our work as grantmakers. The majority of staffed foundations, 86 percent, do just that by investing in organizational infrastructure activities such as leadership development, fundraising, evaluation, communications, and technology.
While capacity building is critical to our work, traditional capacity building models tend not to account for culture, systems, and power in their design, failing to keep equity centered in their approach. Without thoroughly assessing assumptions and values, capacity building initiatives can reinforce patterns of harm and systemic inequities.
In their latest publication, Reimagining Capacity Building, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) provides vital principles for centering equity in our capacity building efforts, explores the way inequities can show up, and offers steps we can take to address and mitigate those inequities.
Join Maryland Philanthropy Network and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations for this interactive and engaging workshop. Our speakers Akilah Massey, Vice President of Programs and Mareeha Niaz, Director of Programs at Grantmakers for Effective Organizations will give a deep dive into the practices highlighted in their resource and efforts around capacity building. Through national examples and Maryland voices, participants will ideas about how shifts in practices lead to meaningful change for communities.
This program is for Maryland Philanthropy Network and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations members only.
Speakers
Akilah Massey (she/her/hers) is a Vice President of Programs at Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and an experienced program designer with over a decade of experience creating educational programs for grantmakers. Before joining GEO, she developed programming at Exponent Philanthropy, an association of small-staffed grantmakers. While at Exponent Philanthropy, she spearheaded the CONNECT Conference, led Exponent Philanthropy’s technology content area, and collaborated with partners to build a variety of programming on philanthropy-related topics to improve the effectiveness of small-staffed grantmakers. At the start of her career, Akilah worked at a small Cleveland-area children’s rehabilitation hospital, where she got to interact with very cool kids every day. She currently volunteers as a Court-Appointed Special Advocate or CASA in Washington, DC, working in a different capacity with children currently in the foster care system.
Mareeha Niaz (she/her/hers) is Director of Programs overseeing peer learning and partnership programming at Grantmakers for Effective Organizations. As part of GEO’s program team, she co-creates initiatives with partners aimed at transforming philanthropic culture and practice. Before joining GEO, Mareeha managed leadership programs at Independent Sector, a national organization working to strengthen civil society. She started her career in foreign affairs, working to support the needs of the American-Pakistani population. Mareeha is passionate about food security, racial equity, and mental health. She currently serves as board chair for Common Good City Farm in Washington DC and is part of ProInspire’s Network Leadership Council.
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