Capacity Building to Move the Needle: In Conversation With Wendy Chang

Grantmaking foundations and nonprofits have long worked together to effect positive change. But what does a truly collaborative and trust-based partnership look like, and how can that type of relationship lead to transformative results for both nonprofits and their communities?

Cause Communications Founder Chris Hershey and Wendy Chang, Director of the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund — two veteran changemakers — recently sat down to talk about how investing in capacity building can make all the difference.

This conversation took place on April 9, 2021 and has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Chris Hershey (RCH): You were early to the idea of capacity building and even pushed me to start communications trainings, which have now become a mainstay of our work. How did you come to see the need?

Wendy Chang (WC): Our vision at the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund is helping communities’ most vulnerable children. When that’s your mission you can’t ever give up or stop trying new solutions. That means we have to invest in people, which is what capacity building is. It’s embedded in all that we do. We have over 12 partnerships with organizations like Cause that provide training for grantees – training in leadership, fundraising, organizational management. And in 2020, COVID led us to develop new rapid response technology capacity building grants.

RCH: It reminds me of “whole person care” — surrounding people with the resources they need to succeed. You put your grantees at the center.

WC: You can’t expect quality program expansion or year-to-year organizational growth to just happen. While I understand that the power dynamic of funder and grantee is delicate and sometimes difficult to maneuver, progress in philanthropy happens when we create the space to understand an organization’s basic infrastructure and needs in order to get to innovative practices. The only way for our approach to work well is if the grantee organization trusts me with the truth. If they’re showing this perfect picture all the time, then I probably won’t think they need any assistance or suggest the organization for our next training or development program. As the saying goes, progress happens at the speed of trust.

RCH: In these times with so many horrific things happening, I keep thinking about the trust needed for deeper communications. I keep thinking about what makes any of us let someone in enough to have these truthful conversations. You do work with very diverse audiences. Is there anything that you’ve found that helps build that trust more quickly?

WC: The key is connecting with grant partners often enough that they feel safe to tell me what’s going on. There are many executive directors who call me to just bounce around ideas even if they’re really in trouble. The true partnerships are when we see ourselves as an ecosystem of activists and leaders, nonprofits, management support organizations, foundations, and government institutions. Rather than focusing on the “right” time or “right” issue to be heard, better to join conversations that allows us to build deeper alignment with our ecosystem/partners. People will value sustained efforts.

RCH: You have a similar philosophy to Cause, in that we believe everything needs to stem from community. That by being at the ground level, we can get to the ground truth. How did you get to where the people know more than the institutions so that it’s about strengthening and helping the folks that are doing the work? What led you there?

WC: My entire life I’ve worked in predominantly white spaces. I’ve been the one person of color or the one Asian at the table for decades now. When I was younger, that kept me quiet. Then I realized the culture was built around systems that sustained power and control. I get that it’s hard to let go of control and power. But this is a structural problem that we cannot decorate over. I’m not a superwoman at combating structural racism, yet I do what I can to step up and lead open and challenging discussions around racial equity, cultural equity, and social justice. It is almost painful how many commitments I say “yes” to, but I think that is how we embrace and demonstrate inclusiveness.

RCH: For foundation leaders or grantmakers who are committed to equity, what advice might you have for them?

WC: What I say is: What does one step further look like? It doesn’t have to be so daunting to take that one step towards equity. Again, recognizing that trust takes a lot of time. And we do have to re-imagine a lot of systems and policies and how we engage community to address all of these inequities. But also, there’s no single funding strategy that can erase impact of generations of racism and inequality. So, we have to look at what we can do to move the needle. I think like never before we can actually talk explicitly about race with philanthropy.

RCH: With all that’s happening today, how can strengthening communications positively impact an organization’s ability to advance the most urgent and complex issues such as equity and racial justice?

WC: In general, it takes real people telling their stories to communicate the complex issues of our time. The most engaging and creative campaigns and materials really convey that depth and humanness. For me, communicating with an equity and racial lens means you’re lifting up and celebrating differences to ensure that change and reforms are adequate.

RCH: Some organizations may still be wondering if capacity building is worth it. And if capacity building, why communications? Why do you feel the investment is worth it?

WC: Usually, people are just very inconsistent with their language. Today, with the kind of multiple crises out there — social, political and economic — it’s so important to be explicit, clear, and unwavering. The vagueness of what we say in our safe spaces just won’t cut it anymore because it’s really hard to gain support that way. It’s more critical than ever to look at communications in a deliberate, strategic, ongoing way. To help our grantees do that, our model of capacity building is a combination of individualized coaching, a peer network, and skills that are actionable — skills based off of Cause’s Communications Toolkit.

During the pandemic, when everybody was scrambling to pivot their programming and fundraising, we did these trainings virtually. Many of the participants credit being in Cause’s training program as what kept them sane and able to meet these critical communication demands. Many of them even surpassed their fundraising goals of regular years. That shows the power of capacity building in the moment and as a way to lay the groundwork for success and sustainability in the future.

To learn more about the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund and explore their library of capacity building resources, please visit https://www.dsyf.org/.