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Grantee-Driven Capacity Building

Trusted by foundations and leading national and regional philanthropies, Catalyst puts grantees in charge of their own capacity development, while supporting them with a scaffolded process, expert guidance, and high-quality provider options.

Learn more below about how Catalyst can help build grantee capacity, while also informing your grantmaking.

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We Help Funders...

Support Grantee Needs

Support Grantee Needs

Effectively support grantees with different needs and contexts in becoming more effective, innovative, equitable, and resilient.

Center Grantee Perspectives

Center Grantee Perspectives

Honor grantees' perspectives and preferences, while ensuring they have the support needed to reach their full potential.

Learn and Apply Insights

Learn and Apply Insights

Learn from grantees' experiences and leverage insights to inform your work and the broader sector.

Interested in Learning More?

Get in touch with the Catalyst team.

1500+ orgs have used Catalyst to achieve their goals.

Build Grantee Capacity & Inform Your Grantmaking

We partner with you to strengthen grantee effectiveness while generating insights to guide your grantmaking. Together, we help grantees grow, access the right support, and amplify what works.

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Identify & Address Needs

We help grantees assess their needs, build capacity plans, and access expert support to meet their goals.

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Power High-Impact Projects

We power grantee efforts by funding individualized, high-impact capacity-building projects and creating opportunities to learn from peer experiences.

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Generate Insights for Smarter Giving

We track grantee progress, identify what’s working, and connect the dots across projects to surface patterns and build collective knowledge.

"Our grantees are much more aware of their areas of strength and growth - and how those change over time - due to our partnership with Catalyst. As a trusted partner and intermediary, I believe they have built trust with our grantees to have open and honest conversations about the places where they struggle which is not normative in the funder-grantee relationship."

Funder Feedback

Annual Survey 2022

"We have been able to track increases in grantee capacity in areas that are central to achieving the outcomes of these multi-year, multi-million dollar grants because of the data provided through Catalyst's periodic capacity assessments. We have been able to make smarter decisions about where to invest our money in capacity building supports based on these data, and our grantees have been able to pinpoint and access support in places where they specifically need to improve. It's been a game changer."

Funder Feedback

Annual Survey 2022

"Our partnership with Catalyst has been a great way for us to make sure our ventures get the thoughtful and timely support they need to build strong organizations. The breadth and depth of expertise in the Catalyst Network ensures that leaders across our portfolio can access coaching and consulting help in any area."

Frances Messano

CEO, New Schools Venture Fund

"Working with Catalyst has made our work better, and I know our portfolio of grantees appreciate the partnership. The team is smart and so responsive. They have direct experience working in our field, so they can relate to the needs of our grantees. They listen really well and, more importantly, are proactive and creative in coming up with ideas for problem-solving and meeting the support needs of our grantees."

Funder Feedback

Annual Survey 2022

Components

We design and create each process keeping in mind the foundation’s specific priorities and the profile of its grantees. Each grantee is matched with a dedicated Capacity Advisor from our team, who supports them through their capacity building journey. Key components include:

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Diagnostic and Action Planning

Our Capacity Advisors facilitate a capacity assessment with each grantee to understand where they are, identify their biggest capacity building priorities and develop an action plan that takes grantee contexts and available resources into account.
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Provider Matching

Our Capacity Advisors develop thoughtful scopes of work for each capacity building priority. We then guide grantees through our signature matching process, where we identify a curated list of qualified providers from our diverse network and support them in identifying the right partner.
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Contracting and Payment

Our team handles all consultant invoices and payment processing via “consulting wallets”, so your grantees don’t need to sweat the details.
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Data and Insights

We capture feedback and data from grantees and selected consultants at specific points before, during, and after capacity-building efforts. Important trends and insights are shared with the foundation via a dashboard and reports for progress-tracking and decision-making.
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Oak Foundation Partnership

Catalyst partnered with Oak Foundation to support several of its grantee partners in strengthening their organizational capacity so they can better support students with learning differences. Grantee organizations received comprehensive, equity-centered support, including diagnostics for self-reflection, advisory services from Catalyst, and tailored capacity building.

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NewSchools Partnership

Catalyst has partnered with NewSchools Venture Fund since 2017 to provide capacity building to successive cohorts of grantees. Grantees have appreciated the depth of expertise and diversity of providers in the Catalyst Network and the thoughtful and timely support they received from their Capacity Advisors in order to build strong organizations.

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Networks for School Improvement (NSI) Partnership

Catalyst connected the Networks of School Improvement grantees of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation K12 team with their peers, vetted providers, and knowledge resources. Catalyst takes each grantee through a capacity assessment framework, based on which grantees are connected to customized supports and resources. The NSI Exchange has since spurred us to launch the Learning Lab for School Improvement Teams, a public-facing resource for teams interested in incorporating networked improvement practices into their work.

Our Funding Partners