ArtsLab

The Marguerite Casey Foundation Organizational Capacity Assessment Tool is a self-assessment instrument that helps nonprofits identify capacity strengths and challenges and establish capacity building goals. It is primarily a diagnostic and learning tool. Results from the Assessment also can also help grantmakers deepen their understanding of the current capacity of their grantees as well as track their growth in capacity over time.

Individuals completing the assessment are asked to rate their organization on a variety of capacity elements. The capacity elements are clustered into four dimensions of nonprofit organizational capacity as delineated by The Conservation Group (TCG). Essentially, the assessment is designed to help key members of an organization:

• better understand the strengths and weaknesses of the organization’s leadership (leadership capacity);
• measure the organization’s ability to monitor, assess and respond to internal and external changes (adaptive capacity);
• measure the ability of the organization to utilize resources effectively (management capacity); and
• better understand how well the organization is able to implement key organizational and programmatic functions (operational capacity).
It is the work of the Marguerite Casey Foundation around the four capacity areas that led to the ArtsLab grounding. You may access the tool at the Marguerite Casey Foundation website.