Network Capacity Building Initiatives: Thinking Big for Impact and Sustainability

Date:  Wednesday, July 18, 9:00am - 3:30pm
Price:  $125 Members; $150 Non-Members

Presenters:  Sandy Jacobsen and Ron McKinley, Fieldstone Alliance

Network capacity-building initiatives that strengthen networks, communities and industries can be more effective and build scale more quickly than fragmented efforts with individual organizations.  These large initiatives link the resources and use multiple impact strategies to build capacity across a broad spectrum of organizations, setting the stage for far greater community impact and sustainability.  This in-depth session will explore high-impact network capacity building initiatives, including the operating framework, the successful strategies used, pitfalls encountered, and the outcomes. 

Fieldstone Alliance has developed numerous multi-year network and community capacity-building initiatives, which combine multiple impact strategies such as consulting, training, peer learning, coaching, and the use of assessment and evaluation tools.  These initiatives strengthen the leadership, knowledge-sharing, resource development, and capacity of networks, communities, and nonprofits in a common industry or geography.  Linking resources of organizations within a city or across geographic communities rapidly builds scale.  Sandy Jacobsen, a Principal Consultant with Fieldstone Alliance, will lead a full-day session, allowing the participants sufficient time to explore the positive aspects and the challenges of this emerging aspect of capacity building work. 

The session will explore two to three examples of network capacity building initiatives, including the Kellogg Action Lab.  Ron McKinley, Project Director of the Kellogg Action Lab, will highlight the elements of that significant three-year initiative. The highlights of real-time examples will frame the group discussion that follows, as the participants explore what worked, what did not, and how that informs the design of future initiatives.

The target audience includes grantmakers, management support organizations, community-based capacity builders and others.

About the Presenters

Sandy Jacobsen, Fieldstone Alliance
Sandy Jacobsen, Managing Consultant, has over 25 years experience in leadership development, capacity building and organizational transitions in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. She is able to apply her extensive practical experience to almost any challenge leaders and their organizations face. Sandy was a senior manager in the financial services industry, working with corporate, nonprofit, and government clients throughout the United States. Sandy served as president of two banks, launched the community development department for a $70 billion financial institution serving eleven states, was the interim executive director of a nonprofit, and has served on several nonprofit boards. She specializes in network capacity building initiatives, organizational assessments, knowledge-sharing and leadership development, and trains on Financial Leadership, Coping with Cutbacks, and Collaboration. She has degrees in economics and psychology, and is contributing author of A Funder's Guide to Organizational Assessment.

Ron McKinley,  Fieldstone Alliance
Throughout his career, Ron McKinley has been committed to social and economic justice. His past positions include: director of Wilder Center for Communities at the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation; vice president of The St. Paul Companies, Inc Foundation; executive director of the Minnesota Minority Education Partnership; senior program officer at the Minneapolis Foundation; director of Issue Advocacy and Community Outreach at the Urban Coalition of Minneapolis; director of the Native American Educational Leadership Preparation Project at the Red Schoolhouse; and coordinator of American Indian programs at Macalester College.