1.   How long have you been involved in nonprofit capacity building?

I have been involved directly in capacity building with nonprofits for two years as the Project Manager for Capacity Building Initiatives with the Arizona State University Center for Nonprofit Leadership and Management in Phoenix, Arizona. However, I have been a leader in the nonprofit and association management field for nearly a decade. I have had the good fortune of holding leadership positions in several fields, including government, higher education, consulting, private industry and nonprofit and association leadership. Given this diversity of experience, I have been able to bring some helpful perspectives on how to build the capacity of Arizona's nonprofit sector and forge new relationships and alliances between organizations and individuals.

2.  What roles have you played?

In my role with the ASU Center for Nonprofit Leadership & Management, I have been entrusted with the establishment of two capacity building initiatives. One, is our "Effective, Motivated Board Governance" training that we offer for nonprofit boards. This has been so very well received. Our Center  has even been retained to provide training for corporate clients whose employees serve on nonprofit and community boards, so that these individuals will have ample training to prepare them to be effective board members and fiduciaries for the organizations they serve.

Second, our Center has created the "Principles of Effectiveness for Nonprofit Organizations", which combines an organizational assessment tool that our Center has developed along with an in-depth peer review process that will help nonprofits of all different sizes and levels of sophistication to move forward on the continuum of development. This program was created over three years in order to respond to the request from Arizona's nonprofit sector for a program that would strengthen accountability while also promoting aspiration to greater effectiveness as nonprofit organizations.

The establishment of both of these outstanding programs was made possible by generous funding to our Center from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan.

3.  What is the mission of your organization and a description of your current capacity building work?

The credo of our Center is that we provide "knowledge and tools for nonprofit effectiveness." We realize that we have an inherent responsibility as a nonprofit academic center to provide the teaching and learning opportunities to today's and tomorrow's nonprofit leaders, which we do quite well. In fact, our American Humanics affiliate at ASU, which prepares undergraduate students to take on careers in the nonprofit sector, was recently honored as the best program of its kind in the nation. In addition, we offer education and professional development opportunities for existing nonprofit leaders and managers through our successful Nonprofit Management Institute. So we take the roles of knowledge creation and knowledge dissemination very seriously at Arizona State University, and our Center, in particular. We abide by the dual wisdom that by building individual and organizational capacity, we contribute greatly to building the overall capacity of the sector. The rising tide will literally lift all boats, so to speak.

We also, however, realize that learning and capacity building are not simply phenomena that solely take place in a classroom setting. With this in mind, our Center is very much embedded in the nonprofit community, both in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area, as well as across the State of Arizona. Our Center's convenings bring together diverse constituencies and a host of nonprofit and philanthropic thought leaders from across the country and around the world.

I am happy to be a part of such a vibrant enterprise at ASU that fosters active learning and promotes novel thinking and creativity in the area of capacity building. Our Center is all about the future and aspiring to become the powerful sector that we are meant to be. We encourage learning by doing, and through various means and modes of engagement. As William Butler Yeats once wrote, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

4.  What is the most exciting possible outcome of your work as a capacity builder?

I take a great level of satisfaction in knowing that the capacity building work that I am doing is helping organizations and individuals to reach their potential. The nonprofit sector has always been forged on a sense of community, and I truly believe that by engaging in capacity building work, I am able to, in a tangible way, and serve community and to help it meet its needs.

There is the age-old African proverb that states: "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." I firmly believe that the capacity building work that I am blessed to be able to do, is responsible for teaching countless nonprofits and their respective leadership how to "fish for themselves." By creating this higher level of skill expertise, and accountability, we are contributing to a greater level of sustainability among the organizations that we work with. That "sustainability factor" is what makes this work so worthwhile. We are literally helping organizations to achieve their visions. That's pretty exciting stuff!

5.  What do you find most challenging?

I think my biggest frustration is two-fold. I would love to be able to reach out to more organizations than we do. But, frankly, it's a question of limited resources – both human and financial. At our Center, we are in the process of creating sound pricing structures for the goods and services that we produce. Remaining mindful that we want our capacity building efforts to be accessible and affordable, while also holding true to the reality that we are an enterprise with real costs to everything we do, and we must plan and execute with sustainability as the end-goal.

The need for our capacity building services is so great, and seems to be growing exponentially, so I am sometimes frustrated that we cannot grow to meet that need more swiftly. However, Rome was not built in a day, and I know that we are a Center with lots of moving parts, and capacity building is but one of those many facets. I am pleased with what we have accomplished, but impatient, knowing there is much more to do.

6.  How do you participate in the Alliance, and why?

I am pleased to be a member of the Alliance. I feel that the work that the Alliance does indeed adds a great deal of value to the work that practitioners like myself are doing in our various respective communities. Moreover, the Alliance keeps us plugged in with the macro picture of what is happen holistically as a sector, and provides us with a national forum in which to engage in meaningful and timely discussions and collaborations.

I have been pleased to have been a participant in the Board Governance Affinity Group and the draft work that it has done in composing a document listing effective practices in the arena of board leadership. Through this effort, I have been able to meet and engage with outstanding leaders and thinkers who are shaping the governance discussion across our nation. I have enjoyed this learning and sharing process very much.

I hope to become more involved with the work of the Alliance's People of Color Affinity Group as well, because I recognize and respect the inherent value of bringing new perspectives to our sector and expanding the tent, so that more leaders and scholars from diverse backgrounds will choose to lend their activism, their energy and their intellect to the work of our sector. John Dewey once said that "People support what they help to create." I believe that the Alliance benefits from greater inclusion, and I would like to be an agent in bringing this to pass.

Three years ago I had the honor of serving as a Diversity Executive Leadership Program (DELP) Scholar with the American Society of Association Executives in Washington, DC, and in this role I sought to advance the celebration of diversity and inclusion in the association management field. Perhaps the Alliance could partner with other national entities like Independent Sector and the National Council of Nonprofit Organizations to create a similar "Scholars" or "Fellows" program to seek to advance a broader diversity and level of inclusion in the nonprofit sector.  And by no means should diversity simply be limited to culture diversity, but rather, it should include its numerous other manifestations as well. I think this could be terrific for the sector.