Research
Results:
Nonprofit Capacity Assessment Survey
Many Indiana nonprofits find themselves in need of Capacity Building and Technical Assistance to respond to the challenges and opportunities facing them. However, the meanings of these concepts vary widely and grantmakers find it difficult to develop grant opportunities that effectively meet the needs of nonprofits.
To develop a common understanding of capacity building and technical assistance, we are surveying Indiana nonprofits about their capacity building and technical assistance needs.
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Our first statewide report, Nonprofit Capacity Assessment: Indiana Charities, 2007 is now available. See description under Phase I below.
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About the Nonprofit Capacity Assessment Survey
This survey builds on the 2002 Indiana Nonprofit Survey by asking some of the same questions and surveying some of the same organizations. This will allow us to determine how major nonprofit management challenges and capacities have changed over the past five years.
A broad-based Project Advisory Board is working with the project team to create linkages to related and complementary efforts, identify key policy implications of the survey findings, and insure effective dissemination of results as they become available.
Phase II
We are currently in the process of implementing a survey of grant applicants of the Indiana Arts Commission and its regional partners in partnership with the Commission, the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy. We will post the updated version of the survey instrument used for the IAC survey as soon as it is finalized.
As a special incentive, twelve responding organizations, selected at random, will be given the opportunity to have their organization profiled for one month on the Indiana Arts Commission's web page.
Subsequent phases will include nonprofits responding to our 2002 Indiana nonprofit survey, as well as other segments of the nonprofit sector in in Indiana.
Information from the survey will:
- Assure Indiana nonprofits that Indiana grantmakers have solid information about the capacity building challenges Indiana nonprofits face and about the utility of key strategies for addressing these challenges.
- Aid Indiana grantmakers in developing a framework for appropriate grantmaking strategies to address needs for capacity building and technical assistance.
- Demonstrate to Indiana policy makers how major management and organizational practices have changed for Indiana nonprofits since the benchmark survey in 2002.
- Facilitate more effective collaboration among Indiana nonprofits and between Indiana grantmakers and the nonprofits they support.
Key topics include:
- Management challenges: Includes questions about the extent of challenges in managing specific aspects of operations and governance, human resources, marketing, networking and advocacy, financial resources, and information technology to assess capacity building needs in these areas.
- Types of assistance: Includes questions about the relative utility of various types of funding, technical assistance, and peer assistance in addressing major types of management challenges and capacity building needs.
- Organizational components: Includes questions about the types of organizational components currently in place.
- General information: Includes questions about the year of establishment, mission, most important programs/activities, changes in demands for services/programs, and whether involved in formal collaborations or informal networks.
- Human & financial resources: Includes questions on paid staff, use and importance of volunteers, amount of revenues, expenses, assets, liabilities, changes in these, reliance on major revenue sources, and whether any revenues from specific sources.
Phase I
In Spring 2007, we completed a survey of 91 charities that are affiliated members of the Indiana Grantmakers Alliance (a membership association of grantmaking executives, staff and board members that seeks to promote legal, ethical, efficient and effective grantmaking) and/or Indiana grantees of Lumina Foundation for Education. This work was also completed in partnership with the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy.
Click here to see the Nonprofit Capacity Assessment survey instrument used for this survey of Indiana Charities in 2007. Note, you will need a free copy of the Acrobat program to read the survey instrument.
If your nonprofit organization is one of the many Indiana nonprofits that responded to this survey, we are very grateful for your participation and we THANK YOU for taking the time to do so. Please rest assured that all information from the survey will be kept in the strictest confidentiality.
We have selected at random two nonprofit organizations that responded to the survey to receive a free associate membership with Indiana Grantmakers Alliance ($80 value each, which you may decline without us informing Alliance of your decision). We have also sent a summary of our findings to all respondents who request it. The full report, Nonprofit Capacity Assessment: Indiana Charities, 2007, is available here.
Top | Project Reports | About the Survey | Contact Information
If you have questions about Nonprofit Capacity Assessment, please contact the project director, Professor Kirsten Grønbjerg, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, 1315 East Tenth Street, Bloomington IN 47405, Phone: 866-726-0030, Email: nonprof@indiana.edu.
Updated: May 2, 2008
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