Capacity-Building for Foundations

Supporting Foundations in Building Grantee Capacity and Amplifying Impact

Foundations and the organizations they fund are driving real change, but without robust and meaningful measures and methods, a foundation's impact can go unseen. Adding capacity-building tools and support can further amplify the funded organizations’ ability to reach their full potential. Omni helps grantees grow their capacity and funders tell the story of their far-reaching impact while honoring the principles of trust-based philanthropy.

Support for Foundations

We work with funders to better measure and share their deep and far-reaching impact and the often unseen multiplier effect trust-based grantmaking has.

OUR SERVICES:

Impact Framework Design & Reporting

  • Co-creating meaningful metrics to capture the “ripple effect” of funding

  • Helping you articulate how your funding contributes to systems-level change

Grantee Learning Cohorts

  • Facilitated learning spaces to elevate community voice and foundation learning and evaluation

Evaluation Strategy & Data Coaching

  • Collaborating with the evaluation team on simplified, useful data collection that centers equity

  • Support for multi-year, unrestricted, and low-burden evaluation practices

  • Metrics that tell the stories of individual grantees and across funding portfolios

FOUNDATIONS BENEFIT FROM:

  • Measures that demonstrate multiplier effect of funding

  • Richer feedback from grantees

  • Increasing foundation boards’ understanding of impact

  • A compelling, credible story of systemic impact for the field

Support for Grantees

We help grantees unlock their full potential by delivering practical, equity-centered consultation, coaching, technical assistance, training, and communities of practice that build from their on-the-ground expertise.

OUR SERVICES:

  • Program Best Practices Capacity Building: Program start-up, readiness and needs assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation support.

  • Organizational Capacity Building: Leadership development, mission/vision, strategic planning, change management, sustainability and succession planning, evaluation data collection, infrastructure, and using data for continuous quality improvement and impact storytelling

  • Grantee Learning Cohorts: Facilitated learning spaces to facilitate cross sharing and partnership formation

GRANTEES GAIN:

  • Improved funding outcomes

  • Confidence in tracking and sharing impact

  • A trusted partner that listens and uplifts

  • Ability to attain funding from other funders

Featured Projects

Women’s Foundation of Colorado (WFCO) Women Achieving Greater Economic Security (WAGES) Cohort Evaluation

The WAGES Cohort is funded to elevate women’s economic prosperity by addressing statewide systems-level changes and by providing direct services that create proximal opportunities for economic or educational advancement. With WFCO and grantees, Omni led a process to co-create an evaluation framework that seeks to1) identify effective direct service strategies and potential policy solutions for accelerating women’s progress toward economic self-sufficiency, 2) measure progress in advancing those strategies and solutions, and 3) track impact of the learning and convening for grantees that can also be utilized to inform the field. Data collection includes biannual surveys, focus groups/facilitated activities at convenings, and post-convening surveys. Read the Year 4 WAGES annual report.

Together We Protect (TWP) COVID-19 Vaccine Equity Fund Monthly Learning Series

Caring for Colorado foundation pooled funding from foundations across Colorado to issue grants to organizations statewide to ensure that people who face systemic barriers have the most appropriate and accessible information about the COVID-19 vaccine and can access the vaccine through low-barrier opportunities. In June 2021, Omni designed and facilitated a 7-month grantee-informed learning cohort and community of practice. The goals were to enhance knowledge exchange and collaborative learning among TWP grantees during monthly meetings; create a resource hub where grantees could easily access materials and contribute content; and provide a communication platform to allow for grantee interactions and ongoing collaboration and knowledge exchange. Our evaluation results show we achieved the goals of enhancing knowledge exchange and collaborative learning.

Community Resilience Initiatives (CRI): Capacity Building Assistance for Housing and Mental & Behavioral Health Grantees

As part of The Colorado Trust’s Community Resilience Initiatives (CRI), Omni Institute is serving as the capacity-building assistance (CBA) provider at the programmatic level for grantees focused on mental and behavioral health and housing. The CRI initiative is designed to advance community well-being and resilience by funding organizations that are leading work aligned with priority goal areas across Colorado. In our role, Omni provides tailored, on-demand capacity-building support to individual grantees while also organizing shared learning opportunities across the cohort. Our services include one-on-one technical assistance, facilitation of learning collaboratives and virtual convenings, and the development of tools and resources that enhance strategic planning, program implementation, and internal infrastructure. Omni’s support is designed to be responsive to the diverse needs of grantees, which include emerging organizations, culturally specific service providers, and nonprofits navigating complex systems. In alignment with The Colorado Trust’s goals, we emphasize approaches that are inclusive, strength-based, and relationship-centered, and that acknowledge and respond to systemic barriers faced by the communities these organizations serve. To evaluate the impact of this work, Omni is collaborating with the Trust and grantees to understand how capacity-building efforts are addressing organizational needs and contributing to increased capacity in programmatic delivery. Initial evaluation methods include TA tracking and feedback loops embedded into convenings and collaborative activities. Read our Services 1-Pager or our Evaluation 1-Pager (English, Spanish).

Leadership Team

Ailala Kay, MA
Director

Ailala Kay is a Director at Omni Institute, where she leads the organization’s Learning and Development practice area. Over her 20-plus year career at Omni, Ailala has developed deep knowledge of Colorado communities and brings extensive expertise in organizational development and coalition building; strategic planning and group facilitation; community engagement, outreach, and collaboration; coaching and capacity building; and the design and use of logic models and theory of change to support effective implementation and continuous quality improvement. Her work is grounded in a commitment to elevating community voice and fostering learning-centered approaches that drive sustainable change.

Katie Gelman, DrPH, MPH
Senior Vice President

Katie Gelman has 20+ years of expertise in leading clients through their evaluation journey, with a firm grounding in mixed methods approaches and a career dedicated to applying data-driven best practices to benefit clients and their communities. As a Senior Vice President, Dr. Gelman oversees Omni’s project delivery teams and serves as the practice area lead for our work in Community Health and Behavioral Health.

Connect with the Capacity Building for Foundations team.