Creating a Holistic Capacity-Building Program: ISLG’s Approach to the TTA Initiative
The CJII Training and Technical Assistance Initiative provides comprehensive and accessible capacity-building services to organizations across New York City that are furthering community safety. Doing so strengthens organizational sustainability, creates opportunities for peer-to-peer engagement, and deepens program impacts.
Successful community-based programs drive not only individual but systems-level change, ultimately promoting safer, healthier, and thriving communities. Funders can expand their support for these kinds of organizations through capacity building—which means providing the resources, skill-building, and expertise for organizations to advance their work and mission above and beyond programmatic grants. These opportunities are an investment in organizational efficacy, impact, and sustainability.
The ISLG Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII)—originally a project of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office that invested $250 million into organizations promoting community safety—recognized the need to couple programmatic and capital funds with capacity building opportunities to fully realize the impact of these community-based organizations. To this end, ISLG developed the Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) Initiative, a comprehensive, multi-year initiative that provides group workshops and customized, one-on-one support for organizations funded by CJII. The TTA Initiative offers resources that attend to programmatic, operational, and strategic needs.
Since launching in late 2019, this initiative has delivered nearly 60 workshops and funded over 35 individualized projects. These offerings have reached more than 600 individuals and brought together a diverse set of 80+ organizations, creating opportunities for community-building, connection, and peer learning. The TTA Initiative has strengthened CJII grantees' practices and, in turn, positively impacted the communities they serve.
In a policy brief, Capacity Building for Community-Based Organizations as an Investment in Social Change, we outline the key principles that guide the TTA Initiative, including peer expertise, holistic support, and responsivity.
Uplifting Peer Expertise
CJII grantees are experts in their fields; through hands-on experience, they understand the needs of the communities they serve and have refined best practices for service delivery. Recognizing this, peer-led training is a core part of the TTA Initiative. The Initiative builds on the inherent and diverse strengths among the CJII grantee pool by creating a platform to fund peer-centered knowledge-sharing. For example, CJII grantees are delivering two-thirds of the current workshop program, with the remaining sessions being led by external experts. For grantees that are new to delivering formalized training, ISLG provides hands-on support around content development and facilitation; this builds capacity for grantees to continue offering TTA services outside of our program.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ISLG coordinated a series of virtual peer learning sessions during the summer of 2020. The peer learning sessions created space for community-building and peer-to-peer skill-sharing amidst a moment of crisis. In each session, a grantee shared how they were adapting to and navigating the challenges the pandemic brought. For example, in this series:
Exodus Transitional Community shared how they were safely maintaining in-person services and continuing to support people released from jail and prison.
The Living Redemption Youth Opportunity Hub discussed strategies from their food relief work, aimed at addressing heightened food insecurity due to the pandemic.
Sanctuary for Families shared how they were working to bridge the digital divide by distributing laptops and hot spots to participants for their remote economic empowerment training.
Providing Holistic Support
Every aspect of an organization is critical to its success. In the TTA Initiative, ISLG aims to provide opportunities that strengthen practices across departments and are tailored to staff at different levels. The programmatic workshop series is an ongoing program of trainings on key topics related to successful program delivery—ranging from program design and outreach to clinical skills and supervision. The executive series offers periodic workshops for senior- and executive-level staff focused on strategic and operational areas, including conducting an operational assessment in crisis, the fundamentals of strategic planning, and inclusive management.
Training opportunities are valuable across staff levels, yet many nonprofits do not have the capacity or funds to offer ongoing professional development to non-leadership staff. Investing in staff at all levels is a best practice for organizational equity—and it grows the impact of an organization’s work in the field. The initiative’s programmatic workshop series is intentionally designed for all staff: attendees range from credible messengers and youth advocates to program directors. ISLG works with facilitators to ensure that sessions are targeted to the appropriate audience and tailored to the staff who sign up.
Inclusive and Responsive Development
From the outset, ISLG’s goal was to ensure that TTA was responsive to the needs of CJII-funded organizations. To understand what TTA would be most relevant, ISLG built trust with grantees by listening to feedback on their challenges and sharing expertise and resources when needs arose for them; this approach fostered honest conversations about growth opportunities. ISLG curated its ongoing series of offerings from this understanding. Based on ongoing feedback about TTA opportunities, ISLG collaborates with training facilitators to further tailor group-based sessions. Instead of a "one-size fits all" approach, every TTA opportunity is refined to match the needs and interests of the CJII community.
An essential pillar of providing inclusive and responsive programming is operating through an anti-racist and trauma-informed framework. Providers engage with people who experience inequities in their communities and whose needs have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Within CJII’s TTA Initiative, it was vital to create space for grantees to talk about inequities, trauma, and healing, as well as highlight individual, organizational, and systemic approaches to promoting equity. For instance, workshops within the TTA Initiative have included:
Victims at the Margins: Engaging Young Men of Color Healing from Trauma, facilitated by the Center for Court Innovation, focused on strategies to support young men of color who are survivors of trauma.
Financial Literacy and Economic Empowerment Train-the-Trainer, facilitated by College & Community Fellowship, provided tools for financial literacy training centered around serving marginalized communities that have historically faced economic inequity.
Engaging Employers in Inclusive Hiring, facilitated by the Center for Employment Opportunities, shared strategies to partner with employers to hire marginalized job seekers, including formerly incarcerated individuals.
Next Steps for the TTA Initiative
These approaches—centering peer expertise, holistic support, and responsivity—encapsulate the heart of ISLG’s capacity-building approach, as developed through CJII. Building from these core tenets, the TTA Initiative has created a learning community that brings together nonprofit staff from across the city. In the coming years, ISLG will continue to provide opportunities for group and individualized support, with an emphasis on trauma-informed healing, equitable practices, and sustainability. To learn more about the TTA Initiative, read the policy brief about its development here.