Most funders now offer some form of support to grantees beyond the grant itself - capacity building, peer learning, mentoring, signposting, partnerships managers. These offers have grown significantly in recent years and are genuinely valued. But as they have grown, so have the questions around them: what does good capacity support actually look like, how do we know when it's working, and how do we build a more joined-up offer across the sector rather than a patchwork of individual funder support offers?
Drawing on learning from funders who have been designing and reviewing their non-financial support offers - and on conversations from London Funders' Resilience Network - this session takes stock of where the sector has got to. We'll explore what the current landscape looks like, what we know about what works, and what a more coordinated and equitable approach might require. It is designed as a practical working session: a short panel discussion followed by a facilitated conversation that invites attendees to think through what better coordination could look like and what it would take to build it.
This session will be particularly relevant if you are thinking about how to design and evaluate non-financial support for grantees, and want to understand its effect on the wider funding ecosystem.