Join EPIP DC for our June Breakfast Club. Want to hear more about two innovative and local approaches to capacity building? Wondering about power dynamics in funder-grantee capacity building partnerships? We will explore these questions as well as strategies to facilitate informed decision-making about strengthening organizations, cultural competency in capacity building approaches, and how to measure improvements in organizational capacity.  

We will hear from two practitioners of capacity building working on the ground every day with organizations to increase their effectiveness to achieve positive outcomes. The first case study is from the Chesapeake Bay Funders Network on their highly successful Capacity Building Initiative, which helped dozens of local watershed organizations increase their effectiveness and ability to protect local watersheds. From a youth development perspective, we will hear about the approach of Fair Chance, a DC-based organization that works to strengthen the sustainability and performance of community-based nonprofits to achieve life-changing results for children and youth living in poverty.

We encourage you to bring your successes, challenges and hopes for the future of capacity building with you to the table. Breakfast will be served and there will be an opportunity for Q&A. Check out this resource on capacity building from Grantmakers for Effective Organizations.

Jamie Baxter: Jamie serves as CBFN’s Program Director, applying his unique blend of experience to assist members in the development of effective and practical solutions to the vexing challenges facing the regional conservation community.

Before joining CBFN, Jamie held leadership positions with Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Cahaba River Society and Maryland Department of Natural Resources.  His extensive experience leading development of youth, advocacy and public policy programs built a diverse skill set in effective non-profit management and a keen understanding of the natural, social and political systems key to the success of any conservation initiative.   Most recently, as Program Director with the Chesapeake Bay Trust, Jamie facilitated efforts among federal, state and local education agencies, grantees and funders to implement education reform designed to graduate environmental literate students and led CBFN’s highly successful [6 year, $4.8 Million] multi-faceted Capacity Building Initiative to help dozens of local watershed organizations increase their effectiveness to achieve clean water and healthy community goals.  This work reflects Jamie’s collaborative spirit and drive to engage the funding community to help craft strategies for community level impacts and systems level change.

Jamie is originally from the Philadelphia area, holds degrees in Economics and Environmental Science from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania and serves or has served on boards of numerous grassroots and regional non-profit organizations.  He currently lives in Annapolis with his wife and two children who spend their free time on all outdoor pursuits, big and small.

Reginald Grant: Reginald joined Fair Chance in 2009 and works as a Capacity Building and Training Specialist and Network Services/Executive Transitions Manager.

Prior to joining Fair Chance he served as a National Deputy Director of Youth Programs with the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation where he was responsible for leading the technical assistance team, who provided organizational and program development expertise to youth-serving organizations in cities with the highest concentration of youth poverty in United States; prior to that post, he served as the Executive Director of the Carver Terrace Youth Safe Haven, providing enrichment and mentoring services to children of incarcerated parents/guardians and adjudicated young adults residing in the Carver/Langston community in Washington, DC. Reginald also held positions as a Youth Drug Elimination Counselor with The Public Housing Authority of Savannah and served as a Program Manager with the Chatham-County Youth Futures Authority.

He was honored by the Edgewood Brookland Family Support Collaborative, in Washington, DC, with the Violent Green Caring for Children Award and has authored editorials published in the Washington Post and the Family and Youth Services Bureau's Mentoring Children of Prisoners Journal.  Reginald earned a Bachelor of Science in Nonprofit Management from Southeastern University and a Certificate of Nonprofit Management from Duke University.

This event is free for EPIP members and $10.00 for non-members. Click here if you are not a member: http://www.epip.org/partnering_for_capacity_building_non_member