Developing Staff
on a Tight Budget

There is almost always money for staff development inside a nonprofit's ecosystem. It is almost never inside the operating budget. It sits with the people already standing around you, and it often goes unspent because nobody asked for it.

Start With the Funders You Already Have

Ask your program officer directly whether capacity building is an allowable use of a current grant, or whether the foundation holds a separate capacity building fund. Many do. Some of that money goes unspent every year, not because the need is absent, but because grantees assume the answer is no and never ask. Ask in the language funders use. Ask for capacity, not for training.

Then Look at Your Board and Your Neighbors

A board member who owns a business, or who sits inside a large employer, can often sponsor seats through a corporate giving budget that has nothing to do with your grant cycle. Community foundations, United Ways, associations and coalitions fund cohorts regularly, because one cohort strengthens many of their grantees at once, which is a better return for them than funding any single organization alone.

Then read the allowable cost language in your program grants again, slowly. Development that is tied directly to a program's outcomes is frequently permitted, and is frequently sitting there unused because it was never written into the workplan.