NGO CAPACITY BUILDING

Strengthening NGO capability has been an integral part of RGVN's operations since inception. This includes helping NGOs build internal management capability as well as capacity to assist poor people more effectively. RGVN's partner NGOs represent a wide variety in terms of leadership, constitution, size and approaches, ranging from small producers groups to established Gandhian organizations, to issue based NGOs. They work in widely differing socio-economic and ecological settings. Besides providing or leveraging financial support to these for action programs, RGVN also looks into the institutional

development needs of these Community Based Organizations (CBOs). Interaction among NGOs/CBOs to learn from each others experience, identify best practices and set norms, training workshops on institutional development, sectoral exposure and training programs, and sponsorship to training programs organized by various training institutes in the country are the capacity building activities taken up by RGVN. These were expanded in 1998 with support from Ford Foundation.

During the first few years of RGVN's operation, most of the partners RGVN was working with were still evolving as organizations, having no professional staff, no financial stability and little or no prior experience in the livelihood arena. Hence, enhancing the capacity of partner NGOs and CBOs became a significant agenda along with leveraging and providing financial support. Also, RGVN's own organizational capacity needed to be enhanced. Most of the staff had learnt on the job about grant making as well as grassroots development. There was a need to consolidate and strategically build on the considerable field experience to become a distinctive institution known for contribution to ideas, catalytic action and significant impact in the chosen arena.

During its initial years, RGVN had allocated Rs 5 lakh of its annual budget to capacity development of NGOs. But this amount was too little to make a visible impact. Therefore, a proposal was placed to the Ford Foundation in the year 1997 for a grant to enable RGVN to launch a program of strengthening grassroots NGOs and building internal capacity to work more effectively with them. The Ford Foundation grant gave a boost to the Capacity Building Program of RGVN and much could be achieved.

The specific activities that are taken up as part of capacity building are:

Building NGO Capability

	NGO Meets - RGVN organises meetings of NGOs assisted by it enabling interaction among NGOs. The primary value of these meets are a forum for peer review, highlighting and reinforcing a corporate public identity, flagging common issues, sharing contextual insights and institutional diagnosis.
	Training Workshops-RGVN conducts peer learning workshops to help NGOs map out perceptions about self and evaluate their strategies. These programs provide inputs on simple organizational technologies like keeping book of accounts, the broader questions of mission, vision and strategies and various aspects of community development. RGVN catalyzes these programs, drawing resource persons from outside.
	Sectoral exposure and Training Programs - RGVN builds the technical and sectoral capability of its partners since, most of them do not have staff with sectoral expertise and consequently their ability to add value to the community's efforts and solve problems is limited.
	Sponsorship to Training Programs - RGVN selectively sponsors NGO personnel to training programs designed for NGOs which are offered by institutions like IRMA, EDI, PRIA etc.