Building Capacity, Fostering Trust: A Look at Beyond-the-Grant Support at One Foundation

Overdeck Family Foundation, a New York-based education funder, has engaged with the Center for Effective Philanthropy repeatedly over the years to seek out information and feedback to continuously enhance its work and impact. In its most recent CEP survey, the Foundation’s provision of capacity-building support put it in the 92nd percentile among funders. Specifically, in its 2025 Grantee Perception Report, the Foundation received feedback that recent efforts to offer a broader suite of capacity-building support and proactively align these supports with grantees’ goals and challenges was meeting critical need.

In the following Q&A, Emily Radwin, a manager on the Assessment and Advisory Services team that has led Overdeck’s CEP surveys since 2022, talks with Lucy Brainard, director of Portfolio Success and Operations at the Foundation, about how Overdeck structures its capacity-building support to maximize impact for grantees.

Emily Radwin: I know from our conversations that the capacity-building support Overdeck provides is core to the Foundation’s approach and that your approach has shifted from providing ad-hoc beyond-the-grant support to a tiered approach. Can you share more about that model — and about Overdeck’s approach to beyond-the-grant support more generally?

Lucy Brainard: Capacity-building is a core part of Overdeck Family Foundation’s funding principles. In addition to providing funding, we work closely with grantees to strengthen the capacities that enable them to achieve cost-effective, sustainable scale.

In 2021, the foundation shifted from ad hoc technical assistance to a three-tiered model, based on early, promising data from grantees receiving ad hoc support. This model was rooted in trusting relationships and support designed to address collaboratively identified organizational opportunities. 

The tier model works by providing different levels of support depending on grantee needs. To summarize:

• Tier one of the model is coaching and strategic guidance through our program team, which all grantees receive.
• Tier two is support from cross-functional staff with deep experience in areas like evaluation, organizational development, and communications, which is offered to a subset of grantees.
• When more specialized or intensive support is needed, we connect organizations with external partners who can provide targeted technical assistance around areas such as program innovation, evidence-building, sustainable growth, or organizational strategy.

The tiers are designed to work together. We’ve found the most effective support often comes from thoughtfully sequencing different types of assistance toward a shared outcome, which is aligned to organizational goals. Ultimately, the model helps ensure grantees receive the right support at the right time while maintaining the strong relationships that anchor our partnerships.

ER: Can you walk us through how a grantee is placed in the tier system and what kinds of support they are matched with based on their needs? How are those needs assessed, and how might a grantee move across tiers over time?

LB: Capacity-building conversations begin early in the grant process and continue throughout the partnership and grant term. During diligence, we discuss organizational priorities, what barriers are blocking organizations from achieving their goals, past technical assistance from us or other funders, and where additional support could be catalytic.

From there, we work collaboratively with grantees to identify capacity-building opportunities that align with their goals. Portfolio managers play a key role in this process, drawing on their experience across the portfolio and their relationship with the grantee.

Needs evolve over time, so support across the tiers is dynamic. As organizations encounter new opportunities, strategic inflection points, or external challenges, we may recommend additional support. Throughout this process, open dialogue with grantees remains essential, and we also coordinate with other funders supporting the same organizations to ensure our efforts are complementary rather than duplicative.

ER: What feedback has Overdeck heard from grantees about its beyond-the-grant supports? How has Overdeck utilized grantees’ feedback in adapting its offerings over time?

LB: We gather feedback to measure short-, medium-, and long-term impact and to refine our approach, from adjusting our roster of technical assistance providers to piloting new offerings. Feedback also informs our annual strategic priorities, what topics we will cover through grantee workshops and convenings, and where we may want to explore expanding in the future. 

To gather short-term feedback, we share a survey immediately after an engagement ends. To date, 91% of grantees are satisfied with the work, 89% believe meaningful capacity has been built, and 91% agree an urgent need was addressed. This reflects feedback from over 80 grantees through 210 unique capacity-building engagements.

For medium-term impact, we also find that recipients of capacity-building support respond higher on key CEP measures like organizational impact and trust-building, have shown strong pre/post gains on content-specific criteria in diagnostics, and agreed support has lasting impacts six months post-engagement, informing key decisions and advancing progress to goals.

Longer term, at least a year after an engagement has concluded, grant report data shows capacity-building support correlates with grantee progress to grant goals, with 79% of aligned goals achieved an average of 1.3 years after support. Recipients also show positive growth in relevant areas of support, with participating grantees experiencing an average of 18% reduction in program cost, 114% increase in earned revenue, and 125% increase in reach.

The qualitative feedback we receive often references the key components of our model: strong relationships with staff members, deep understanding of challenges facing an organization, and ability to recommend the right support at the right time with the right provider. 

Here are a few examples of what we’ve heard from grantees:

• “Our program officer is always aware of our work and looks for opportunities to support it; we have been given many opportunities to intersect with the broader education community through [the foundation’s] generosity in terms of programs, conferences, and webinars … the staff of this Foundation genuinely care about the communities they serve.” – Grantee feedback in a CEP grantee perception survey
• “The capacity-building support we received as a part of this grant had a tremendous impact on our learning and creation of our new business model.” – Grant report
• “The [Overdeck Family Foundation] team has been singularly helpful in building and funding a multiyear research agenda to get to this level of evidence… Thank you for being a true partner.” – Grantee email

ER: As an education-focused funder, I know Overdeck has sought to help grantees confronting the significant shifts in budgeting that came from the ending of COVID-19 relief (ESSER) funding, even as they continue to deal with the effects of the pandemic on students, teachers, and parents — can you speak to the role that Overdeck’s beyond-the-grant supports have played in seeking to support grantees navigating these challenges?

LB: As the expiration of ESSER funding approached, we expanded our capacity-building efforts in areas related to financial sustainability and organizational strategy to proactively mitigate these risks.

Grantees told us they wanted support preparing for potential funding volatility, so we offered additional resources focused on financial scenario planning, revenue diversification, and strengthening go-to-market strategies. We also created opportunities for organizations to learn from one another through workshops and convenings focused on navigating the changing policy and funding landscape.

One important lesson was the value of beginning this work early and in partnership with peers and funders. Starting sustainability planning well before the funding cliff occurred allowed organizations to assess risks, explore alternative revenue streams, and make thoughtful adjustments rather than reacting once the changes took effect.

ER: As you know, nonprofits of all kinds are facing significant challenges right now; CEP’s recent research finds that nearly 70% have experienced a recent reduction in funding, even as 80% are experiencing or anticipating increased demand for their services. What role has beyond-the-grant assistance played in seeking to support grantees in the current context for Overdeck? Has the Foundation changed or adapted its tier offerings to support grantees during these times of crisis?

LB: Our capacity-building model is designed to adapt as grantee needs shift. While we had anticipated shifts in the policy and funding landscape, some developments proved more disruptive than expected, requiring additional responsive support.

Grantees expressed particular interest in understanding the political and policy environment, strengthening financial planning, refining communications strategies, and exploring new strategic partnerships. In response, we expanded offerings in areas such as scenario planning, public funding strategy, revenue diversification, and legal guidance.

These resources were delivered through a mix of workshops, expert sessions, peer convenings, and technical assistance engagements, allowing leaders to learn from one another while also receiving expert guidance. The feedback from grantees was overwhelmingly positive, naming how the resources, advice, and conversation helped them navigate a complex and rapidly-changing landscape.

I’ll also note that, increasingly, we are playing a role in helping our grantees explore strategic partnerships that can strengthen sustainability, expand reach, and extend impact.

ER: What benefits has Overdeck seen from grantees receiving skill-building and relationship cultivation-focused supports?

LB: At the heart of our capacity-building work is a belief that strong relationships between funders and nonprofit leaders lead to better engagements and, thus, outcomes. Our model is built on trusting relationships with open dialogue, which helps ensure that support is both relevant and timely. 

While we track the measurable outcomes shared above, nonprofit leaders often emphasize the broader benefits. Many report gaining greater clarity around organizational strategy, stronger alignment across leadership teams, and increased confidence in making complex decisions. Some engagements result in new internal systems, such as financial forecasting models, revenue strategies, or data tools, that shape an organization’s work long after the project concludes. Often these engagements help accelerate projects and conversations that might otherwise have taken years. 

Connection is another important outcome. Through workshops, convenings, and cohort-based programs, leaders have meaningful opportunities to learn from peers facing similar challenges. These relationships often reduce the isolation nonprofit leaders experience and, in some cases, lead to collaborations or partnerships between organizations.

Taken together, these supports, grounded in trusting and transformational relationships, help organizations not only strengthen their internal capacity, but also position their leaders and the broader field to learn faster, collaborate more effectively, and ultimately expand their impact for the students, educators, and families they serve.

ER: What’s ahead for the Foundation’s capacity-building support work?

LB: Looking ahead, we are increasingly focused on helping organizations thrive in a rapidly changing environment. This includes supporting innovation and experimentation, strengthening evidence and data infrastructure, helping organizations adapt to shifting policy and funding conditions, and creating more opportunities for peer learning and collaboration across the field. We’re excited about what’s ahead, and proud of the progress we’ve made. 

Emily Radwin is a manager on the Assessments and Advisory Services team at CEP. Lucy Brainard is director of Portfolio Success and Operations at Overdeck Family Foundation.