CJI’s Capacity Building Program finished the year strong with a non-stop slate of free-of-charge grantee and prospective grantee programming.
The overarching goal of the CJI Capacity Building Program is to develop the overall strength of our grantee organizations, focusing on their inner workings, thereby making them more effective and ultimately better able to serve the communities that they are funded to serve
December grantee webinars covered grant opportunities around “Investing in Women and Girls” with special guests, Whitney Wade of the Chicago Foundation for Women and Caroline McCoy of the Woods Fund of Chicago, and grappling with “Audits and the 990 Process,” including what the IRS pays particular attention to in nonprofit filings.
In November and October, CJI presented part two of “Building Up the Board,” featuring Dr. Joynicole Martinez, chief executive officer of The Alchemist Agency, who served as the webinar’s facilitator. In this session, participants continued to explore board development as a key element of fulfilling an organization’s overall mission.
CJI also presented a webinar that explored the concepts of “Movement Building vs. Movement-Building Movements.” Yul-San Liem of the Justice Committee served as the facilitator in grantee-led workshop discussions around what it takes to create truly effective coalition building. Using the Justice Committee’s work with Communities United for Police Reform as a case study, participants shared and learned about the key elements of successful movement-building and coalition-building in a peer setting.
CJI wishes to thank all our organizational partners and consultants for making this nascent program such a huge success by delivering these essential grantee webinars, including Chicago Foundation for Women, Gibson Consulting & Solutions, Innovative Consulting Solutions, Instrumentl, Justice Committee, The Alchemist Agency, The Kettering Family Foundation, The Omowale Project, Unfunded List, and Woods Fund Chicago.