Nine climate and environment funders run nonprofit capacity building programmes through Nonprofit Builder, giving their grantees capacity building grants to work with a consultant or coach of their choice. Their grantees have completed 150 projects since early 2024, and every one of them ended with a feedback report.
We read all 150. This is what the climate movement’s own organisations say about the support they got.
The short version: climate grantees buy leadership more than anything else, they’re working at a pace that leaves little room to build the organisation, and when the match with a consultant is right they describe changes that outlast the project. When it’s wrong, it’s almost always a question of fit.
The numbers at a glance
1Climate nonprofits buy leadership first
Across all of Nonprofit Builder, leadership and people work is 21% of projects. In the climate portfolio it’s 33%, and for some funders it’s the whole programme: Tara at 70%, Oceankind at 58%, ETF at 45%.
Fundraising and communications, the two biggest categories elsewhere, are half as common here. Climate grantees on these programmes are mostly funded already. What they lack is the organisational muscle to carry the work.
The reasons come through in the narratives. Rapid growth is one.
As a start-up growing rapidly it is challenging to build processes and drive the car at the same time. Having a knowledgeable resource who was able to anticipate challenges and provide recommendations has been transformative. The frameworks and toolkits have now become part of our processes.
Founder and director transitions are another.
During a period of leading the organisation alone, she has helped me to tackle the journey of leading the organisation with joy and confidence. She has given me practical tips every step of the way to deal with strategic and governance related issues.
An experienced coach with a practical approach that has really benefited our colleague at the start of his director career.
And campaigning pace. About 1 in 10 climate reports mention being at full capacity, stretched or overwhelmed.
We have had facilitated and dedicated time to think together. We managed to progress our strategic planning very well. This would not have been possible without the facilitation. We would still be overwhelmed with finding the resources to then identify a good facilitator to then find time.
The organisation benefited from having dedicated, neutral space held in a way the programme director did not have the capacity or positional freedom to provide. This enabled the team to step out of delivery mode and engage in deeper, more honest conversations than would otherwise have been possible.
The director is now less overwhelmed in that some of her tasks and duties are now performed by the operations manager.
2What leadership work actually changes
Leadership projects don’t produce a document. They produce a director who delegates, a management team that functions, a staff that speaks up. Grantees describe it in three layers.
The individual.
At the end of the coaching, I was a totally new person and had adopted a different way of working. Since she has an NGO background and still works in the sector she understands the dynamics.
I have learned a lot about myself and my leadership, how to identify which things are in my control and which are not. I have also learned that it is important to consider the different seasons of my leadership: there will be some time when I need to be out there seen, others when I need to nurture the team, and others when I recharge.
It was a challenge for me to speak about myself but that challenge made me realize my strengths and weaknesses. It somehow released my pressure as executive director, and I think that will contribute to create healthy organizational leadership.
Through this consultancy, I learned to prioritize my well-being and to focus on my core values when faced with adversity.
The management team.
The main change is the creation of a directors committee with a real mission and role, which was completely new. Before the project it was more a coordination committee between directors.
One of the most significant impacts was a clearer understanding that effective leadership in our organization requires stronger mandates, clearer roles, and greater decision-making autonomy for team leaders.
The most significant impact is the restoration of trust between the leadership and part of the employees. Also the creation of new internal processes: making the team more autonomous, helping integration of new team members, reducing workload and stress.
The whole organisation.
There has been a significant shift in our team’s mindset, particularly in how we respond to turbulence originating from other divisions. We’ve observed the development of a strong growth mindset, enabling us to stay focused on finding solutions rather than dwelling on problems beyond our control.
The project fostered a shared language and framework around leadership, which has improved collaboration and coordination across teams. The individualized coaching supported concrete behavioral changes, increasing leaders’ confidence and effectiveness in their roles.
We have visible improvements in our team communications following the group workshop and the leadership coaching. Some colleagues are applying the concepts learnt and feel supported using these concepts.
One grantee summarised the recipe:
Combining group learning with individualized coaching is particularly powerful, as it builds shared alignment while also supporting personal development.
3The infrastructure behind the campaign
Technology, finance and HR together are 25% of climate projects, against 17% elsewhere. These are the unglamorous systems that let a campaigning organisation run.
Technology projects deliver quick, concrete wins.
The efficiency, ease and security of our day-to-day work increased immensely and we were able to save a lot of money from the recommendations of the consultant, as we did not know before that basically all software can be bought at a non-profit discount.
Prior to the engagement, our donor, grant, and stakeholder data were siloed, inconsistently managed, and not easily accessible across teams. This project enabled us to build a shared, living database that supports cross-functional collaboration.
We now have a more streamlined HR process in place, from onboarding to leave management. Our team has embraced new tools in Google Workspace, Trello, and Canva.
Increased team awareness of digital security risks and mitigation strategies. Greater confidence among staff in using digital tools for data-driven decisions.
Financial management projects turn improvisation into planning.
We have a financial plan: my organization did not have this until this consultation. We usually plan along the way, but now we have this tool to project what we have and, most importantly, what we need. Thanks to the consultancy, my organization submitted a reserve policy to the funder.
An annual budget is now drawn up, as well as processes in place for the year with regards to finances.
This project has given me insight into budget and financial projections in such a way that it will shape my hiring decisions among other key strategic decisions.
HR work solves problems specific to distributed climate teams. About 7% of climate reports describe a remote or multi-country organisation, and their HR asks reflect it: global pay scales, cross-cultural working, benefits across jurisdictions.
This project has helped us define a global payscale, which is particularly helpful as we continue to expand into new countries. This allowed us to establish a clear process to determine salaries and compensations globally.
Our staff are spread across several countries in Asia. As we collaborate remotely, the cross-cultural session has helped improve communication and our understanding of cultural differences.
Previously, we set salaries based on informal inquiries about positions at other organizations or in the public sector; now we have a useful tool that we can constantly update.
4How far the impact reaches
We coded the 122 consulting reports for the kind of change grantees describe. The levels stack, and the climate portfolio sits slightly ahead of the whole platform on the two that matter most.
Level 3 is what most projects deliver.
For the first time, we have a clear communication plan for next year across the programme portfolio, tied to the annual plan and results framework. The document is easy to replicate for the next year.
This process has helped us to have a full arsenal of internal policies. Going through these policies with all staff and explaining the nuances was very helpful. This process has built confidence in the staff that the organisation is run on the basis of strong policies.
Country teams that were navigating partnership development in isolation, with no shared language, tools, or frameworks, now have a common foundation they can adapt to their context.
Level 4 is where the artefact becomes a habit.
We were significantly lacking in expertise, with the person responsible for fundraising and the person in charge of finances working in silos. This has now changed and we are meeting regularly and have linked the systems up.
The team now applies the frameworks from the training when screening and mentoring the organisations we support, resulting in clearer, more evidence-based decision making.
We now benefit from clearer role definitions, more effective meeting dynamics, and stronger alignment between teams for better decision-making and reduced duplication of efforts.
Level 5 is a countable result. Ten climate reports get there.
The most important impacts have been: our first senior leadership hire, a refreshed multi-year strategy, and a recruitment toolkit and framework.
The organisation now has internal policies in place to ensure compliance with best practices and legal requirements regarding corruption, bribery, and compliance mechanisms. It is an internal requirement for the funder to finance our actions.
We are committed to institutionalising the practices introduced by adopting a formal reserves policy, building internal financial planning capacity, and establishing core financial management routines: quarterly reforecasting, quarterly management reporting, annual organisation-level budgeting.
5Satisfaction and NPS
Two ratings sit in every report: satisfaction with the project (1 to 7) and willingness to recommend the consultant (0 to 10). Climate grantees are slightly more positive than the platform average on both.
The trend is what matters. Every half-year since mid-2024 has scored above 65, and the last 12 months sit at 91.
By domain, the systems work and safeguarding score best. Strategy and organisational development trails, mostly because of a cluster of 7s and 8s from grantees who wanted more time.
Coaching and consulting score the same (71 and 72). Larger projects score better than small ones, and the difference is mostly in passives rather than detractors.
6The consultants: fit beats expertise
What promoters name, in order: expertise, then adapting to the organisation, then working as a partner.
They brought deep expertise in our CRM platform, took time to understand our mission and workflows, and consistently offered thoughtful solutions tailored to our evolving needs. Their collaborative approach and commitment to capacity-building made a lasting impression.
She brought genuine expertise, engaged seriously with our specific context, and was consistently available and responsive. Importantly, she was willing to go beyond a light-touch review and provide substantive challenge and redrafting where needed, which is what made the difference between a policy that ticks a compliance box and one that works.
He was able to understand my limited knowledge on financial planning and he was able to train me as well as to advance in the deliverables at the same time. He understands the financial situation of my organization. He understands and values the mission of my organization.
She has a soft personality but at the same time she clearly states the issues and challenges to people.
They took the time to understand the context in which we are operating and they sensitively tailored their approach to our situation. I can’t list any weaknesses.
Every session ended with a discussion about a clear plan on what the next step should be.
We truly appreciated his skill in steering conversations without imposing direction. It’s clear he loves what he does.
Seven climate reports scored 6 or below. Read together, they tell one story: the consultant knew the discipline and misread the organisation.
We would not generally recommend the consultant. We would probably only recommend them for organizations in the region that work in a similar style. We achieved our key goals for the training, but much of this success was despite the consultants, not because of them.
I feel that our contexts are very different and thus relating and building trust and understanding is difficult. My suggestion would be to enroll more diverse coaches onto the database.
The countries assessed were not the ones the consultant was familiar with, increasing the complexity of the analysis.
The assignment was completed on his side suddenly at a random date, despite the activities not having been completed. It appeared that perhaps the consultant was relying on AI notes too much.
No climate grantee complained about price.
7What climate grantees ask for
Ask them what could have been better and 16% say nothing. The rest point at the same 3 things as grantees everywhere: time, follow-up and scoping.
Weakness: it was too short.
A practical limitation was the relatively short timeframe combined with the fact that our internal team was already operating at full capacity. A slightly longer process would likely have resulted in a more complete financial picture.
We might consider in future engagements, with this and other consultants, a short follow-up or light implementation support phase to accompany the organization as we embed changes.
I think I would have benefitted from a bit more structure, but I wasn’t clear off the bat in my choice of consultants about my need for that structure.
Given the compressed timeline, slightly more internal sessions within the team could have helped us stay on track. However, this was as much about our own capacity as it was about consultant delivery.
That last line is the honest one. Climate grantees repeatedly name their own bandwidth as the limiting factor.
We were quite bad at communicating with her as we are always battling huge workload. Maybe she could be sometimes a bit more proactive, although we do appreciate her not putting much pressure on us.
We found it really helpful and would have loved to engage more but had some organisational and personal capacity issues at the time. The consultants made a really useful document which we continue to find beneficial.
8What they want next
The next-steps field is the best demand forecast in the dataset.
Leadership begets leadership. Climate grantees who did leadership work want the next layer of it.
We will develop the leadership capability of team members to ensure they can independently design, implement, and manage programs.
I think coaching support for me and some of our leadership staff would be good.
The repeat grantees show the paths. One organisation went from organisational development to structure and roles to team leadership to individual coaching over 5 projects. Another went from technology to finance to HR to organisational development to leadership to legal over 7. A third did HR once, then 5 rounds of leadership work.
Others move from systems to strategy.
As a new organization, we have a number of areas of improvement, especially related to our financial and IT development.
We need to finish some key organizational documents such as our long-term programme, including the theory of change, and its validation by the board. Once that stage is finished, we will need to strengthen our capacity to create and implement a mid-term fundraising strategy.
Currently, our main capacity building needs pertain to MEAL and the impact assessment of our work.
9What climate grantees say about the programme
Most service feedback is thanks. The specific asks are about matching, in-person options and budget visibility.
We are sorry to not have any more funding allocated for us but will be keeping an eye on NPB and hope to work together again in the future.
Maybe just a bit more support in the initial consultant selection process to ensure people end up with consultants who meet their needs.
Maybe a way to see consultants more by organization type, to identify consultants that work well with global or regional organizations.
It could be good to have more visibility on the resources we have as an organisation so we don’t lose time looking for consultants that we cannot pay afterwards.
Maybe it could be interesting to accept including travel fees to be able to have some face to face training.
I think a useful thing would be to include a buffer for changes and adaptations to the project that arise from the diagnosis phase, both in time and in resources.
The service was extremely useful, focused on our needs and flexible in overcoming difficulties, for example dividing the contract to comply with financing constraints. At no time was there any pressure on us.
10For climate funders: what capacity building grants should cover
Leadership is the right bet, and it needs a second act. A third of the portfolio is leadership work, 35% of grantees want more of it, and the reports describe real behavioural change. The grantees themselves say the change needs reinforcement. Pairing group work with individual coaching, and building in a follow-up 3 months on, is what they’re asking for.
Fund the boring systems. Finance, HR and technology projects have among the highest NPS in the portfolio and produce the most concrete level 4 and 5 results: a reserves policy, a global pay scale, a saving on software. They also free director time, which is the scarcest resource in a campaigning organisation.
Match on context as well as discipline. Every unhappy climate report is about fit: region, organisational style, sector. Consultants who know campaigning organisations, distributed teams and the grantee’s own region get 10s. The database needs more of them.
Budget for the grantee’s bandwidth. Climate grantees name their own capacity as the constraint more than the consultant’s. A longer runway, a lighter cadence and a small buffer for scope change would cost little and lift completion.
Expect the return visit. 36% of climate grantees have come back, and the second project is predictable from the first. Planning 2 or 3 projects across a grant period, along a path from systems to structure to leadership, matches what the data shows organisations actually do.
Questions about nonprofit capacity building
What is capacity building for nonprofits?
Capacity building is support that strengthens how a nonprofit runs, alongside its programmes: leadership, strategy, finance, HR, technology, fundraising and governance. Through Nonprofit Builder, a funder pays for a grantee to work with a vetted consultant or coach on a scoped project. Across the 150 climate projects in this report, the median budget was 5,000 and the median project ran for 111 days.
What do climate nonprofits use capacity building for?
Leadership comes first. A third of climate projects (33%) are leadership and people work, followed by strategy and organisational development (23%), technology and digital (10%) and resource mobilisation (9%). When asked what they need next, 35% name leadership and team development again.
Does nonprofit capacity building work?
Grantees say it does. 85% rate their project 6 or 7 out of 7, the consultant NPS over the last 12 months is 91, and 36% of organisations have come back for a second project. In the consulting reports, 21% describe a new practice that stuck and 8% an organisational result, such as a reserves policy or a global pay scale.
What should funders budget for in capacity building grants?
Four things stand out in the data. A follow-up around 3 months after leadership work, so the change holds. The unglamorous systems (finance, HR, technology), which score among the highest NPS. Room for the grantee’s own bandwidth: a longer runway and a small buffer for scope change. And more than one project per grant period, since a third of grantees return. Larger projects also score higher: an NPS of 86 above 7,500 against 59 at 2,500 or less.
How do you choose a capacity building consultant?
Fit matters more than discipline. Every unhappy climate report in this dataset comes down to fit: region, organisational style or sector. Consultants who know campaigning organisations, distributed teams and the grantee’s own region get the highest scores.
About this report
Data: 150 published grantee feedback reports on Nonprofit Builder from grantees of Growald Climate Fund, Tara Climate Foundation, Foundation for International Law for the Environment (FILE), Energy Transition Fund (ETF), Pooled Fund on International Energy (PIE), Oceankind, European Climate Foundation, Waverley Street Foundation and Synchronicity Earth, submitted between March 2024 and September 2026. Laudes Foundation and Packard Foundation grantees are excluded because those portfolios span other themes; they can be added on request. 122 consulting projects and 28 coaching packages. Coaching packages use a shorter form without impact fields, so impact figures cover consulting projects only. Comparisons to "all NPB" use the full 423-report dataset.
Quotes are lightly edited for length and to remove names of individuals and organisations, and any detail that would identify a grantee. Attributions give only the project type and the grantee’s broad region; organisation names, types and countries have been removed so that no grantee can be identified. NPS is calculated on the 0 to 10 "would you recommend this consultant" question: promoters (9 to 10) minus detractors (0 to 6).