In India’s development ecosystem, community-based organizations (CBOs) and small nonprofits are often the first to arrive and the last to leave. They work in geographies that are hard to reach, with communities that are frequently excluded from formal systems, and on issues that rarely attract sustained attention or funding.
Despite their proximity to people and problems, grassroots organizations continue to operate at the margins of institutional support. They are expected to deliver impact with limited resources, manage increasing compliance requirements and compete for shrinking pools of funding — often without access to structured learning, mentorship or peer networks. The result is a paradox: those closest to communities are often the least equipped to navigate the systems meant to support them.
This is why capacity building — when done well — can be one of the most powerful and most underestimated, development interventions.
Capacity building is not a workshop
For decades, capacity building in the nonprofit sector has largely meant short trainings: a fundraising workshop here, a programme management session there. These interventions are rarely ineffective because of poor intent; they fall short because they are episodic, generic and disconnected from the lived realities of grassroots organizations.
Many CBOs operate with annual budgets that range from a few tens of thousands of rupees to several lakhs. Leadership is often voluntary or part-time. Documentation, reporting and fundraising are handled by the same small team that is also responsible for programme delivery. In such contexts, capacity gaps are not isolated — they are structural.
A fundraising strategy cannot be improved without addressing programme design. Governance challenges cannot be resolved without looking at leadership and decision-making. Community participation cannot be strengthened without examining how organisations relate to power, both within communities and with funders.
Effective capacity building, therefore, must move beyond standalone skills. It needs to work across functions, adapt to organizational maturity and respond to context rather than impose templates.
What changes when training responds to need
One of the clearest lessons from working with grassroots organizations is that relevance determines retention. When learning aligns closely with immediate organizational challenges, participation deepens, and outcomes extend beyond the classroom.
Need-based training models attempt to do just that. Instead of offering fixed modules, they combine elements of fundraising, programme management and organizational development based on what participating organisations actually require. For some, this may mean learning how to articulate their work to potential donors. For others, it may be about building basic financial systems or clarifying roles within the organization.
In practice, this approach has led to unexpected outcomes. In some instances, small CBOs — many of them led by members of the communities they serve — have chosen to collaborate rather than compete. After training together, organizations working in neighbouring districts have planned joint fundraising activities, shared learning resources or collectively organized community outreach efforts.
These are not outcomes that can be neatly predicted or easily quantified. But they point to a deeper shift: capacity building that strengthens confidence and collective agency, not just individual skills.
Learning does not end when the training does
A persistent challenge in the sector is the gap between learning and application. Organizations may leave a training with new ideas, only to struggle when faced with entrenched constraints — limited staff time, donor expectations or leadership fatigue.
This is where follow-up, reflection and peer exchange matter as much as curriculum. Platforms that allow organizations to return to learning by discussing what worked, what didn’t and why — help translate theory into practice.
Linking learning to lived experience also creates space for honesty. Grassroots organizations are often navigating difficult internal realities: leadership transitions, uneven community engagement or limited documentation. Acknowledging these challenges openly, rather than presenting idealised narratives of success, builds trust and relevance into capacity-building processes.
Over time, such reflective spaces can shift how organizations view themselves — not as perpetual recipients of aid or training, but as practitioners capable of critical analysis and adaptive leadership.
Trainers matter more than toolkits
Capacity building is shaped as much by who delivers it as by what is delivered. Trainers working with grassroots organisations occupy a unique position: they must balance sectoral expertise with humility and structure with flexibility.
As the nonprofit ecosystem evolves through tighter compliance norms, changing donor priorities and growing emphasis on measurable outcomes, trainers themselves need opportunities to reflect and adapt. Investing in trainers through refreshers, peer learning and collective problem-solving strengthens the entire capacity-building ecosystem.
It also helps prevent a common pitfall: recycling outdated frameworks that do not reflect current realities. When trainers learn from one another, they are better equipped to support organizations navigating complexity rather than offering prescriptive solutions.
Rethinking how learning happens
Adult learning, particularly in resource-constrained settings, is most effective when it is participatory. For many grassroots leaders, management terminology can feel abstract or exclusionary. Innovative learning methods such as simulations, games and role-based exercises can make complex concepts more accessible.
Game-based learning, for instance, allows participants to explore issues like resource allocation, collaboration or decision-making in a low-risk environment. These exercises often surface power dynamics and assumptions that remain invisible in traditional classroom settings.
Similarly, dialogue-led platforms such as colloquiums create opportunities for practitioners, funder, and sector leaders to engage as equals. Conversations about the role of CBOs in development — what they enable, what constrains them and what they need — help move the narrative to systemic questions of trust, autonomy and accountability.
Capacity building as ecosystem work
Strengthening grassroots organizations cannot be the responsibility of NGOs alone. It requires an ecosystem approach — one that includes donors, corporates, academic institutions and larger civil society actors.
Too often, capacity building is treated as a checkbox: a short-term input attached to a grant cycle. What is needed instead is long-term investment in institutional resilience. This includes supporting organisations to decide how they want to grow or whether growth is even the right goal.
In some contexts, collaboration or federation may be more sustainable than scale. In others, remaining small and deeply embedded in the community may be a strategic choice. Capacity building should enable such decision-making, not override it.
At Smile Foundation, this understanding has shaped the Empowering Grassroots approach placing emphasis on learning processes, peer networks and contextual adaptation rather than uniform outcomes. The intent is not to produce “model organizations,” but to support organizations in becoming more reflective, resilient and rooted.
From capability to confidence
Ultimately, the purpose of capacity building is not competence alone, it is confidence. Confidence to engage funders on equal terms, question extractive practices, centre community priorities, even when they do not align neatly with donor frameworks.
When grassroots organizations are confident, their role in the development ecosystem shifts. They become not just implementers, but knowledge holders and advocates. Communities benefit from organizations that are accountable and adaptive. Funders engage with partners who can articulate impact without distortion. And the sector moves, slowly but meaningfully, towards more equitable relationships.
In a country as diverse as India, there is no single pathway to strengthening grassroots organizations. But there is a clear lesson: sustainable development outcomes depend not only on what is funded, but on who is supported and how.
Capacity building, when treated as a long-term commitment rather than a short-term intervention, may well be one of India’s most powerful, and still under-recognised, development investments.
