We built this resource in an effort to help activists and organizations get the support they need.

Animal Protection Capacity Builders is a website that brings together organizations and resources to help promote resources that can help capacity build those working towards a kinder world.

The groups that APCB organizations support include those advocating on behalf of farmed animals, companion animals, laboratory animals, equine, wildlife, and aquatic animals; operating animal shelters, rescues, and sanctuaries; promoting and facilitating plant-based diet change; educating the public about animals' plight through diverse media and photojournalism; and working to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion in the animal protection movement.

Click here to submit your application to join as a member.

Some factors we look at when adding organizations to the list include: capacity building programs, age of organization, non-profit status, area of focus, team, transparency, and so on.

What is Capacity Building exactly?

Capacity building is not just about the capacity of a nonprofit today -- it's about the nonprofit’s ability to deliver its mission effectively now, and in the future. Capacity building is an investment in the effectiveness and future sustainability of a nonprofit.

Distinct capacity building projects, such as identifying a communications strategy, improving volunteer recruitment, ensuring thoughtful leadership succession, updating a nonprofit’s technology, and improving how it measures its outcomes, all build the capacity of a charitable nonprofit to effectively deliver its mission. When capacity building is successful, it strengthens a nonprofit’s ability to fulfill its mission over time, thereby enhancing the nonprofit’s ability to have a positive impact on lives and communities.

When people inquire, “What is capacity building?” they may be wondering about “capacity building” as a verb (such as providing funding for a nonprofit to improve its own effectiveness, or actually teaching/instructing or consulting to build needed skills) or as a noun (the results of such skill-building). Nonprofit capacity building refers to many different types of activities that are all designed to improve and enhance a nonprofit’s ability to achieve its mission and sustain itself over time. Here is our definition (excerpted from,  A Network Approach to Capacity Building): 

Capacity building is whatever is needed to bring a nonprofit to the next level of operational, programmatic, financial, or organizational maturity, so it may more effectively and efficiently advance its mission into the future. Capacity building is not a one-time effort to improve short-term effectiveness, but a continuous improvement strategy toward the creation of a sustainable and effective organization.

Capacity building is as basic as continually improving; some might consider it an obligation - both for nonprofits to undertake, and donors/grantmakers to support.

Why is capacity building important?

While frequently invisible, and often overlooked, capacity building is the all-important “infrastructure” that supports and shapes charitable nonprofits into forces for good. Capacity building enables nonprofit organizations and their leaders to develop competencies and skills that can make them more effective and sustainable, thus increasing the potential for charitable nonprofits to enrich lives and solve society’s most intractable problems.

Credit: National Council of Nonprofits