Dear Ministry Leaders,
We are assisting a consortium of foundations in the development of 
a model to help assess and support the development of organizational capacity. Basically, capacity, as they define it, consists of the organizational skills, assets, insights, strategies, methods, and ethos a ministry needs in order to successfully pursue its mission over time. We might describe capacity as the hammer with which you hit the nail (strategy), to fasten the beam (objective), to the larger structure (mission). Many ministry organizations are attempting to hit very big nails with very small hammers.
They have identified eight capacity factors they feel are important to ministry effectiveness. These eight factors can be organized into two broad categories:
Sustaining Factors
- Competent Leadership
- Effective Governance
- Clear Mission
- Healthy Culture
Supporting Factors
- Impactful Strategy
- Solid Resourcing Plan
- Relevant Measures
- Reliable Operations
Although all eight factors are important for organizational effectiveness, we believe that the four sustaining factors (governance, leadership, mission, and culture) are a bit more important. For example, if resources were lacking or operations were inconsistent, it is likely that governance and/or leadership would ensures steps were taken to strengthen them. We are not confident that it would work the other way around.