The Organizational Capacity Assessment Tool (OCAT), developed by McKinsey & Company for VPP, is an assessment tool to measure operational capacity and identify areas which need improvement. It can be used as a self-assessment tool and as a tool for funders. As of 2009, more than 90 organizations have requested permission to modify the tool, post it on their websites, or distribute it among their own grantees and countless others have downloaded the tool from VPP’s website. As part of VPP's dedication to sharing our knowledge, the McKinsey report "Effective Capacity Building in Nonprofit Organizations," which includes the OCAT, is available for download completely free of charge.
Organizations that have used the OCAT or created an adapted version of their own include:
- Social Venture Partners
- REDF
- Acumen Fund
- Marguerite Casey Foundation
- The Susquehanna Folk Music Society
- Community Builders, New South Wales, Australia
- United Nations Development Programme
- The Forbes Fund
- Virginia Department of Social Services Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives
- United Way International
- John Wiley and Sons Publishing
- the City of Miami Mayor's Office
- the California Rural Indian Health Board
Users of the OCAT range from foundations and non-profits, to governments, to for-profits. Numerous nonprofit consulting firms make use of the OCAT, or a modified version, as well.
Universities and academic centers that have incorporated the OCAT into curricula include:
- The Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies
- University of the District of Columbia
- North Park University
- Harvard Business School
- University of Minnesota
- John F. Kennedy School of Government
Blueprint Research and Design authored the case study Building Capacity While Assessing It: Three Foundations’ Experiences Using the McKinsey Capacity Assessment Grid. Blueprint Research and Design adapted the McKinsey grid to fit the specific needs of each of the three above organizations – Marguerite Casey Foundation, Social Venture Partners, and Community Clinics Initiative. This report details the goals that these organizations had in adapting the OCAT, as well as the challenges, successes, and overall outcomes of using it.
A number of OCAT adaptations are online:
The Marguerite Casey Foundation Capacity Assessment Tool. The Marguerite Casey Foundation reduced the original seven categories into four: Leadership Capacity, Adaptive Capacity, Management Capacity, and Operational Capacity. The Foundation primarily used its adaptation to understand strengths and weaknesses of its grantee organizations, and to identify regional differences in capacity-building priorities (Guthrie and Preston, Building Capacity While Assessing It).
Social Venture Partners Organizational Capacity Tool. Social Venture Partners increased the number of categories to ten, developing more in-depth questions on subjects such as marketing and public relations, and human resources.
Community Clinics Initiative Organizational Capacity Tool. Community Clinics Initiative, a community health center and clinic support organization, revamped the OCAT to focus more specifically on the capacity-building issues affecting community health clinics, creating a highly customized and in-depth version of the tool.
Please let us know if you have used the OCAT and would like to share your experience, or if you have a publically available adaptation that we have not included in this listing.
