When Kataly first started in late 2018, the Foundation had a lean staff, which it maintained for approximately five years while grantmaking and investments developed and expanded. Jocelyn Wong, the Director of Capacity Building, also served in a dual role as a Program Analyst with the Restorative Economies Fund.

 

Those early days coincided with the first Trump administration, the start of a global pandemic, and the racial justice uprisings of 2020. Our small but mighty team was grounded by a clear vision, mission, and set of values. Because many of us had recently come out of the movements we were now resourcing and were keyed into existing networks, we were able to move money quickly and abundantly.

 

As practitioner-funders, we also knew that grantmaking was only one aspect of what a truly transformative funder relationship should look like. We believe funders can and should show up for their grantee partners in multiple ways, including facilitating connections to other funders, providing thought partnership and technical assistance from our own experiences, and lining up other forms of non-financial support, such as quality, values-aligned capacity building opportunities.

 

Through informal interviews and listening sessions with movement partners, technical assistance providers, and peer funders in 2020-2021, we developed an initial framework for our Capacity Building efforts, centered around supporting our movements to be more equipped to navigate change at the individual, organizational, and ecosystem level.

 

By the end of 2021, Kataly’s unrestricted reserve had sufficient returns to increase and cover our grantmaking commitments and projected operating costs for the life of the foundation. This put Kataly in the privileged and principled position to shift to a values-aligned non-extractive investment strategy, which still allowed for dedicated staffing and a $15 million budget for Capacity Building.

 

In 2022, we launched our Capacity Building Program, lining up an initial slate of 5 anchor programming partnerships and making over $500,000 in movement infrastructure grants.

 

From 2022 to 2023, the number of grants awarded by Kataly more than doubled, growing from 149 to 308. By early 2024, it was clear that our programming and grantmaking strategies—to be truly responsive and relevant—needed to evolve accordingly. We needed to hear from and leverage the wisdom of our growing community of grantee partners.

 

In 2024, Jocelyn Wong transitioned out of the dual role and became Kataly’s full-time Director of Capacity Building, and hired Lindsey Moriguchi Wong as a new Program Officer for Capacity Building. We initiated a new body of work with then partners at Raise for Good, culminating in a new Impact, Measurement, and Evaluation Framework for Kataly’s Capacity Building Program.