Value of Capacity Building and Advisory Services Provided (II0324)

This metric is intended to capture the value of the investing organization's support for capacity-building efforts at companies in their portfolio as of the end of the reporting period. Organizations should include only that support they paid for directly and should exclude any support funded by third parties.

Per the United Nations (https://www.un.org/en/academic-impact/capacity-building), capacity building is "the process of developing and strengthening the skills, instincts, abilities, processes and resources that organizations and communities need to survive, adapt, and thrive in a fast-changing world." For entrepreneurs and companies, capacity building can include trainings in fundraising techniques, fiscal management, or other business skills; support in recruiting and hiring staff or volunteers; networking support; consulting services regarding process implementation; mentoring; and purchasing IT and other equipment or resources to support business growth.

For an example of how investors can provide capacity-building support to entrepreneurs, see "Unleashing the Potential of Entrepreneurs of Color in Massachusetts: A Blueprint for Economic Growth and Equitable Recovery" (https://massinc.org/research/entrepreneurs-of-color/).

Used along with Target Stakeholder Demographic (PD5752) to specify historically marginalized groups due to race and/or ethnicity, this metric aligns with the Corporate Racial Equity Alliance’s (https://corporateracialequityalliance.org/) Investor Blueprint for Racial Equity and its corporate-focused CEO Blueprint for Racial Equity (https://corporateracialequityalliance.org/2021-blueprint).