In this paper, we look specifically at the activities CDCs and CDPs undertake to build the capacity of CDCs. Although it is probably true that building capacity of a CDC results in increased capacity in the neighborhood in which that CDC operates, we do not look specifically at neighborhood effects in this paper. The
next section examines the current context for capacity building. Following that, we review what scholars and practitioners have written about capacity and capacity building. The next section—the core of this paper—presents our conceptual framework for the concept of capacity. This framework operationalizes notions of capacity into five components: resource, organizational, programmatic, network, and political. We believe that this more concrete way of thinking about capacity will be particularly useful to practitioners, funders, and policymakers. We then briefly discuss the difficulties accompanying attempts to measure the impacts of capacity-building efforts. The final section offers conclusions and directions for future research.