For many in the nonprofit sector, the dizzying pace of rollbacks and new policies in the United States has been nothing short of stunning. Social sector actors are hardly alone in this regard, of course, but they have both the opportunity and a mission-driven motivation to respond. And as many are recognizing, philanthropic foundations that support their work must rally, and quickly, to their support by funding field-building.

There is a growing discussion about what, exactly, that means? Many observers argue for—and some foundations are announcing—increases in grantmaking. Certainly, because many nonprofits are being hamstrung by frozen or withdrawn government grants and must respond to many other policy challenges, philanthropy can play an exceedingly valuable role by investing counter-cyclically to ameliorate these headwinds.

Yet as indispensable as providing more of philanthropy's core product will be, how that money is spent represents, perhaps, an even larger opportunity. The nonprofit sector needs funding for capacity; for shared communications, tools, and connections; for strategizing across multiple organizations; for bridging differences to catalyze bigger tents of aligned interest; and for developing and executing field-level agendas. Overall, the organizations that collectively work to strengthen our commonweal need funding for connecting, sorting, and selecting priorities, and then acting at scale.

In short: they need funding for field-building. In fact, behind the scenes of notable social accomplishments in recent decades, such as reduction of tobacco use by kids, marriage equality, and rates of teen pregnancy, is a common ingredient: focused efforts to support a field of advocates and organizations by building their shared capacity and coordination.

Together, these sorts of investments can have a powerful impact now and in the future. They are a counterweight to organizational wasting. They enable the scaled, collaborative action that is the sine qua non of any adequate response in this moment. And there is a substantial future dividend: a social sector with improved capacity for population-level improvements.

Read the full article about funding field-building by David S. Beckman at Stanford Social Innovation Review.