We’ve been through it all—a terrorist attack, a flood, a hurricane, multiple global financial crises, political crises, an uprising against racism and police brutality, and a global pandemic. Time and again, we’ve come together to rebuild our cities, our missions, and our goals for social progress. This time it’s different: we’re not going to go back to what was. We’re going to create what can be.  For nonprofit capacity building, this means that this time, we’re going to upbuild.

Here’s an example of how upbuilding is different from rebuilding: In the aftermath of a hurricane, where homes are destroyed, rebuilding means that we repair the damage, replace the windows, the roof tiles, the siding, and install a sump pump. We try to get the homes back to the state that they were in before the hurricane.

If we use upbuilding as our frame, we recognize that these homes were built on low-lying land that is now eroding. We see that the median income of people living in those homes was dramatically less than those in higher, more inland properties. We see the difference in the races of people living there. Upbuilding after a hurricane requires us to employ soil preservation techniques, build hurricane resistant homes more inland or upland on land made affordable and accessible, institute measures to address the climate change roots of hurricane frequency and intensity, and ensure that resources distributed to that community are distributed equally to provide access to those who may be marginalized because of age, ability, race, and other factors.

Upbuilding is what happens when infrastructure is defined expansively, centering humans and communities, and with a strong equity, anti-oppressive lens. Upbuilding requires having the willingness and imagination to question why things are the way they are, whether they serve or oppress, and whether they can be done differently. In short, upbuilding means building something new and different as opposed to recovering and going back to “normal.”

Building something new is important and transformational. Transformation starts with people and moves at the speed of trust.

The call to upbuild centers care, equity, and resourcing in how we approach nonprofit capacity-building. Upbuilding asks us to really care for the humans who make up the nonprofit sector workforce, as well as the humans who benefit from that work. Caring also requires being equitable and anti-oppressive.

Read the full article about upbuilding nonprofit infrastructure by Tiloma Jayasinghe at Nonprofit Quarterly .