Catalytic Capacity Building
Catalytic support for organizations and leaders advancing justice
Why This Work Matters
Organizations in local communities hold the relationships, knowledge, and vision needed to create meaningful change. Yet inequitable access to funding, infrastructure, and specialized expertise can constrain their ability to sustain their work, respond to emerging needs, and pursue their long-term vision.
Justice + Joy’s Approach
Justice + Joy serves as an intermediary, fiscal sponsor, strategic partner, and trusted advisor to organizations and leaders advancing justice with and for girls, young women, and gender-expansive young people of color. Our role is shaped by each partner’s priorities, circumstances, and stage of organizational development.
Our work can include intermediary funding, fiscal sponsorship, financial and human resources guidance, cash-flow loans when resources allow, and organizational development consulting. We also provide strategic planning, leadership coaching, branding, staff training, issue-area learning, and other tailored services. Through a peer-to-peer model, we exchange knowledge and strengthen the infrastructure beneath the work while honoring the community relationships, lived expertise, and purpose already at its center.
Capacity Building in Practice
The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects
The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects creates spaces where Black girls can experience joy, deepen their sense of self, and thrive on their own terms. Its work is grounded in the principles and legacy of Southern Black feminist organizing.
For three years, Justice + Joy served as The Lighthouse’s fiscal sponsor and strategic partner, providing financial, human resources, operational, and strategic-planning support. The partnership also included leadership coaching and emergency payroll loans during a critical period of organizational growth.
Justice + Joy carried some of the operational weight while The Lighthouse established procedures, expanded its organizational knowledge, and prepared to operate independently. The Lighthouse has now operated independently for several years, while the relationship continues—with Justice + Joy remaining a trusted advisor as the organization grows.
“There’s a vulnerability to growth people don’t talk about. One of the things that’s important when building our own capacity is doing it in a relationship with someone you can trust. The folks at Justice + Joy saw me, the work we were trying to do, and the people we were working alongside as investment worthy.”
—Natalie Collier, Executive Director, The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects
Crittenton Family of Agencies
For more than a century, Justice + Joy has convened the Crittenton Family of Agencies—a diverse network of independent nonprofits connected by shared history, aligned values, and a commitment to young people and families. Each agency is shaped by its community, local context, and distinct approach to advancing justice and opportunity.
Today, Justice + Joy facilitates regular gatherings where agency leaders examine national trends affecting young people and families, exchange policy updates, share programs and strategies, and learn from one another’s experience. Justice + Joy also provides individualized and group training and technical assistance and creates opportunities for agencies’ community-rooted expertise and innovation to inform national conversations.
Together, the Crittenton Family demonstrates the power of sustained relationships across organizations without requiring uniformity. Agencies remain independent while contributing their local knowledge to a national network committed to shared learning and collective action. Explore the Crittenton Family of Agencies.
Stronger Organizations Strengthen Movements
Explore the organizations in the Crittenton Family or connect with Justice + Joy about a capacity-building partnership.
