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A CAPACITY-BUILDING FRAMEWORK
A Search for Concept and Purpose
Beth Walter Honadle

Culture requires that we possess a complete concept of the world and of

man; it is not for culture to stop, with science, at the point where the meth-
ods of absolute theoretic rigor happen to end. Life cannot wait until the sci-
ences have explained the universe scientifically. We cannot put off living un-
til we are ready.
—Jose Ortega y Gasset

When we engage in a pursuit, a clear and precise conception of what we are

pursuing would seem to be the first thing we need, instead of the last we are
to look forward to.
—John Stuart Mill

A growing number of persons (capacity builders) purport to be doing some-

thing they call "capacity building." They go about this activity in a variety
of ways—demonstrations, grants, consulting, training and development,
and circuit riding, to name a few. Capacity building tends to address spe-
cialized management issues—financial management, organization develop-
ment, grantsmanship, and service integration, for instance—usually de-
pending upon the purview and interests of the capacity builders.
These characteristics of capacity building are not necessarily bad. At-
tempts to address the broad gamut of management issues may be overly
ambitious and do the client a disservice. Bolstering management practices

"A Capacity-Building Framework: A Search for Concept and Purpose," Public Administra-
tion Review 41 (September/October, 1981): 575-580.

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