Facilitating Local Leadership
We strengthen the capacity of our local partners to improve their ability to promote locally led development.
Capacity strengthening is at the center of LINC’s mission. We believe that engaging committed, capable local organizations to lead their own institutional improvement increases development effectiveness and long-term sustainability. However, transforming international development to center local actors requires new approaches and capacities for everyone involved, from donors to governments, implementers, civil society, and the private sector.
When working with engaged local organizations, LINC uses an organizational development approach that helps local actors critically examine their own place in a larger system, align their services to local demand, and self-identify capacity-strengthening assets and priorities.
One of the tools that we use is our proprietary Pre-Investment Capacity and Knowledge Scorecard (PICKS) tool, which allows organizations to better understand their greatest strengths and most significant opportunities for improvement, including what functional skills and management processes might be valued by their donors and partners.
Additionally, we leverage our deep familiarity with donors and implementers to provide tailored training and capacity-strengthening to help donors and implementers, and local organizations improve their operations.
An example of LINC’s Capacity Strengthening work is the LINC-led Mexico Local Capacity Development Activity (LCDA), which strengthened the capacity of Mexican CSOs to serve and advocate for their constituents more effectively. LCDA created a locally-managed, locally-resourced capacity-strengthening program that continues to be delivered and that led to several organizations receiving direct awards from USAID. LINC was recognized with the 2017 Small Business of the Year award by USAID for its work with LCDA.

Proven Commitment to Local Capacity Strengthening
Since its early days, LINC has been committed to supporting the capacity development and strengthening of local organizations. This commitment earned us the USAID Small Business of the Year award.
2017 USAID’s Small Business of the Year
LINC was awarded the FY2017 Small Business of the Year award from USAID. LINC was nominated by USAID/Mexico for its work as lead implementer of the Local Capacity Development Activity, which aims to strengthen the local capacity of Mexican Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to more effectively serve and advocate for their constituents. Learn more.
