Assessing organizational capacity to deliver HIV prevention services collaboratively: tales from the field

Collaborative efforts between university researchers and community entities such as citizen coalitions and community-based organizations to provide health prevention programs are widespread. The authors describe their attempt to develop and implement a method for assessing whether community organizations had the organizational capacity to collaborate in a national study to prevent HIV infection among young men who have sex with men and what, if any, needs these institutions had for organizational capacity development assistance. The Feasibility, Evaluation Ability, and Sustainability Assessment (FEASA) combines qualitative methods for collecting data (interviews, organizational records, observations) from multiple sources to document an organization's capacity to provide HIV prevention services and its capacity-development needs. The authors describe experiences piloting FEASA in 13 communities and the benefits of using a systematic approach to partnership development.