1

Practitioners

GUIDE

PRINCETON, NJ - ANN ARBOR, MI - CAMBRIDGE, MA - CHICAGO, IL - OAKLAND, CA - SEATTLE, WA 

TUCSON, AZ - WASHINGTON, DC - WOODLAWN, MD

EDI: HIGH WYCOMBE, UK - BUKOBA, TANZANIA - DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA

SEPTEMBER 2019

For an organization to implement an intervention successfully, having a suitable intervention is necessary but not sufficient. To be ready to implement, an intervention must 

have a thorough and detailed description that specifies the activities to be conducted, the 

types of people who will participate, and the supports that are in 

place so it can be implemented as 

designed.1–3 Even then, the organization must also have the capacity 

to successfully implement the 

intervention, which entails having 

an implementation infrastructure 

and an enabling context.

This guide aims to help practitioners build the organizational capacity to be ready to 

implement their desired intervention effectively. It (1) describes the specific components 

of the implementation infrastructure and the enabling context that an organization 

needs to implement a planned or current intervention, (2) explains how organizations 

can develop those components based on reviewing the details of an intervention, and 

(3) provides a hypothetical example of the process. Informed by a framework Mathematica developed for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS)

on conditions required to successfully scale an intervention, this guide addresses organizations planning to implement an intervention for the first time, those continuing to

implement one, and those planning to scale one, such as to new locations or populations.

Build Organizational Capacity 

to Implement an Intervention

Christopher Jones and Karen Needels

MATHEMATICA-MPR.COM

An implementation infrastructure. 

The organization has the resources and 

workforce needed to deliver, support, 

and manage the intervention.

An enabling context. Organization 

leadership, key stakeholders, partners, and 

the community support the intervention, 

and the organization’s culture supports 

innovation, learning, and improvement.

BUILDING IMPLEMENTATION 

INFRASTRUCTURE

To be able to deliver the intervention as intended, 

organizations need an underlying infrastructure 

in place. Turning the intervention from plans and 

descriptions to on-the-ground reality requires personnel and other resources. Infrastructure is often 

about quantity—having enough of a resource—but 

quality is also important. For example, in addition 

to having a sufficient workforce, an organization 

must prepare personnel to fulfill their roles effectively for the intervention. However, the structures 

and mechanisms to accomplish this take place 

behind the scenes and are sometimes overlooked.

Implementation science research, such as the 

resources included in the Further Reading section, 

has identified components of implementation 

infrastructure that are critical to success; site 

visits to three CNCS-funded grantees confirmed 

their value.3–5 An organization should review the 

intervention and the entire set of activities needed 

for implementation so it can establish its approach 

to preparing each infrastructure component. Some 

activities, such as directly delivering services to 

participants, are likely to be clearly spelled out 

EXAMPLE OF 

BUILDING 

ORGANIZATIONAL 

CAPACITY

In this hypothetical 

example, the intervention is an after-school 

science program for 

high school students, 

who participate in 

weekly small-group 

sessions. After examining the intervention, 

the organization 

identified steps to take 

to build its capacity for 

implementation; these 

steps are listed in the 

sidebars throughout 

the rest of this guide.
2

in the intervention description. Others, such as 

indirect support and management tasks, might not 

be fully specified; instead, the organization would 

have to determine what else it must do to deliver 

the intervention successfully. The organization can 

also use tools to identify its strengths and areas 

needing more support (see the Further Reading 

section for one example).6

 The critical components of implementation infrastructure include:

ment activities.To ensure it has a sufficient 

qualified workforce, the organization might hire 

new personnel, assign current personnel, partner 

with other organizations to use their personnel, 

or combine these strategies. To avoid overlooking support and management activities, the 

organization might need to focus on identifying 

personnel who will conduct all those activities 

and ensuring that they have enough time to 

support and oversee the frontline workforce.

• Human resource system. This consists 

of activities to select, train, and supervise 

all personnel, from frontline to managers. 

Although the intervention might not specify 

this system, its requirements should inform 

what the system must include. For example, if 

frontline personnel deliver the intervention in 

locations separate from those of their supervisors, additional supervision activities might 

be needed. The organization might need to 

develop a formal system or, if it already has 

one, modify it to aid intervention delivery.

ESTABLISHING AN ENABLING 

CONTEXT

Implementing an intervention occurs in a 

broader context. For example, the organization 

may have other interventions or activities to 

conduct, stakeholders may support or oppose 

the intervention, and many interventions require 

working with partners. Also, there will often be 

new and unanticipated challenges that organizations will have to be able to address. Implementation science, such as the resources included in 

the Further Reading section, has identified key 

components of a context that enables successful 

implementation of an intervention; site visits to 

CNCS-funded grantees confirmed their value3,4: 

• Supports from leaders, stakeholders, 

and partners. To implement an intervention, 

an organization needs support internally from 

organizational leadership and externally from 

stakeholders and partners. An assessment of 

the support needed might help the organization identify structures or processes that will 

help to ensure that the intervention receives 

enough attention and resources relative to 

other organizational activities. It also might 

foster a recognition of resources or supports 

that must come from stakeholders or partners, 

and what coordination with them is needed 

to ensure that the resources and supports are 

maintained throughout implementation.

EXAMPLE: 

BUILDING 

IMPLEMENTATION 

INFRASTRUCTURE

Funding. Calculate 

total cost based on all 

personnel, activities, 

and materials listed 

by the intervention. 

Resources from the 

main funder do not 

completely cover training costs, so pursue 

other funding.

Materials. Purchase 

the science equipment listed in the 

intervention description. Print copies of 

the implementation 

manuals and monitoring forms for personnel.

Physical space. Confirm that the schools 

can provide space for 

the sessions. Identify a 

location large enough 

to hold the end-of-year 

science fair. Provide 

office space for facilitators to work in when 

not leading sessions.

Sufficient 

workforce. 

To meet intervention 

requirements, hire one 

facilitator for about 

every 60 students 

and one coach for 

every 5 facilitators. 

Select organization 

employees to fill roles 

of program director, 

curriculum director, 

and school liaison.

Human resource 

system. Recruit 

broadly for facilitator 

position (intervention does not require 

any experience) and 

target retired science 

teachers for the coach 

position (five years 

in science education 

required). Use the final 

20 minutes of biweekly 

calls with facilitators to 

go over supervisionrelated issues.

Key components of implementation 

infrastructure: 

Funding

 Materials

 Physical space

 Sufficient 

workforce

 Human resource 

system

• Resources. Organizations can examine the 

details of a well-specified intervention to ascertain the resources they will need to implement it.

• Funding. Information on what is needed 

to implement the intervention should 

enable the organization to calculate the 

cost of delivering it. Funding must cover 

all activities involved, including indirect 

costs for support and management tasks.

• Materials. The intervention should 

include or describe materials needed for 

participants and frontline personnel, such 

as workbooks and manuals. The organization should produce these materials internally or obtain them from another source. 

It may need to develop and produce other 

materials, such as checklists for supervisors 

to use when monitoring frontline personnel.

• Physical space. Spaces where services 

are delivered to participants will likely be 

part of the intervention description. Others that might be needed include space to 

hold pre-service training, office space for 

frontline personnel to work in when not 

providing services, and a location to store 

materials. Space that meets intervention 

requirements can be scarce or expensive, so 

the organization needs a plan for obtaining 

it. This might entail use of space from partners or stakeholders or additional funding.

• Sufficient workforce. The intervention will 

likely specify the number and qualifications 

necessary for each workforce role, and must 

include those who deliver the intervention as 

well as those conducting support and manage-
3

• Culture of innovation and improvement.

Organizations with this type of culture 

constantly evaluate how they are implementing an intervention and strive to improve 

what they are currently doing or innovate 

new approaches. An organization can review 

information from a well-specified intervention 

to determine what high-quality implementation looks like or how to measure success. 

Then, during implementation, the organization can compare its efforts to those indicators 

and use the results to identify ways to improve 

its approach or innovate, while ensuring it 

delivers the intervention as designed.

• Ability to address challenges. All organizations encounter challenges in delivering, 

supporting, and managing an intervention; 

successful implementation involves resolving 

those issues when they come up. One way to 

do this is to identify aspects of the intervention where challenges could arise, in order 

to head them off or to be better prepared to 

deal with them if they occur. For example, 

an organization might notice that one of 

the intervention activities will likely place 

additional demands on participants or that 

the data system seems to have a steep learning 

curve for users. Through a risk assessment, the 

organization could predict which challenges 

are most likely to occur and which would 

harm implementation the most, so it can 

prioritize addressing those challenges.

ADJUSTING APPROACH BASED 

ON TYPE OF IMPLEMENTATION

Regardless of whether an organization has experience implementing an intervention or is doing so 

for the first time, it must have the organizational 

capacity to support implementation. However, its 

experience with the intervention and its plans for 

future implementation might shape its approach 

to building capacity.

Initial implementation. Organizations without 

experience implementing the intervention will 

likely need a more intensive effort both to put 

an implementation infrastructure in place and 

to develop an enabling context. An organization 

might find that infrastructure is more straightforward and can serve as a starting point for planning, 

but that the steps needed for the surrounding 

context are less clear and take more time to devise. 

The organization could also contact others that 

implement the intervention or the developer (if it 

did not develop the intervention) for guidance. 

Ongoing implementation. An organization 

that has already implemented the intervention 

and plans to continue doing so is familiar with 

the work required and has experience building 

capacity to succeed. However, the organization 

can still examine what else it needs to do to 

strengthen existing capacity. For example, it might 

find that some aspects of implementation relied 

on implicit institutional knowledge, which would 

have to be spelled out more explicitly if new personnel were to implement the next phase. It also 

might find that although it has an infrastructure 

in place, it needs to improve the surrounding context to enable more successful implementation.

Scaling. Many organizations, including the 

CNCS-funded grantees visited, plan to scale a 

current intervention, such as by implementing 

it in new locations. While the organization has 

an existing infrastructure and context, scaling 

involves new aspects of implementation that 

require new elements of organizational capacity. 

As with the intervention, the planned scaling 

must be well defined, and the organization must 

examine its plans to determine how it needs to 

build or strengthen capacity. 

All types of scaling require strong implementation infrastructure and an enabling context, but 

different types of scaling might require organizations to focus especially on certain aspects of 

capacity. For example:

• Expansion of an intervention in a location where it already operates might require 

additional focus on support and management 

activities, as more services will be provided 

EXAMPLE: 

ESTABLISHING 

AN ENABLING 

CONTEXT

Leader, stakeholder, 

and partner support. 

Build in extra time 

during the summer for 

the school liaison to 

meet with schools to 

prepare for the upcoming year. Partner with 

a local university to 

provide the curriculum 

director with special 

training, which is not 

required by the intervention but enhances 

the director’s expertise.

Culture of innovation and improvement. Replace 

paper forms with an 

electronic system that 

can quickly compile 

coaches’ feedback on 

facilitators for review. 

The intervention lists 

student engagement 

as one indicator of 

success, so build in 

time during monitoring visits for coaches 

to talk to students.

Ability to address 

challenges. The 

students tend to 

struggle with chemistry activities, so block 

out extra time during 

training and biweekly 

calls to cover those. 

Set up extra meetings 

during the summer so 

the program director, 

curriculum director, 

and school liaison 

can assess potential 

challenges.

Approach may differ if type of 

implementation is:

• Initial

• Ongoing

• Scaling (expansion, 

replication, adaptation)

Key components of enabling context: 

Supports from leaders, stakeholders, and partners

 Culture of innovation and 

improvement

 Ability to address challenges
4

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• Adaptation of an intervention for a new 

population or new setting might require extra 

focus on improving implementation and 

on addressing challenges to ensure that the 

changes to the intervention have worked as 

intended. It will be helpful to ensure that the 

changes are clearly specified, including how 

they differ from the original intervention, 

so that the organization can implement the 

modified intervention as intended and assess 

how well the modifications are working.

EXAMPLE: DEVELOPING CAPACITY 

FOR SCALING

The organization did 

not develop the intervention, but has previously implemented 

it. The organization is 

expanding the intervention to three times as 

many high schools in its 

current location and is 

also piloting an adapted 

version in middle 

schools. It reviewed its 

plans for scaling, pinpointed activities that 

would likely present 

challenges, and identified steps to be ready 

for scaling. Examples 

include:

• Obtain input from 

the developer on 

the adapted session 

activities to ensure 

they are appropriate 

for middle school 

students.

• Add 30 minutes to 

the biweekly calls 

with facilitators to 

account for the larger 

number of facilitators 

who will be part of 

the discussion. 

• Dedicate time in the 

summer for a human 

resources associate 

(who does not 

normally work on the 

intervention) to hire 

the extra facilitators 

and coaches needed, 

because current personnel do not have 

time to do so.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

For more information, contact Scott Richman, director of the Scaling Evidence-Based 

Models project, at srichman@mathematica-mpr.com.

ABOUT THE SERIES

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) supports the scaling of effective 

interventions that it funds. CNCS engaged Mathematica Policy Research to conduct the Scaling 

Evidence-Based Models project (contract GS10F0050L/CNSHQ16F0049). As part of that project, 

Mathematica developed a series of guides to help practitioners assess their scaling efforts critically, 

collect evidence on the effectiveness of their interventions, and increase the likelihood of effective 

scaling of successful interventions.

Each guide provides a succinct, but non-exhaustive, overview of a topic relevant to practitioners. The 

guides are based on implementation science research, as well as information collected during site visits 

conducted by Mathematica staff with three CNCS-funded grantees during fall 2018. As part of the effort, 

Mathematica staff reviewed program documents (such as manuals and grant applications) and conducted 

in-depth interviews with organizational leaders and frontline personnel, partner personnel, AmeriCorps 

members, and other stakeholders. More in-depth information on the topic of this guide can be found 

through references in the Further Reading section.

to a larger population. For example, it should 

decide whether processes for hiring and 

supervising frontline personnel have to be 

revised to accommodate the larger workforce.

• Replication of an intervention to a new location might require more focus on infrastructure 

to support monitoring activities, to ensure that 

it is implemented with fidelity. The organization 

might also need to do more to ensure that the 

new context enables successful implementation. 

For example, it should identify whether there are 

different stakeholders and partners in the new 

location and what support it needs from them.

FURTHER READING

1 Mathematica. “Practitioners Guide: How to Fully Describe an Intervention,” 2018 (https://

nationalservice.gov/impact-our-nation/evidence-exchange/how-fully-describe-intervention)

2 Mathematica. “Practitioners Guide: How to Structure Implementation Supports,” 2019 (https://nationalservice.gov/impact-our-nation/evidence-exchange/how-structure-implementation-supports)

3 Mathematica. “Planned Scaling Activities of CNCS-Funded Organizations: Benchmark 

Findings,” 2018

4 National Implementation Research Network (NIRN)

“Active Implementation Hub” (https://nirn.fpg.unc.edu/ai-hub)

“Implementation Drivers” (https://nirn.fpg.unc.edu/module-2)

5 University of Kansas. “Community Tool Box: Improving Organizational Management and Development” (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/improve-organizational-management-and-development)

6 Corporation for National and Community Service. “Organizational Capacity Assessment Tool,” 

2017 (https://nationalservice.gov/sites/default/files/resource/CNCS_Organization_Assessment_Tool_Final_082517__508_0.pdf)