The Community Training and Assistance Center (CTAC) has decades of experience working with diverse community organizations, providing the expertise and support needed to help build their capacity, sustainability, and impact. We help community groups to secure improved health care, recover unpaid wages on behalf of immigrant workers, win campaigns to reverse criminal record discrimination, and bring domestic workers under the protection of state labor laws. We support community groups in getting results that matter.

CTAC’s assistance focuses on a wide range of areas—from organizational systems and leadership development to goal setting, campaign planning, and program evaluation.

Our approach

CTAC considers technical assistance as a process and a relationship built over time. To ensure benefit and impact, we:

  • Develop a technical assistance plan in partnership with the organization
  • Help organizations to assess capacities and goals, and set priorities
  • Facilitate decision-making about the challenges facing the organization
  • Assist the group to identify barriers to progress
  • Strengthen the strategies needed to address the issues

We foster relationships with members, directors, and staff. We also provide an “open door” for asking questions or requesting support. We feel the technical assistance relationship needs to demonstrate respect for the community and run deep within the organization.

Tailored assistance

CTAC’s customized support is specifically designed to:

  • Expand and develop organizational leadership
  • Strengthen the capacity for analyzing root causes of problems or conditions
  • Develop effective strategies, drawing from better practices and analyzing situation-specific alternatives
  • Support the development of management, planning, and evaluation expertise
  • Reduce the isolation of leaders
  • Promote information sharing and collaboration among organizations and institutions
  • Help empower organizations to bring about positive changes in the systems, policies, and conditions affecting low-income communities

CTAC also provides guidance on the strategies required to influence public policy. We serve in lead convening and organizing roles in major policy initiatives at local, state, and national levels.