Community-based organizations need to be vibrant and rejuvenate themselves regularly according to the needs of donors. Revisiting the mandates and services to meet the emerging demands need regular assessment of capacity of these organizations. It needs a tool like Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA) to have self-assessment among their stakeholders. This tool is utilized to design the capacity development plan and improvement of already existing plan. This tool has been utilized by more than 150 facilitators for almost two decades in and around more than 30 countries. This paper tries to briefl y orient theoretically, the nature, principles, functions, process and approaches of OCA, so that the agricultural extension fraternity may not only get some insight into this concept but also may apply towards functioning of community-based organizations such as Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs).

Keyword: Organizational Capacity Assessment; CBOs; FPOs. Organizational Capacity Assessment of Community-based Organizations – A Theoretical Orientation