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Huff and Bueno, Building Community Capacity During a Crisis  75 
 

 

Building Community Capacity During a 

Crisis: The Response of NGOs, Local Churches, 

and CBOs to COVID-19 in El Salvador 

 

James G. Huff Jr. and Ronald Todd Bueno 

 
 

 
In the middle of a compounding health and hunger crisis in El Salvador, church and community 

leaders have catalyzed their relationships of trust and previous experience in community development 

to care for the most vulnerable families in their communities. The following paper discusses how staff 

from a Salvadoran, faith-based, non-governmental organization (NGO) have responded to and 

worked with leaders from 56 local churches and 92 community-based organizations (CBOs) in El 

Salvador to manage the complicated and dynamic conditions generated by COVID-19. The paper 

draws on monitoring data, including surveys of church and community leaders, stakeholder meetings, 

and staff field visits, to describe the exercise of community capacity by local leaders. The discussion 

uses Robert Chaskin's operational model of community capacity to identify how local leaders build 

upon and generate new capacities in the midst of a protracted crisis. There is emerging evidence that 

the relief and recovery efforts directed by church and community organizations have served to 

strengthen community capacity in a number of critical areas. The paper closes by describing how 

NGOs and other third-party organizations can direct programs to strengthen community capacity in 

the short-term in order to support church and community leaders’ efforts for long-term holistic 

change. 

 

 
Introduction 

The COVID-19 pandemic in El Salvador has 

significantly altered the routine activities and plans of 

life and work in a very short period of time. The abrupt 

change has required organizations involved in the long-

term work of holistic transformation to temporarily 

shelve pre-existing annual plans and to refocus their 

energies on addressing the critical needs of Salvadorans 

whose vulnerabilities have been exacerbated by the 

crisis. For ENLACE, a Salvadoran faith-based, non-

government organization (NGO), this has meant 

suspending all community development projects, such 

as water and sanitation projects and housing and 

economic development initiatives, to help church and 

community leaders identify and care for the growing 

number of families experiencing food insecurity and 

health issues. It has been a moment of significant 

 
1 ENLACE staff trained church and community leaders to collect survey data through digital questionnaires that were 

collected, processed, and analyzed at the ENLACE offices from April to June 2020. Survey data included socio-

demographic, employment, food security, and health-related questions, along with multiple items related to the 

impacts of the pandemic on participating households. A total of 112 surveys were completed and processed. 

reorientation as well as an opportunity to evaluate 

whether the community development work carried out 

prior to March 12, 2020, has enabled ENLACE staff 

and community stakeholders to capably address the 

novel and difficult challenges that have emerged due to 

the crisis. 

The following discussion describes what is 

occurring in real time as ENLACE’s key stakeholders, 

which consists of leaders from 56 churches and 92 

community-based organizations (CBOs), manage the 

complicated and dynamic conditions generated by 

COVID-19. The information we present is drawn from 

participation in weekly staff meetings, from 

conversations with ENLACE staff about the dynamics 

of relief efforts, and from a recent survey of church and 

community stakeholders engaged in the work.1  The 

reflections we offer here are not the outcome of a 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(2), Winter 2021  
 

 

Huff and Bueno, Building Community Capacity During a Crisis  76 
 

formal process of program assessment. Rather, they are 

observations generated in the short-term that form part 

of the regular practice of “causal link monitoring,” 

which directs community development practitioners to 

pay attention to, identify, and note the processes and 

contextual factors that shape how a program or project 

actually develops over time (Britt, Hummelbrunner, 

and Greene 2017, 8; Huff 2020). The emerging 

evidence we discuss in this paper is the result of our 

inductive review of monitoring data that has been 

collected by ENLACE staff since March 2020.  

Notably, this paper is one outcome of a long-term, 

practitioner-scholar collaborative research project on 

Pentecostal congregations and community 

development in El Salvador. Ron Bueno is Co-founder 

and Executive Director of ENLACE and James Huff 

has consulted with ENLACE’s research and evaluation 

program since 2008. Maintaining a long-term and 

systematic research project that blends organizational 

insider know-how and evaluation consulting experience 

has proven beneficial. For example, our status as 

insiders has made it possible to quickly obtain quality 

information about the dynamic and changing 

conditions generated by the pandemic in many 

different communities across El Salvador. We have also 

been able to regularly consult with and receive 

informative feedback from staff and community leaders 

about the findings explored in this paper.  

Working as researchers with insider status, 

however, also implies various limitations. For example, 

the monitoring data generated by ENLACE staff 

provides real-time information on how approximately 

sixty different churches are addressing problems caused 

by the pandemic. The findings we discuss, however, are 

not necessarily representative of how most Pentecostal 

churches in El Salvador are presently responding to the 

crisis. We acknowledge, therefore, that reporting on a 

relatively small subset of churches limits the external 

validity of the preliminary findings discussed in this 

paper. We also recognize that the ongoing and close 

interpersonal relationships we maintain with staff and 

community stakeholders (and most notably for Ron 

Bueno) is both ethnographically productive and 

ethically challenging (Bornstein 2011).2     
Our review of the monitoring and survey data was 

guided by two central questions. First, is there any 

evidence that local church and community leaders are 

leveraging community capacity to respond to the 

disruptive changes caused by the COVID-19 crisis?  

 
2 As two anthropologists who are working for (as is the case for Ron Bueno) or with (as is the case for James Huff) 

ENLACE, we remain aware that our positionality provides us with easy access to observing and documenting internal 

organizational dynamics that are often unknown or inaccessible to outside researchers. This same positionality also 

complicates the relationships we create with stakeholders, many of whom are ENLACE employees or participants in 

ENLACE-supported initiatives. See Lewis and Schuller (2017:639-641) for a helpful discussion about the ethical 

tensions and methodological challenges posed for researchers who work either for or with NGOs like ENLACE.   

Second, and relatedly, how has ENLACE as a third-

party organization adapted its community development 

efforts to support local leaders’ community capacity as 

the crisis has unfolded? Our initial, inductive 

examination suggests that many of ENLACE’s key 

stakeholders are, in fact, drawing on existing 

community capacity to work creatively and effectively to 

mitigate some of the adverse impacts of COVID-19 in 

their communities.  

The paper is organized into four primary sections. 

The opening section summarizes some basic ideas 

from the literature on community capacity and 

community-capacity building. It focuses specifically on 

Robert Chaskin’s (2001) conceptualization of 

community capacity. The building of local community 

capacity is a stated core outcome of ENLACE’s theory 

of change, and Chaskin’s model provides a helpful 

framework for identifying the key assumptions 

embedded within the organization’s work with church 

and community leaders. The short section that follows 

summarizes the core elements of ENLACE’s approach 

to community transformation. Next, we describe the 

spread and impact of the pandemic in El Salvador and 

the government’s response since March 2020. The 

main body of the article utilizes Chaskin’s model to 

consider how community capacity is being formed and 

utilized by church and community leaders as they look 

for practical ways to respond to the needs of vulnerable 

neighbors. Community capacities are always exercised 

in complex and changing circumstances, and the 

pandemic has created unique challenges for local 

stakeholders who were already managing different 

development initiatives prior to March. To conclude 

the paper, we provide three initial learnings that can be 

applied to the design of relief and recovery initiatives by 

third-party organizations that could enhance 

community capacity during a prolonged crisis like 

COVID 19. 

 

What Is Community Capacity? 
Both community capacity and community 

capacity-building are concepts that have been embraced 

and promoted by scholars and practitioners working in 

diverse fields, including public health, urban housing 

and community development, rural economic 

development, and social work, to name a few (Beckley, 

Martz, Nadeau, Wall, and Reimer 2008; Simmons, 

Reynolds, and Swinburn 2011). Scholars and 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(2), Winter 2021  
 

 

Huff and Bueno, Building Community Capacity During a Crisis  77 
 

practitioners often discuss and debate various 

definitions and operationalizations of the concepts 

within their own guild. The development of 

comprehensive and accessible concepts that can be 

readily used by practitioners working in diverse fields of 

social change remains an important goal to achieve. 

Simmons, Reynolds, and Swinburn (2011) 

identified fifteen different definitions of community 

capacity-building in their systematic review of public 

health research. They observed three features shared 

by various definitions of the concept -- it is understood 

to be a process, it is not “one definitive thing but a 

collection of . . . domains, characteristics, aspects, 

capabilities or dimensions” and, finally, it assumes an 

“end point, an outcome, or rationale” (Simmons, et al. 

2011, 196-197). For many scholars the concept of 

community capacity is grounded in the question: “The 

capacity to do what?” (Beckley, et al 2008, 61). The 

question suggests that the process of capacity building 

generates or enhances characteristics or capabilities that 

are also generative phenomena. For example, programs 

that focus on strengthening the ability of local leaders to 

collectively address shared problems could increase 

access to local health care services, catalyze rural 

economic growth, or bolster watershed conservation 

efforts, to name a few common examples. 

Chaskin (2001) has developed a comprehensive 

and accessible definition that can be more readily 

operationalized by practitioners (see also Chaskin et al. 

2001). He describes it as “the interaction of human 

capital, organizational resources, and social capital 

existing within a given community that can be leveraged 

to solve collective problems and improve or maintain 

the well-being of a given community (2001, 295). Such 

interactions, for Chaskin, can function as part of 

“informal social processes” or as part of an “organized 

effort” of change (Chaskin 2001, 295). Moreover, his 

use of the term “leverage” to characterize the interactive 

process of capacity-building is one that incorporates the 

strengths that already exist within a given community 

(see also Simmons, et al. 2011, 198). 

Chaskin’s operational model identifies four 

fundamental characteristics that comprise community 

capacity. These include: “(1) a sense of community, (2) 

a level of commitment among community members, (3) 

the ability to solve problems, and (4) access to 

resources” (2001, 295-296). He defines a sense of 

community as a “degree of connectedness” that 

members share, which can be expressed affectively or 

 
3 Chaskin’s operational model also assumes that interactions that occur within multiple, interrelated dimensions. One 

of these dimensions is especially germane to our discussion. It concerns the domains and social contexts where the 

characteristics of community capacity (e.g., sense of community, etc.) are embedded. The model identifies three 

different and interrelated “levels of social agency” within which these characteristics emerge and develop, including the 

individual, organizational, and network levels (Chaskin, 2001, 297-298). Our focus in this paper is on the individual 

and organizational levels.  

instrumentally, and that enables them to work together 

towards common goals (Chaskin 2001, 296). How 

much responsibility “individuals, groups, or 

organizations take for what happens in the community” 

describes the level of commitment characteristic 

(Chaskin 2001, 296). Commitment level implies that 

there are people who in fact consider themselves to be 

stakeholders in the “collective well-being” of the 

community and who embody a willingness to 

“participate actively in that role” (2001, 296). The third 

characteristic, the ability to solve problems, simply 

refers to the process by which community members 

turn “commitment into action,” which can be exercised 

through “formal or informal means, spontaneously or 

through planned action” (Chaskin 2001, 297). The final 

characteristic of community capacity concerns the level 

of access that community members have to economic, 

human, physical, and political resources, both within 

and beyond their immediate place of residence 

(Chaskin 2001, 297).3 

In this paper, we utilize these four primary 

characteristics to analyze and evaluate the dynamics of 

community capacity observed in our work with church 

and community leaders during their response to the 

pandemic. To be sure, Chaskin’s definition 

incorporates terms that also warrant further clarification 

(e.g., social capital). Nevertheless, we find his 

operationalization to be especially useful, due to his 

development of a relational and multidimensional 

model that makes it possible for organizations like 

ENLACE to better clarify and articulate the theory of 

change that guides their strategic choices and 

investment of resources. 

 

ENLACE’s Approach of Community 

Capacity-Building 
ENLACE is a faith based, non-profit organization 

established in El Salvador in 1993. The organization’s 

stated mission is to train and resource local evangelical 

and Pentecostal congregations to partner effectively 

with community-based organizations to alleviate 

spiritual and physical poverty. ENLACE staff train and 

coach church leaders for seven to ten years to envision 

and mobilize church members to engage in community 

transformation. Staff spend multiple hours two to three 

times per month with leaders from each church, 

facilitating Bible studies, conducting workshops on how 

to interview or work with CBOs and leaders, 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(2), Winter 2021  
 

 

Huff and Bueno, Building Community Capacity During a Crisis  78 
 

participating in community meetings with church and 

community leaders, and helping the church and 

community identify, design and oversee local 

development projects. ENLACE’s theory of change 

incorporates key elements of Chaskin’s model. 

Namely, it assumes that enhancing local leaders’ 

community capacity to define community problems, 

identify local resources, and design and implement 

initiatives is fundamental to improving the socio-

economic, health, and environmental conditions of the 

communities they inhabit.   

ENLACE’s approach focuses on training church 

leaders to partner effectively with community-based 

organizations to strengthen community capacity to 

address multidimensional poverty. ENLACE staff train 

church leaders on how to approach, strengthen, and 

work with community leaders and CBOs, such as an 

Asociación de Desarrollo Comunitario (Community 

Development Association, ADESCO), local water 

boards, parent-teacher organizations (PTOs), and 

health committees. The staff focus on building leaders’ 

capacities in various areas, including the identification 

of community problems through baseline research; the 

design, implementation, and evaluation of community-

led initiatives; and the mobilization of local and external 

resources from private and public sources. At the time 

of the research, ENLACE was working with 63 

churches who were partnering with over 200 CBOs in 

224 different communities in El Salvador. These 

church partners have been working with local CBOs to 

strengthen their sense of community, to exercise a joint 

commitment to community well-being, and to mobilize 

resources to address shared problems prior to the onset 

of the pandemic. This ongoing work was abruptly 

interrupted in March with the onset of the COVID-19 

crisis, leading us to ask the central question of this 

paper: how would previous processes of community 

capacity-building develop in the changing and 

disruptive conditions created by the pandemic? 

 

Compounding health and economic crisis in 

El Salvador 
El Salvador is one of the poorest countries in the 

Western hemisphere. 36.5 percent of its population of 

6.1 million people live in extreme poverty. Seventy-five 

percent of Salvadorans are un- or underemployed 

working in the informal sector. More than half of all 

households in El Salvador experience some level of 

food shortages. Seventy percent of the population only 

have access to public health services, which are limited 

and primarily provide first-level medical attention. 

As of September 2020, the total number of 

recorded COVID-19 cases in El Salvador was just 

under 27,000, and 774 Salvadorans had died because 

of the virus (Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource 

Center 2020). Obtaining reliable morbidity and 

mortality figures for the virus in El Salvador has proven 

difficult. Ministry of Health officials, for example, 

acknowledged that deaths caused by the virus were very 

likely being undercounted (Calderon, June 1, 2020). 

The number of hospital beds is far less than is required, 

so the vast number of patients are being treated or are 

in recovery at home. 

The national government’s response to the 

pandemic, and specifically the directives issued from 

President Nayib Bukele’s administration, has been 

described by one observer as an “improvised strategy” 

(El Salvador Perspectives, June 28, 2020). The 

administration’s aggressive approach was officially 

enacted with an executive order (Estado de Emergencia 

Nacional, Estado de Calamidad Pública y Desastre 

Nacional) on March 11, which mandated a national 

quarantine consisting of airport and border closures, 

the suspension of all educational activities, and the 

establishment of quarantine centers for people who had 

been exposed to the virus or who had violated stay-at-

home orders (“At 100-Day Mark,” June 28, 2020). 

By early April, the national government unveiled a 

plan to mitigate the negative economic impacts of the 

national quarantine. This included a subsidy payment 

of $300 per household, and a temporary suspension on 

mortgage and utilities payments and on loans and tax 

obligations (“El Salvador under Quarantine,” April 3, 

2020). Although the initial rollout of the subsidy 

payment did not occur smoothly, and there were 

widespread reports of households not receiving the 

payment, the government eventually delivered the 

subsidy to approximately 480,000 households for a 

total of nearly $144 million (“El Salvador under 

Quarantine,” April 3, 2020). When COVID-19 cases 

began to steadily increase, President Bukele announced 

the implementation of more aggressive lockdown 

measures to prevent its spread. These included stay-at-

home restrictions that allowed Salvadorans to only leave 

their homes twice weekly to purchase food and 

medicine (“Lockdown,” May 5, 2020). As lockdown 

measures remained in place, the government also 

attempted to address the increase in food insecurity. It 

eventually distributed 2.7 million baskets of basic 

foodstuffs to Salvadoran households. 

The impacts of the pandemic, along with the 

effects generated by measures to prevent the spread of 

the virus, are significant for all Salvadorans, and 

especially for families residing in the rural and semi-

rural communities where ENLACE’s church and 

community partners work. A preliminary report 

generated by ENLACE staff, which draws on interview 

data with 83 church and community leaders from 34 

rural, semi-rural, and urban communities, makes clear 

the acute difficulties that many Salvadorans presently 

face.  



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(2), Winter 2021  
 

 

Huff and Bueno, Building Community Capacity During a Crisis  79 
 

Interview participants identified five primary 

economic problems generated by the crisis. First, there 

has been a significant loss of income for many 

households. This has been especially the case for 

communities located near industrial zones, where many 

residents ordinarily receive an income through formal 

sector employment. Members of these same 

households have not been able to supplement the 

household economy though work in other income-

generating activities (e.g., working temporarily in the 

agricultural sector).  

Second, quarantine-related restrictions have made 

it very difficult, and in many cases entirely impossible, 

for people in informal sectors to carry out the work that 

ordinarily sustains their families. This impact is 

especially important given that 47% of the Salvadoran 

economy operates in the informal sector, and is 

expected to grow significantly over the next 15 months. 

The implementation of social distancing protocols 

required the closure of commercial centers, of 

industrial parks, and of most service-oriented worksites 

across the country. 

A third problem that was reported was that many 

families have been unable to obtain basic foodstuffs. In 

some cases, interviewees explained that this was caused 

by lack of supply (e.g., in local stores supplies in some 

locales are not adequately stocked due to supply chain 

interruptions); in other cases, families reported not 

having adequate income to purchase the foods that are 

needed by household members.  

Fourth, some families in rural areas reported that 

they have not been able to carry out the ordinary 

routines of agricultural work. Farmers have reported 

that the planting season has been disrupted because 

government-supplied inputs have not arrived and, 

therefore, crops could not be planted.  

Finally, interview participants noted reports of 

declines in financial support (e.g., remittances) coming 

from family members living in places like the U.S.  

  

Responding to the Crisis: Leveraging 

Community Capacity 
Within a few days of the borders being closed, 

church and community leaders were reaching out to 

ENLACE staff to explore how to respond to the 

growing crisis. Local leaders stated that the number of 

families in need of basic food supplies was increasing 

daily. They were worried that the needs were too big for 

them to address without excluding families and 

damaging relationships. 

ENLACE staff’s initial response was to work with 

local leaders to design a new set of tools to identify and 

prioritize the most vulnerable families in their 

communities. ENLACE developed Google forms, for 

example, that could be completed online by local 

leaders. ENLACE also staff gathered and organized the 

data into lists of families by levels of priority. Local 

leaders then verified and used the lists to solicit 

resources and food supplies from mayors’ offices, 

NGOs, and other private sources. ENLACE staff also 

provided food and hygiene aid for local leaders to 

distribute to identified families. 

ENLACE staff have also created several other 

virtual tools for local leaders to identify and respond to 

subsequent areas of need during the initial months of 

the crisis. One tool was created, for example, to identify 

families with members who are chronically ill or have 

other issues that make them more vulnerable. Interview 

schedules were created for leaders to survey how public 

and private organizations were responding to the crisis 

in order to solicit funds. Tools were also created for 

local leaders to identify the needs of subsistence 

farmers, micro and small business owners, and other 

emotional and spiritual needs. The use of the tools by 

local leaders along with their collective action fostered 

a sense of community, strengthened their commitment 

to engage and lead the relief effort, increased their 

capacity to identify and address community problems, 

and contributed to their ability to mobilize local and 

external resources. 

 

Sense of Community 

This first characteristic of community capacity 

recognizes that the existence of strong relational bonds 

between members of a particular community is an 

important factor in enabling the work of collective 

problem-solving. Each of the rural and semi-urban 

communities where ENLACE works has their own 

unique set of local relationships and histories, which are 

shaped by the diverse and changing environments they 

inhabit. ENLACE’s approach to community capacity-

building affirms the unique attributes of each local 

community. It also recognizes that these attributes will 

shape the process of capacity-building in such a way that 

each community will have its own unique experience of 

change over time. 

At the same time, ENLACE staff have observed 

several general patterns in the structure and 

organization of local communities that influence how 

the process of building a sense of community unfolds 

across all communities.  First, in both rural and semi-

urban areas, residents usually possess a shared 

understanding of the geographic and territorial 

boundaries that define the particular community space 

they inhabit (Smith 1986). Nevertheless, they vary 

considerably in how they define a shared sense of place 

and in how they see themselves in relationship to other 

neighbors who reside within those same territorial 

boundaries. Second, communities located in rural areas 

are frequently composed of a few extended family 

groups. Members of each extended family network 

often maintain a sense of community belonging (i.e. 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(2), Winter 2021  
 

 

Huff and Bueno, Building Community Capacity During a Crisis  80 
 

their family), even though the strength of relationship 

that exists between each family member varies 

considerably. This feeling of belonging is not 

necessarily shared with other community residents who 

are not a part of the extended family network, however.  

Finally, residents in rural and semi-urban communities 

can, and often do, share a general sense of mutual 

circumstance and recognition of shared needs. At the 

same time, they vary in their perspectives on the causes 

and effects of shared problems. Moreover, they often 

have very different ideas about the scope or incidence 

level of a given problem. Even when residents 

demonstrate a shared understanding of community 

needs this only occasionally corresponds with a shared 

commitment or capacity to act collectively to address or 

solve such problems. Such patterns simply remind us 

that local responses to the pandemic developed within 

diverse communities wherein residents develop and 

sustain different stocks and threshold levels of their 

sense of community (Bueno 2019). 

Local leaders have responded in diverse ways to 

the changes generated by the pandemic and by the 

federal government’s executive order on March 11. In 

some communities, local churches and community 

leaders have waited to see what resources will be 

allocated to them by other congregations, NGOs, and 

local and federal governments. Other church leaders 

have focused on mobilizing relief services for church 

members or for non-members with whom they had an 

existing relationship. A smaller number of church and 

community leaders have worked quickly to meet 

virtually in order to discuss community needs and 

identify ways to address them collectively. In these 

communities, local leaders began to mobilize their own 

resources to respond to the most vulnerable families. In 

a few of these cases church and community leaders also 

reached out to local mayor’s offices and to NGOs, such 

as ENLACE, from the outset to mobilize assistance. 

Church leaders reached out to local leaders from 

various CBOs, including local ADESCOs, water 

boards, or PTO boards, with varying levels of success 

to respond collectively to the pandemic. In most 

churches the coordination proceeded accordingly: a 

few leaders within the church reached out to a small 

number of community leaders with whom they had 

built some level of trust. These already existing forms 

of bridging capital, which connected individual leaders 

from different church and community networks, were 

first accessed by leaders to identify the most vulnerable 

families. They then leveraged relationships within their 

respective networks (e.g. bonding capital with other 

church members or among other community leaders) 

to distribute food and agricultural supplies to vulnerable 

households (Huff 2020; Bueno 2019). 

Notably, many of the ordinary practices that 

leaders previously used to meet, organize, and discuss 

project plans could not be exercised because of 

lockdown mandates and social distancing 

requirements. Nevertheless, church and community 

leaders have built on their already existing relationships 

to adapt to changing conditions and create new ways to 

meet and maintain contact with one another (e.g. 

through cell phones and Facebook group pages). They 

have also met while standing outside of each other's 

homes, in outdoor spaces, and even while sitting in their 

cars with the windows closed. 

Conversations that ENLACE staff have had with 

various church and community leaders since the 

beginning of the national quarantine are suggestive of 

some patterns that are worth highlighting.  For example, 

leaders have indicated that the work of organizing a 

collective response to the pandemic has cultivated a 

new sense of community. Church leaders have noted 

that they have befriended families that they did not 

previously know. Several have also indicated that they 

became more aware of the scope of needs that exist 

within their community. Others have expressed that the 

experience has enabled them to better understand and, 

to some degree, better empathize with the situations 

and circumstances of their vulnerable neighbors. 

Similar observations have also been shared by 

community leaders. Altogether, such emerging patterns 

suggest that leaders are actively building on an already 

existing sense of “connectedness” to develop a more 

robust and shared “recognition of mutuality of 

circumstance” (Chaskin 2001).  This observation is not 

meant to understate the very real challenges that local 

leaders and their fellow community residents continue 

to confront, of course. But we are discovering that the 

work the leaders are doing in response to the crisis has 

contributed to a perceived increase in a shared sense of 

community. 

  
Commitment 

This second characteristic of community capacity 

indicates that community members understand 

themselves as vested stakeholders in the well-being of 

the community and, correspondingly, work towards 

achieving and sustaining community well-being. The 

preceding section makes clear that various church and 

community leaders have worked together to identify 

and provide aid to the most vulnerable households in 

their community. In some cases, their coordinated 

efforts were already underway before receiving 

assistance from ENLACE; other leaders moved 

forward with a collaborative response upon receiving 

support from ENLACE. In either case, such patterns 

of response suggest that leaders see themselves as 

community stakeholders who are willing to work on 

behalf of the well-being of other community residents. 

Since mid-March ENLACE staff have noted 

various patterns of local leader engagement that 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(2), Winter 2021  
 

 

Huff and Bueno, Building Community Capacity During a Crisis  81 
 

demonstrate a significant level of commitment to 

community well-being. For example, leaders have 

attempted to learn more about the incidence and 

patterning of local needs by interviewing families by 

phone or through home visits. They worked with 

ENLACE staff to process the results of their interviews 

and to generate lists that prioritize families by the 

following criteria: age, marital status, dependency ratio, 

and employment. These lists were then used by leader 

groups to approach mayor’s offices, NGOs, and local 

businesses to mobilize resources; they were also used to 

ensure that provisions (e.g. food and hygiene aid) 

supplied by external sources were getting to the most 

vulnerable families in the community. 

In addition to advocating on behalf of the needs of 

vulnerable households to local governments and 

external NGOs, church and community leaders have 

also mobilized resources and raised funds at the local 

level. One group of leaders, for example, reported that 

they fished in local ponds and included their catch in 

food aid distributions. Others reached out to raise 

funds from Salvadoran family members and friends 

living in the USA; these leaders also noted that they sent 

pictures and copies of receipts to their expat contacts.  

In April and May, local leaders started to work with 

ENLACE to create mid-term plans in order to address 

problems related to food insecurity and poor health. As 

we note in the next section, some local leaders are 

looking beyond immediate relief efforts in order to 

identify the medium- and long-term needs of neighbors 

whose livelihoods depend on subsistence farming. In 

May, some leaders began to work with farmers to access 

agricultural inputs, and, by doing so, recognized the 

need to draft 15-month, agricultural development 

plans.4 

  
Ability to Solve Problems and Mobilize Resources 

To conclude this section, we consider both of the 

remaining characteristics of community capacity, 

including the ability to problem-solve and the 

mobilization of resources. The ability to translate 

commitment into problem-solving action is often 

expressed in local leaders’ capacity to assess and analyze 

a particular community problem (or opportunity) and 

to take concrete steps to work for the well-being of 

community residents (Chaskin, 2001). Since mid-

March local church and community leaders have 

demonstrated their ability to problem-solve and to 

identify and mobilize aid resources in new and creative 

ways. Their efforts are especially notable given that 

 
4 In all but three communities, community leaders had not prioritized economic development nor food security plans 

in previous years. They were not seen as a “project” that could be worked on by the community. As food insecurity 

becomes more pronounced in El Salvador, church and community leaders are exploring new ways to assist farmers 

through sustainable agriculture and other initiatives such as home gardens and chicken coops. 

access to important aid resources has been greatly 

complicated by the pandemic. 

The process of identifying and mobilizing aid 

resources to vulnerable households was complicated 

from the outset by various factors. As we have noted, 

leaders could not meet together as they were 

accustomed to doing because of the lockdown and 

social distancing requirements. The spread of 

disinformation about COVID-19, along with the lack of 

reliable public health information, also made some 

leaders uncertain about how to best respond. Upon 

recognizing the limitations of their existing problem-

solving strategies, they worked together (and with 

ENLACE’s assistance) to devise new solutions for 

gathering information that was needed for effective aid 

distribution. Local leaders utilized the new tools that 

were created in consultation with ENLACE staff to 

interview local families and mobilize resources for over 

20,000 families. 

Church and community leaders recognized early 

on that the supply of local resources they were 

mobilizing to support and aid vulnerable neighbors was 

decreasing quickly. Most leaders, moreover, were 

experiencing the same economic problems as the 

families they were trying to assist. Many were 

furloughed or lost their jobs; others were unable to farm 

or be hired on by neighboring farms. To address these 

problems, many leaders sought out food aid from local 

mayors' offices and non-profit organizations. They were 

also able to secure resources through external 

relationships and networks, including from private 

sources (e.g., gifts from family or friends in the U.S.) 

and external NGOs, to offer additional assistance to 

families in need.  

Local leaders' problem-solving efforts were further 

complicated by the sometimes limited or uneven 

responses of federal and local government agencies. 

Some local government officials opted to work with 

local leaders in the selection and distribution of aid. 

The majority of local and federal government agencies, 

however, provided aid directly to communities through 

the military or other national departments without 

consulting local leaders.  When federal agencies 

provided aid directly, it became difficult for local 

leaders to verify whether aid reached the most 

vulnerable households. In the cases where local leaders 

were included in the distribution process by local 

mayors’ offices, they were able to ensure that families 

of greatest need were served first. 

As of September 22, 2020, 56 churches had 

worked with 92 CBOs from 170 different communities 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(2), Winter 2021  
 

 

Huff and Bueno, Building Community Capacity During a Crisis  82 
 

to identify and serve over 20,000 families with food, 

hygiene and agricultural inputs. This effort has involved 

238 church leaders and 224 community leaders who 

worked together to provide food and hygiene aid 

supplies to 20,339 families across El Salvador. A total 

of 3,050,850 meals were distributed to families over six 

months. Notably, leaders mobilized and utilized local 

resources for 14,875 of these families (73% of total 

meals), and used external resources, which were 

supplied and administered by ENLACE, for the 

remaining 5,464 families (27% of the total meals). Local 

leaders were also able to provide agricultural inputs to 

1,157 families to support the restarting of local farming 

activities and agricultural production. 

 

Initial Learnings for Community 

Capacity-Building Practice 
It has been observed that community capacity is 

not something that “simply happen[s]... rather, it is 

developed or formed, or diminished and lost through 

response to changing conditions” (Beckley, et al 2008, 

63). The adverse effects of COVID-19, along with the 

various restrictions induced by lockdown measures, 

have created a unique set of dynamic and difficult 

conditions for all Salvadorans. A basic aim of the 

preceding discussion has been to examine how 

community capacity is being “developed or formed, or 

diminished and lost” as ENLACE’s church and 

community stakeholders attempt to respond to these 

uniquely challenging circumstances. 

Drawing on Chaskin’s operational model of 

community capacity, we have detailed how local 

stakeholders are accessing existing networks and 

drawing on emerging forms of social connectedness to 

problem-solve and mobilize resources to address the 

immediate needs of their vulnerable neighbors. The 

data discussed in this paper are the initial results of 

reviewing monitoring data and informal interviews with 

stakeholders since March, 2020. This data has 

generated valuable inductive findings that are important 

to helping ENLACE and its church and community 

partners respond capably and adaptively to the 

changing conditions created by the COVID-19 

pandemic. The data also highlights the need for 

additional empirical research to examine whether 

ENLACE’s investments into training local church and 

community leaders contributes to strengthening 

community capacity as conceptualized by Chaskin’s 

model.  

What the preceding observations demonstrate is 

the value of sustaining a good practice of “causal link 

monitoring,” which directs community development 

practitioners to pay attention to the processes and 

contextual factors that actually shape how a project or 

program actually develops in real time (Britt, 

Hummelbrunner, and Greene 2017, 8). By being 

attentive to how local leaders are exercising different 

aspects of community capacity in the present crisis, we 

can learn how to best support their efforts in ways that 

reinforce and enhance those same capacities. What 

have we learned along the way? 

 

Responding to Local Community Leaders 

In a time of crisis or humanitarian disaster, third-

party organizations, including NGOs like ENLACE, 

often acquire and provide immediate assistance 

through local networks. The observations we offer in 

this paper suggest that a vital role for third party 

organizations in such situations is to listen and respond 

to local leaders as they design and implement relief and 

recovery initiatives. This can be a challenge for NGOs 

because relief efforts tend to be a set of standard 

technical responses that require urgent action. 

Moreover, when communities have been decimated 

physically, organizationally, and socially, it can be 

difficult to identify and coordinate responses with local 

leaders. It obviously helps if the organization has built 

these types of relationships with local leaders prior to 

the crisis. Nevertheless, if those relationships do not 

exist, it becomes imperative to develop clear and 

efficient processes and tools to identify and evaluate 

local leaders and organizations that are committed and 

capable of responding collectively to implement relief 

efforts. Listening to and responding to local leaders can 

serve to strengthen community capacity during and 

after the response to the crisis. 

Even in a prolonged crisis like the COVID-19 

pandemic, where information is limited, confusing, and 

uncertain, third party organizations can work together 

with local leaders to develop tools to understand 

emerging problems and to identify resources for the 

response. Tools should be clear and user-friendly; most 

importantly, they should be designed so that local 

leaders are able to drive the process of collecting and 

analyzing data on community needs. Third party 

organizations can assist in the technical aspects of 

collecting, analyzing, and reporting of data. However, 

data should be reported quickly and in ways that are 

accessible to local leaders. In the specific case of 

ENLACE’s response, it was important that the tools be 

created and approved by both church and community 

leaders so that they could divide up the work of 

gathering the data in order to collectively understand 

and respond to the crisis. 

  

Facilitating Community Plans 

The final product of listening, gathering, and 

analyzing data should be a short- to mid-term 

community plan that guides collective action and 

resource mobilization. The creation of community 

plans made it possible for church and community 

leaders to identify and prioritize the needs of the most 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(2), Winter 2021  
 

 

Huff and Bueno, Building Community Capacity During a Crisis  83 
 

vulnerable families. Community plan documents also 

served as a tool for guiding discussion among church 

and community leaders and they helped to facilitate 

consensus-building regarding which families to help 

first. Leaders quickly realized that the situation of many 

families would change as the months of lockdown 

continued; they recognized the importance of having a 

tool that could regularly be utilized over time in order 

to validate and update the lists of people in need and to 

make adjustments to their relief efforts along the way. 

Community plans also provided local leaders with 

a transparent and fair way of communicating their 

collective response to the needs of vulnerable families. 

Since the plan documented the shared discussion that 

leaders had, and it described the commitments they 

shared, it made it possible to sustain a response by a 

relatively large and diverse group of leaders. Notably, 

the use of a community plan has encouraged leaders to 

remain engaged in the recovery process without 

becoming discouraged or frustrated by the hard work 

of sustaining consensus and managing conflict in the 

middle of a prolonged crisis. 

Each community plan has also been instrumental 

in mobilizing internal and external resources. Many 

church and community leaders turned the plan into 

verbal or written requests for assistance and help, which 

were then shared with people and organizations from 

both inside and outside the community. Local leaders 

presented the plans to local mayors’ offices, NGOs, 

businesses, and expats. In several cases, the mayors’ 

offices actually used the community plans generated by 

ENLACE’s church and community leaders to 

coordinate and provide aid. For some leaders, the plan 

was also used to track resources that were being raised 

along the way; others also utilized the community plan 

to identify additional fundraising needs. In these cases, 

the use of the community plan strengthened local 

leaders’ sense of ownership and control over the 

process of leading the pandemic response in their 

communities. 

Local leaders not only used their plan to identify 

which families would need immediate assistance for 

shorter periods of time; they also employed it to 

designate households that would need food and 

hygiene supplies for an extended period. The plan also 

helped them to identify families that needed immediate 

help with agricultural inputs for their final cultivation 

cycle of the season, and they used it to determine the 

ongoing need of farmers for the next planting season. 

Many local leaders, with assistance from ENLACE, 

have already started to create longer term agricultural 

plans for 2021. 

Finally, the research processes that corresponded 

with the development of community plans have also 

encouraged new discussions regarding long-term 

economic development solutions. In many of these 

same communities, leaders had not yet identified 

economic development as a community problem that 

could be addressed collectively. Notably, the planning 

process in the short-term has encouraged new 

conversations between church and community leaders 

on what kinds of businesses exist in the community, 

how best to help them grow, and how to identify new 

businesses that could be introduced. A few local leaders 

recently started to create mid-term plans to help micro- 

and small-scale businesses restart or grow. 

  

Reporting to Enhance Community Capacity Long-

Term 

Every organization struggles to monitor and report 

during a crisis. Many organizations suspend or reduce 

reporting requirements to a number of key outputs 

such as meals served, houses rebuilt, and families 

served. Understandably, such reports are often 

generated to comply with criteria delineated by external 

funders or are used to communicate with donors. And 

yet, the direct participation of leaders in the monitoring 

and reporting process can serve to gather more accurate 

information and enhance community ownership over 

and capacity for reporting processes. In the case of 

ENLACE, staff created user-friendly tools for leaders 

to use to update information in real time. Running totals 

of key outputs were available to leaders at all times 

through access to Google sheets. Nevertheless, fewer 

than 20 percent of church and community leaders 

accessed the data regularly due to limited access to the 

internet. For those leaders that did not access the forms 

online, ENLACE staff provided them with weekly and 

monthly reports via text or phone call. This practice of 

weekly reporting kept the leaders engaged and 

committed to the recovery and reconstruction process. 

The ENLACE staff also asked leaders to gather 

impact stories. Gathering stories, pictures, and videos is 

a common request from NGOs. And in many cases, it 

can be an awkward and difficult request for community 

leaders who do not have ongoing relationships with the 

neighbors and community residents they serve. It can 

also be a challenge if local leaders cannot read or write 

proficiently, or do not have equipment to take the 

picture or record videos. Third party organizations can 

provide valuable resources and support to local leaders 

to gather impact stories. However, it is important to 

keep in mind that the primary reason for gathering such 

material should go beyond institutional and donor 

communication. Although grant compliance is an 

important motivating factor for story collection, local 

leaders also appreciate the gathering of stories as an 

important opportunity to develop a deeper and more 

nuanced understanding of the needs of neighboring 

families. Such stories often provide a chance to reflect 

critically on whether local initiatives and interventions 

have been effective. Moreover, they often serve to 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(2), Winter 2021  
 

 

Huff and Bueno, Building Community Capacity During a Crisis  84 
 

inspire leaders and their local partners to continue to 

the long-term, collective work of community 

transformation.  

Monitoring and reporting, if done in ongoing 

partnership with local leaders, should ultimately serve 

to enhance a sense of community and to strengthen the 

commitment of local leaders to collectively address the 

needs of their neighbors, both in the short- and the 

long-term. 

 

References 

 
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Increasing COVD-19 Numbers.” June 28, 2020. El 

Salvador Perspectives.  
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mark-el-salvador-has-new.html. 

Beckley, Thomas M., Dianne Martz, Solange Nadeau, Bill 

Reimer, and Emily Wall. 2008. “Multiple Capacities, 

Multiple Outcomes: Delving Deeper in the Meaning of 

Community Capacity.” Journal of Rural and Community 

Development 3(3): 56-75.  

Bornstein, Erica. 2011. “Harmonic Dissonance: Reflections 

on Dwelling in the Field.” Ethnos 72 (4): 483-508. 

Britt, Heather, Richard Hummelbrunner, and Jacqueline 

Greene. 2017. Causal Link Monitoring. 

https://www.betterevaluation.org/sites/default/files/CLM

%20Brief_20170615_1528%20FINAL.pdf  

 Bueno, Ron. 2019. Community Engagement as a New and 

Contested Ritual: An Ethnographic Study of Five 

Pentecostal Congregations in El Salvador (Doctoral 

dissertation, Middlesex University, London, UK.) 

Calderon, Beatriz. 2020. “Hay un ‘Subregistro’ de Muertos 

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46 Confirmadas, Dice Ministro de Salud.” La Prensa 
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https://www.laprensagrafica.com/elsalvador/Hay-un-

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Salud-20200601-0037.html. 

Chaskin, Robert J. 2001. “Building Community Capacity: A 

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Comprehensive Community Initiative.” Urban Affairs 

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Huff, James G.  2020a. “Enhancing Evaluation Capacity: 

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Kraeger, Eds. The Research Handbook on Community 
Development. Edward Elgar Publishing. 204-210.  

Huff, James G. 2020b. “Bonds of Faith for Community 

Change: New Actors in Rural Community Development 

in El Salvador.” In Paul Lachapelle, Isabel Gutierrez-

Montes, and Cornelia Butler Flora. Eds. Community 

Capacity and Resilience in Latin America. New York: 

Routledge. 74-93. 

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History: A Newfoundland Illustration. New York: 

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 Simmons, Annie, Rebecca Reynolds, and Boyd Swinburn. 

2011. “Defining Community Capacity Building: Is It 

Possible? Preventive Medicine 52(3-4): 194-199.   

 

 

 

James (Jamie) G. Huff Jr. is Associate Professor of 

Human Needs and Global Resources and 

Anthropology at Wheaton College (Illinois). Since 

2008 he has regularly conducted ethnographic 

fieldwork in El Salvador where he has documented 

the involvement of Pentecostal churches in 

community-based development projects. 

 

Author email: james.huff@wheaton.edu  

 

Ronald T. Bueno is founder/co-founder and 

Executive Director of two organizations in El Salvador: 

ENLACE, a community development organization, 

and CREDATEC, a microfinance institution. He 

holds a PhD from the University of Middlesex, 

London. His research and writing focus on faith and 

development.   

 

Author email: ron.bueno@enlaceonline.org  
 

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