Capacity building is ubiquitous in development and education discourse as a means of strengthening approaches to education, among other development goals. However, in crafting a new social contract for education founded in an ethic of care, reciprocity, and solidarity, we must not overlook the significant transformative potential of capacity building as education. This article makes a case for the rediscovery of the liberatory roots of capacity building and a renewed focus on its potential to transform, humanize, and actualize, as a vital aspect of lifelong and life-wide learning in organizational contexts. Taking civil society, and particularly nongovernmental organizations, as a point of focus, it expounds on the tendency towards a narrowing notion of capacity building in development and education practice and discourse, as well as ways forward to reimage capacity building as transformative and emancipatory education. The article poses that a new social contract for education provides a crucial and exciting opportunity to weave difference, dialogue, and justice into the fabric of capacity-building approaches, reframing capacity building not merely as a means to an end but as a vital and valuable form of education in itself, as practitioners, educators, policymakers, and organizations work and learn together to shape new shared futures.